Ballistics Calculator: Bullet Drop, Wind Drift and Energy for 45 Factory Loads

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, who still keeps a paper dope card taped to his scope cap

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Quick Answer: Pick your cartridge and factory load, or type in your own bullet’s BC, weight and muzzle velocity. Set your zero, sight height and conditions, and the ballistics calculator below gives you drop, scope come-ups in MOA or MIL, wind drift, velocity, energy and time of flight out to any range. It has 45 factory loads across 23 cartridges built in, and it prints a dope card for your scope cap.

I checked it against the makers before I trusted it. Fed the published velocity and BC for ten Hornady and Federal loads, it lands within 0.15 inches of their own 500-yard drop figure on seven of them, and within an inch on all ten. The full comparison is further down.

Table of Contents

Ballistics Calculator

How to Use the Calculator

1. Pick a load. Choose your cartridge and a factory load and the bullet weight, velocity and BC fill in from the maker’s page. Shooting handloads or something not listed? Pick “Custom load” and type in your own numbers.
2. Set your rifle. Sight height is the distance from the center of the bore to the center of the scope, usually 1.5 to 2 inches on a scoped bolt gun and higher on an AR. Hornady’s own 5.56 table starts the bullet 2.4 inches below the sight line. Then enter the range you’re zeroed at and your scope’s click value.
3. Set the conditions. Temperature and altitude matter more than most people think. Leave station pressure blank and the calculator works it out from your altitude, or enter the reading from your weather meter.
4. Add wind and angle. Enter the wind speed and the clock direction it’s coming from, with 12 o’clock straight downrange. For shots up or down a hill, enter the angle.
5. Read, print or share. The tiles give you the big numbers, the chart shows the whole path, and the table has every step. “Print a dope card” gives you a card for your scope cap, and “Copy link” saves the whole setup as a link.

Reading the Results

Drop vs Come-Up

Drop is how far the bullet falls below your line of sight, in inches. Come-up is the same thing turned into the scope adjustment you dial or hold, in MOA or MIL. The clicks column divides that by your scope’s click value, so it tells you exactly how far to turn the turret.

MOA, MIL and Clicks

One MOA is about 1.047 inches at 100 yards, and one MIL is 3.6 inches at 100 yards. Use whichever your scope’s turrets and reticle are in, and don’t mix them. If you’re still choosing a scope, our first vs second focal plane guide explains why it matters for holding over with the reticle.

Wind Drift and the Clock

Wind from 3 or 9 o’clock is full value: it pushes the bullet the most. Wind from 1, 5, 7 or 11 o’clock is about half value, and wind from 12 or 6 barely moves it sideways at all. The calculator handles the angle for you. “L” and “R” show which way the bullet drifts and which way to hold.

Supersonic Range

Once a bullet drops below the speed of sound it can wobble as the shockwave passes over it, and accuracy often falls apart. The calculator shades the subsonic part of the chart and tells you how far your load stays supersonic in the air you entered. Subsonic loads like 300 Blackout Sub-X start out below it, which is the point.

Point-Blank Range

Maximum point-blank range is how far you can hold dead on a target of a given size without the bullet rising above it or falling below it. Set the vital zone, 6 inches is typical for deer, and the calculator finds the best zero and how far it carries.

How Accurate Is It?

The calculator is a standard point-mass solver using the published G1 and G7 drag functions, the same method behind the tables printed on the ammo makers’ own pages. To check it, I ran ten Hornady and Federal loads with each maker’s own velocity, BC and zero, and compared the result with the trajectory table on the product page. 7 of the ten land within 0.15 inches at 500 yards, and the worst is 1.0 inches, about a fifth of an MOA.

Maker	Load	Zero	Range	Maker drop (in)	Our drop (in)	Maker velocity (fps)	Our velocity (fps)
Hornady	6.5 Creedmoor 140 gr ELD Match	200 yd	500 yd	-44.4	-43.6	2,023	2,058
Federal	.308 Winchester 168 gr Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing	200 yd	500 yd	-51.5	-51.6	1,778	1,779
Hornady	.223 Remington 73 gr ELD Match	200 yd	500 yd	-49.0	-49.1	1,766	1,765
Federal	.223 Remington 69 gr Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing	200 yd	500 yd	-51.0	-50.7	1,604	1,605
Hornady	.300 Winchester Magnum 200 gr ELD-X Precision Hunter	200 yd	500 yd	-39.5	-39.6	2,140	2,136
Federal	.300 Winchester Magnum 190 gr Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing	200 yd	500 yd	-39.9	-39.8	2,089	2,090
Federal	6.5 Creedmoor 130 gr Terminal Ascent	200 yd	500 yd	-43.1	-43.1	2,005	2,006
Hornady	6.5 PRC 147 gr ELD Match	200 yd	500 yd	-36.5	-36.5	2,275	2,276
Federal	7mm PRC 155 gr Terminal Ascent	200 yd	500 yd	-33.2	-33.2	2,324	2,325
Hornady	.338 Lapua Magnum 270 gr ELD-X Precision Hunter	200 yd	500 yd	-39.9	-38.9	2,227	2,227

