Shooting at Angles | Long-Range Rifle Shooting with Ryan Cleckner 

I attended Army Sniper School in 2004, And this is the best explanation I have heard, and actually understood. Thank you.

Better math teacher than i had in school

This dude is UNBELIEVABLE! i cant seem to find the ten thumbs up icon? in my twenty plus years of shooting long range (and winging it) he has clarified all the mystery in about an hour. What an incredible instructor!

I learned more relevant math in this video than all my math classes in high school combined.

I just got out of the Army Infantry. If I were to stay in I would have showed my soldiers your videos. This is some very helpful information for anyone shooting at distances not just snipers. The Army never taught me these details of shooting. I had to research and figure it out on my own. The Army would greatly benefit it they signed this dude up for some educational videos. Not that their leaders and drill sergeants aren't good, its just that many are not taught themselves how to teach and train soldiers. This guy does a fantastic job of teaching.

Your class brought back to me those classes I sat in as a Marine LCpl over 50 years ago. Thank you. Numbers don’t change.

"I'll never use this trigonometry stuff again in my life!" , said everyone. How about now?

I learned sines and cosines in HS about 35 years ago and even after all these years listening to this guy makes it all clearer than ever!! If only my teachers would have put it in shooting terms and real world situations it would have made so much more sense and made it interesting for everyone especially the guys!! They would have been eager to learn it then!! He really should make a video series for schools to use!!

also best explanation of mils/angles/wind etc I've seen yet.

Now I have a true appreciation of Trigonometry. Great instruction.

Ryan's videos are the best. He explains everything in such a logical and easy way to understand. I am new at long range and am so happy that I found these videos so I can start off the right way and not suffer too much while I am learning.

By far this was the best vid I saw ...short n sweet ...crisp n brief ... awesome ...thank you mate

So glad I found this channel. I've been shooting for 45 years and this guy is the best I've ever seen explaining these concepts. This is a long way from years ago where you'd get to know your rifle and scope and guestimate hold over and angles.

Outstanding! I couldn't imagine a way that this information could be put into a video any more effectively. Thank you very much!

Ryan, Sir, thank´s a lot for this free videos on youtube, fantastic tips!

Exactly what i was missing since my Sniper Course. You're an awesome teacher. Now i have to practice !

Fantastic Ryan, and Thanks. You truly have a gift for teaching. I'll bet you really love what you do brother.

Ryan, very informative video, like all your others. Clear and easy to understand. thanks

Your vids are fantastic, very clear and easy to understand. Thank you very much for making me better !

I love this guy ... Best instructor ever 💙

Great vid . I have for decades used a surveyors pocket transit for finding angles . I also use the width and not height as You do for the exact reason . Having those practical cosigns make so much sense . Thank You Sir

Best explanation to the angle shooting mystery ever..Thanks.

Outstanding job Ryan! Whatever you’re being paid… you deserve a raise!

Ryan, you really are a great instructor. I hope you write a book some day. I'd be happy to be a reviewer ;-) And, once again, thank you for your service to our country.

wow, these videos help me a lot. thanks man, keep it up.

Thank you for the video, it's very useful & helpful. This was the last formula that I needed for calculating a long range shot that I didn't have.

3 yrs of college, i coulda watch this guy and saved all that money

Awesome! I hunt on hills sometimes so this could be very useful. I'm planning on getting a good grasp on angles soon. Thank you very much!

thank you sire your videos have been so helpful in my education!

Absolutely excellent explanation, Thx Ryan!

What a great and informative tutorial. Thank you,

Ok I watched the end of the video! All good!! Great video mate

I've been in the marine corps for 9 years and this is by far the best explanation I've ever heard regarding range vs elevation

awesome video as always

hands down, best video I've seen on the topic

Great instruction!

You are an amazing instructor !!

This is AMAZING video. Thanks a lot.

This guys one heck of an instructor. Well done sir

Very thorough, and easy to understand explanation. I went up to a new spot today, to start coyote hunting. It's on the top of a huge hill, looking down into a field(lots of rabbits). I have an old range finder that shows its about 125 yards to the bottom, but it's a pretty steep angle down, I need to figure out what that angle is, and compensate for it. This video will help me a lot. Thanks! I don't have any fancy tools, but I think I can use a level, and a carpenters square, and figure it out pretty close. I'll sit my rifle on a table, point it at the bottom of the hill, place the level on my barrel, then use the square to figure out the angle. I'm thinking it's about 30-35 degrees.

That's some good learnin' Thanks! 🤠

finally a clear explanation, thanks again

Thank you for this video.

Great instructional video on a subject that is not very common

Ease of instruction Thank you.

great videos wish i could have him as a personal tutor in long range shooting

Very awesome video great to use especially if your range finder is broken or doesn't account for angles. A range finder that has an archery mode it dose all this for you. But still 10 thumbs up great video!

