SmartShot QuickStart, 180220

SmartShot™ is a long range ballistic program that is accurate through the supersonic regime and well into the subsonic regime. It was developed by ProjectileScience™ collaboration with David Tubb’s Superior Shooting Systems™ specifically for the Dynamic Targeting Reticle™ but supports traditional turret controlled and grid reticles as well. The User's Manual Table of Contents is hyperlinked to the details in the manual.

QuickStart SmartShot as follows:

QS 1. The ProjectileScience Home page will open in any device that uses a modern browser such as Edge, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and others. General information about ProjectileScience and SmartShot is provided on the Home page. A detailed user's manual is on the Manuals page. The SmartShot ballistic program is on the Products page. Double click on the 6xc.htm, 308 Win.htm or 223 Rem.htm file and SmartShot will open in the browser as an active spreadsheet that operates like Excel.

QS 2. The entire SmartShot ballistic program is contained on the eight by eight spreadsheet. All input variables are either light blue, light red, light green or dark green. The output variables, bright yellow and light yellow, cannot be selected or changed except by changing input variables.

QS 3. SmartShot supports the Dynamic Targeting Reticle with firing solutions in terms of the equivalent hold point (EHP) in yards (cell A15) as well as barrel elevation angle (BE) in moa (C15) and mils (D15) for dial and grid reticles.

QS 4. The default firing solution is for the original 6xc 115gn DTAC bullet at 2400 yards. Change any input variable and note the change in the output variables. If the input variable you changed didn't change the output variables see paragraphs QS 6. and QS 7. below.

Examples: Change the range (cell A13) from 2400 to 1000 yds. Note the EHP changes from 2400 to 1000 yds and Barrel Elevation angle (BE, C15) changes from 146.5 to 23.5 moa. Change muzzle velocity, temperature, pressure, relative humidity, sight height, zero range or slope and note the output changes.

QS 5. To develop a firing solution for a different bullet, say, the improved DTAC bullet, enter 64.0 in VRsupersonic (B7) and 120 in VRsubsonic (C7). Note the improved EHP is 2228 yds and BE is 120.9 moa.

QS 6. Reset the firing solution to the original values by clicking the Reset button, above column J. To save the existing firing solution click the Save button adjacent to the Reset button. Change the file name in your File Manager to protect the file from further changes. There is no "Save As" function. See Tech Note TN171203 Building a File Structure for Multiple Rifles.

QS 7. Air Density can be computed three ways depending on the available data.

QS 7.1. Temperature, relative humidity and local (station) pressure

QS 7.2. Temperature, relative humidity and geometric (true) altitude in thousands of feet; 5,300 ft is entered as 5.30 in cell C11, or

QS 7.3. Density altitude read directly from a portable weather station such as a Brunton ADC or Kestrel in thousands of feet in cell B11 . If density altitude is entered directly as an input, set relative humidity to zero to avoid double counting the effect of relative humidity on density.

QS 7.4. Note - Any number 30 or larger in the weather station density altitude (B11) or geographic altitude (C11) acts as a toggle to disable that input variable.

QS 8. SmartShot's bullet drag metric is velocity retention (VR); the number of feet the bullet travels while retaining 99% velocity. SmartShot recognizes different VRs for the supersonic and subsonic regimes: VRsupersonic, or VRsup (cell B7) and VRsubsonic or VRsub (cell C7). Although not all agree, we at Superior Shooting Systems and ProjectileScience have demonstrated with literally thousands for test firings at ranges out to two miles that handling bullet drag with velocity retention has specific advantages over ballistic coefficients. However, recognizing most the ballistic world still runs on ballistic coefficients, SmartShot can convert BCg7 and BCg1 to an approximate VRsup. More on this topic in the manual.

Enter the drag metric with either VRsup, BCg7 or BCg1 as follows:

QS 8.1. To use VRsup, enter the value in cell B7. If there is any number other than zero in VRsup, SmartShot will ignore BCg7 (D7) and BVg1 (E7).

QS 8.2. To use BCg7 enter a zero in VRsup and the BCg7 value in D7. If the value in VRsup is zero, SmartShot defaults to BCg7 (D7), still ignoring BCg1.

QS 8.3. To use BCg1, enter zeros in VRsup and BCg7 and the desired BCg1 value in E7. SmartShot ignores VRsup and BCg7 and uses BCg1.

QS 8.4 If either BCg7 or BCg1 are used SmartShot converts them to VRsup cal which is displayed in cell E9 and used in the firing solution calculation. VRsup cal is not an input variable so cannot be changed except by changing either VRsup, BCg7 or BCg1.

To develop and save firing solutions for different rifles, bullets and environments, take a look at TN171203, Building a File Structure, on the Tech Notes page.

SmartShot has a many additional capabilities but QuickStart is a top level overview.