That proves the math matches the makers. It doesn’t prove it matches your rifle. Your real muzzle velocity, from your barrel, is the single biggest input, and it can easily be 50 to 100 fps off the box. A chronograph fixes that in one range trip.

Bullet Drop Chart for 45 Factory Loads

Here’s every load in the calculator side by side, all zeroed at 100 yards under the same conditions, so you can compare cartridges directly. For your own zero, conditions and wind, use the calculator above. For the background on each cartridge, see our rifle caliber guide.

Cartridge	Load	Velocity (fps)	BC	Drop at 300 yd (in)	Drop at 500 yd (in)	Drop at 1,000 yd (in)	Energy at 500 yd (ft-lb)
6.5 Creedmoor	Federal Terminal Ascent 130 gr	2,800	G1 0.532	-12.9	-52.3	-333.7	1,146
6.5 Creedmoor	Hornady ELD Match 140 gr	2,710	G7 0.326	-13.4	-53.2	-319.5	1,306
6.5 Creedmoor	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 143 gr	2,700	G7 0.314	-13.6	-54.2	-329.2	1,293
.308 Winchester	Federal Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing BTHP 168 gr	2,650	G1 0.462	-15.3	-62.6	-422.4	1,162
.308 Winchester	Hornady ELD Match 168 gr	2,700	G7 0.263	-14.2	-57.3	-369.8	1,344
.308 Winchester	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 178 gr	2,600	G7 0.278	-15.4	-61.4	-389.0	1,360
.223 Remington	Federal Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing BTHP 69 gr	2,950	G1 0.301	-13.4	-60.1	-509.3	385
.223 Remington	Hornady ELD Match 73 gr	2,790	G7 0.2	-14.0	-59.1	-437.6	494
5.56 NATO	Hornady BTHP Superformance Match 75 gr	2,910	G1 0.395	-12.6	-53.6	-389.6	559
.300 Winchester Magnum	Federal Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing BTHP 190 gr	2,900	G1 0.533	-11.7	-48.1	-306.9	1,819
.300 Winchester Magnum	Hornady ELD Match 195 gr	2,930	G7 0.292	-11.2	-45.6	-283.3	2,029
.300 Winchester Magnum	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 200 gr	2,860	G7 0.301	-11.9	-47.9	-294.6	2,008
6.5 PRC	Federal Terminal Ascent 130 gr	3,000	G7 0.263	-10.8	-44.5	-286.6	1,330
6.5 PRC	Hornady ELD Match 147 gr	2,910	G7 0.351	-11.0	-44.1	-260.7	1,677
6.5 PRC	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 143 gr	2,960	G7 0.315	-10.7	-43.6	-264.7	1,596
7mm PRC	Federal Terminal Ascent 155 gr	3,100	G1 0.586	-9.6	-39.8	-247.3	1,839
7mm PRC	Hornady ELD Match 180 gr	2,975	G7 0.401	-10.2	-40.6	-233.7	2,302
7mm PRC	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 175 gr	3,000	G7 0.347	-10.2	-41.1	-244.2	2,125
.30-06 Springfield	Federal Terminal Ascent 175 gr	2,730	G7 0.258	-13.8	-56.2	-365.3	1,416
.30-06 Springfield	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 178 gr	2,750	G7 0.278	-13.3	-53.9	-340.1	1,548
.270 Winchester	Federal Terminal Ascent 136 gr	3,000	G7 0.247	-10.9	-45.5	-300.0	1,328
.270 Winchester	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 145 gr	2,970	G7 0.27	-11.0	-45.2	-288.4	1,477
.270 Winchester	Hornady SST Superformance 130 gr	3,200	G1 0.46	-9.4	-40.0	-270.7	1,395
7mm Remington Magnum	Federal Terminal Ascent 155 gr	3,000	G7 0.3	-10.5	-42.7	-263.6	1,732
7mm Remington Magnum	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 162 gr	2,975	G7 0.318	-10.6	-42.9	-260.3	1,839
.300 PRC	Federal Terminal Ascent 210 gr	2,850	G7 0.341	-11.7	-46.7	-277.5	2,251
.300 PRC	Hornady ELD Match 225 gr	2,810	G7 0.391	-11.9	-46.8	-269.2	2,507
.300 PRC	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 212 gr	2,860	G7 0.334	-11.6	-46.6	-278.2	2,264
6mm Creedmoor	Federal Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing BTHP 107 gr	3,000	G7 0.271	-10.7	-44.1	-280.8	1,118
6mm Creedmoor	Hornady ELD Match 108 gr	2,960	G7 0.27	-11.1	-45.6	-290.7	1,091
6mm Creedmoor	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 103 gr	3,050	G7 0.258	-10.3	-43.0	-279.0	1,080
.243 Winchester	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 90 gr	3,150	G1 0.409	-10.1	-43.6	-311.3	840
6.8 Western	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 176 gr	2,825	G1 0.68	-12.0	-47.7	-283.0	1,852
.338 Lapua Magnum	Federal Gold Medal Sierra MatchKing BTHP 250 gr	2,950	G1 0.587	-11.0	-44.8	-277.3	2,656
.338 Lapua Magnum	Hornady ELD Match 285 gr	2,745	G7 0.394	-12.6	-49.3	-283.1	3,026
.338 Lapua Magnum	Hornady ELD-X Precision Hunter 270 gr	2,800	G7 0.381	-12.0	-47.4	-274.5	2,947
.300 Blackout (supersonic)	Hornady FTX 135 gr	2,085	G1 0.274	-33.0	-144.9	-1065.8	331
.300 Blackout (subsonic)	Federal Subsonic Fusion Tipped 190 gr	1,000	G1 0.494	-112.8	-398.8	Subsonic	300
.300 Blackout (subsonic)	Hornady Sub-X Subsonic 190 gr	1,050	G1 0.437	-105.1	-375.9	Subsonic	307
.350 Legend	Hornady FTX American Whitetail TIPPED 165 gr	2,200	G1 0.25	-30.4	-137.9	-1064.9	398
.350 Legend (subsonic)	Hornady Sub-X Subsonic 250 gr	1,050	G1 0.265	-113.5	-417.9	Subsonic	329
.30-30 Winchester	Hornady FTX LEVERevolution 160 gr	2,400	G1 0.33	-21.8	-93.4	-711.8	616
.45-70 Government	Hornady FTX LEVERevolution 325 gr	2,000	G1 0.23	-39.7	-178.3	-1301.6	657
.22 LR	Federal Gold Medal Rimfire Lead Round Nose 40 gr	1,080	G1 0.138	-128.6	-506.5	Subsonic	35
9mm Luger	Hornady XTP Subsonic 147 gr	975	G1 0.212	-133.1	-494.3	Subsonic	156