Great teacher. You rock.

Awesome.....great informative video......keep it up

SO cool! I love how physics and math is incorporated in all this.

Ryan, you're a great teacher and great speaker. If my geometry teacher had taught us about bullet drop and milradians, I might have learned a lot more math.

Best video learned a lot

Really nice explanation.

Nothing that others haven't sayed already, but. This guy is amazing.

Great explanation! Thanks

Very well taught!

great explanation 👍

These are premium videos for free on RU-vid. Please keep these up. Thanks.

Talk about the KISS principle...thanks for sharing this!

This guys great. I haven't seen a new vid from him in a while though..

If I didn't already know trig pretty well, I'd want to learn it from Ryan.

Another bit of the puzzle solved. Thanks

my rangefinder (sig, least expensive one) has an option to adjust range for angle automatically. yay. that said, excellent explanation, perfectly well paced.

Ryan, as with all of your videos great stuff, very informative. In the video you speak about using COS when shooting down a slope and how shooting directly down i.e. off a cliff you do not compensate in any way. What about shooting up a slope, do you use the same figure?

12 years old and still a great video.

much better explanation than "hold balls" which is what we were basically taught

I have learned more from you than any other source ever. You should think about doing this professionally!

I was looking at a ballistic calculator of my chosen round and found that something is off. In the example if you had a total of 400 yards to the target and 308 yards is your "x-component" (tangent to the surface of the earth from you and the shooter). I'm having trouble with the conceptual understanding of it. The time of flight would be the same as if you are shooting level with the target at the same distance. so gravity is going to act on it for the same amount of time as if you were shooting level (in my case .53 seconds). Remember that gravity is 32 feet per second per second so in the level calculation my bullet will drop 54 inches (from true level, from the exit of the muzzle, assuming I fired it straight and not at an angle like all rifles do (this isn't from my zero, from my zero it's 24 inches)). Now I know for a fact that the bullet drop isn't the same in your example as if you were shooting at a target at 308 yards, because if you were shooting a target at 308 yards the time that it will be affected by gravity would be shorter than that angled shot. I think how reality works is that the bullet (being shot at an angle) now has gravity affected by an angle. This means we have to separate them into a "x and y" component (components that your scope can measure) so we can be able to hit the target. The factors causing the bullet to go down is the "y" component of the velocity of the bullet since you're aiming it down, and the "y" component of gravity. The "x" components causing your bullet to go towards the target is the full velocity of the bullet (since you're pointing it at the target, _mostly_) and the "x" component of gravity _accelerating towards your target_ (strangely the balistic calculator says it's the same flight time but _I think_ it's slightly shorter because of this, or maybe not air friction might cancel this factor just right in this case). I might've messed up with the reference frame a couple of times and I'm taking about two different 2-d planes but that's my general idea of how shooting a target at a 40 degree angle decline at 400 yards is completely different than shooting a target at 308 yards level. That said your process might very well work but conceptually it seems off (to me). The angle of the bullet to the center of gravity of earth is 40 degrees so the cosine of 40 by the normally 54 inch drop is about 41.6 inches. Now, it obviously didn't hit higher, you're shooting at an angle of decline so the path of the bullet is a lot more lower, the elevation from you to the target to be exact, but in relation to the "true level, from the exit of the muzzle" it will drop 41.6 inches. The 308 yard level shot may also have dropped about 41.6 inches but due to the different nature of shooting at a decline the bullet trajectories are completely different due to the the factors that I broke into components listed above. I would like to have feedback on your understanding of this physics and whether or not these actually are worth considering (or they are negligible). I believe that conceptually we should look at it as the forces acting on the bullet from the distance exiting the muzzle (at ~2700 feet per second) to impacting your target. practically it would be easier just to understand cosine angles and multiplying that by the distance from your target measured by the moa's in your scope and assumed 5ft height of the target. Since you already know your dope you're good to go. I saw you use the calculator for the cosines so I assume you don't know it in the field. What do you do if you do shoot out in the field(mountains) without a calculator?

Great info ..

Great video.about a video on Bullet drop compensation on Nikon prostate 5 .thank you Ryan.

Great video explained in layman's terms.

awesome!!!!!

Youre man, love the vidoes

Very cool

Finally...I now know what Pithagoras was thinking about...Loove the guy!

Great sir

This had been one of the best series I have ever watched. Would have loved to had you as teacher. Thanks so much for such a thorough and simple presentation on a complex and dynamic concept ( shooting ).

Love u bro nie motivation video...... ❤❤❤❤❤

Ryan, you make it simple. Thanks! Btw, how do you like the Mildot analog calculator?

Bravo this man is good 👍

it's fun to watch him dumb down trigonometry that much. I mean, dude I did go to school lol, but anyways great content!

