There are several ways to look at Ballistic Coefficient (BC) consistency
How much does the G1 or G7 BC change over the flight of the bullet? The main idea here is that BC can change with velocity. As the bullet slows down at long range, the BC value changes. A BC that’s valid at high speed near the muzzle, might be very different from the BC at long range when the bullet has slowed to ½ its initial speed. Understanding how the BC changes with speed is important to calculating accurate trajectories. Additionally, some bullet manufacturers choose to only advertise the BC at high speed for marketing purposes, even though that’s not the average performance of the bullet at long range, and will not result in accurate trajectory predictions if used in ballistic software. We will cover this subject in more detail when we release the article Variation in BC with Velocity in the coming weeks.
“Some bullet manufacturers choose to only advertise the BCs achieved at high speeds for marketing purposes. We don’t, because that’s BS.”
The other question is: How consistent is the BC from shot-to-shot? This question is completely different from the variation in BC with velocity. Shot-to-shot BC variation is a matter of consistency for the bullets. If the bullets are all fired at the same MV, into a 0.000” group at 100 yards, you can still have a very large (tall) group at long range if the Ballistic Coefficient’s are very different from shot-to-shot. We will cover this subject in more detail when we release the article Shot-to-Shot Consistency in the coming weeks.
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