G1 or G7: Which BC Should You Use?

A ballistic coefficient only means something next to its drag model. G1 is the old flat-base reference and is printed for almost every bullet. G7 matches the long boat-tail shape of modern match and long-range hunting bullets better, so it holds up better past 500 yards. Use G7 when the maker publishes it for a boat-tail bullet, and never type a G1 number with the model set to G7.

Each preset defaults to whichever model reproduced its maker’s own table best. Switch the drag model and the calculator swaps in the maker’s other BC if one is published.

Why Your Rifle Won’t Match the Box

• Barrel length. Factory velocities come from test barrels, usually 24 inches for rifle loads. A 20-inch hunting barrel can easily be 50 to 100 fps slower.
• Temperature. Cold air is denser and slows the bullet more. Many powders also lose velocity in the cold.
• Sight height. Measure it. A wrong sight height throws off the close-range numbers most.
• Your zero. Everything here assumes your zero is true. Confirm it on paper.

Once you’ve got real numbers, confirm the long-range ones on paper or steel before you trust them. A good rangefinder and a solid shooting rest make that trip a lot shorter.

What the Calculator Doesn’t Model

It leaves out spin drift, Coriolis effect and aerodynamic jump. All three are small inside 600 yards and start to add up past 800 to 1,000. At that range, true your velocity and BC against real impacts, which is what serious long-range shooters do anyway.

Prices on the Loads in the Calculator

Live prices on some of the factory loads in the presets, from the retailers we track.

Federal Gold Medal .308 Win 168 gr Sierra MatchKing

Hornady .300 Win Mag 195 gr ELD Match

Federal Terminal Ascent 6.5 Creedmoor 130 gr

Hornady .223 Rem 73 gr ELD Match

FAQ: Ballistics Calculator