This perfectly explains why I had a higher hit on a deer than I expected. My range estimation was only a touch short, but I didn't consider the angle at all and hit almost 6 inches higher than I should have if my range was correct.

Ryan: I don't want to confuse you here. Me: Too late.

this is good between Flat and 45 deg off Flat either up or down. But once you get past 45 deg you have other factors that come into play. Such as the fact that your Scope is not directly in line with your barrel It is infact aprox 2" above your barrel and therefore always angled a bit ""Down"" naturally. He mentioned that in nature you will not find many Angles greater than 30deg and this is true if your on a hill or mountain (without cliff) and aiming "Down" yet this is not the normal scenario we all experience this. Infact it is very normal for people to be aiming at small game or birds that are perched in a tree that you are various distance from. Therefore the angle can be much more than 45deg in alot of scenarios. This is where you need to know your first zero as well as 2nd zero and centerline diff between your scope and barrel. Gets very tricky after 45 deg, and this simple method is not nearly enough.

great videos in the older vids when you said you werent gona even try drawning a animal it really had me laughing. I learned alot thanks

Ryan!!! As always, GREAT TEACHING VIDEOS!! Your simple & easy to understand (opposite of the military's "teaching methods") could bring the Army up to MARINE standards of marksmanship!!!! ;-) BTW, what inclinometer do you have on your scope?? Thx!!

Loving your videos bro! you should strike out on your own?!?!? I just finished watching you "understanding MOA" and it was an eye opener for me as i have "never" fired a gun that had a scope on it and just recently purchased a Centerpoint 4x16x44 and still have to mount it.Which i will go back and watch your video on that as well!? :>) Nothings better then a fellow Vet showing people how to shoot.I was in the Navy and only had to qualify with a .22Cal 1911 as well as a .22Cal rifle.As a teen i use to hunt/trap shoot and loved it but after school when i entered the service my life got very busy.I never picked up a firearm again until recently.bout 7yrs ago i decided after a few home invasions in my area that we needed a firearm in the house for our own protection.It didnt stop there though i purchase a bolt gun soon after .I purchased a Savage Axis in 6.5Creedmoor and it has very quickly become my favorite cartridge!:>)Although soon after i have started collecting ARs and their variants! I am up to 5 in total.Two M4s which are my fav. Model!!! But i also have a .224Valkrie and one in 7.62x39 and another in 6.5Grendel.If you cant tell by my purchases i am very much into long range shooting!Im looking to as soon as possible to make a shot at 1mile!!!!!! But in my bluest state of N.J. there wasnt much hope for that.:>/ but just two days we had legislation past that makes my county in N.J. a 2A sanctuary!!!:>) so my hopes have risen!!!:>)I still have to travel out of state to shoot further then 300 or 400yrds!:>/ I thanks you for your content and info i'm grateful! Also i want to thank you for your service!

No need for angle measuring tools. Just use the width to get the range to the target because it doesn’t change on an incline. Then get the height of the target from that perspective and divide by the known height to get the cosine of the angle. E.g. you use the width and determine the target is 100 yards away, you then see the height of the target is 8.8 moa. At 100 yards that’s 9.2”, divide by the known target height of 12” gives you ~0.77, or arccos(40°). Therefore, the target is on a 40° incline.

The better way to explain it is that the gravity is a vector which has a component of the force pulling the bullet along the flight path. This means it’s velocity is higher and bullet drop less.

Excellent explanation. I wonder what other phenomena affect this corrected distance. For example change in velocity and orientation of bullet?

It’s interesting how we instinctively recognize these rules in some situations, but not others. Anyone who ever threw a baseball or football to someone else who was waaaay down a huge hill knew instinctively that they only had to lob the ball without much effort to get it to the guy at the bottom.

Better than any teacher i've ever had in school LOL Copy and paste cheat sheet if anyone wants it. 5°angle = 0.99 or 99% 10°angle = 0.98 or 98% 20°angle = 0.94 or 94% 30°angle = 0.87 or 87% 40°angle = 0.77 or 77% 50°angle = 0.64 or 64% 60°angle = 0.50 or 50% 70°angle = 0.34 or 34% 80°angle = 0.17 or 17% 90°angle = 0 or 0%

The width of the target doesn't change with your up/down perspective but does change if the target isn't broadside to you. If the, lets say, deer was 45 degrees off of broadside, the apparent width will be much smaller. I imagine seeing that through a scope at 500yds would be quite difficult but maybe I just need to buy a better scope... :)

I hope this video will help in the next hunting season, i missed shooting an elk at 301yards at -29° I click 3.2MOA.... and missed 5 shot at the elk. I did this math is should be 263yards, and that's .7 MOA.🤔

Hi, you said - Distance X cosine = Angle range and - Mil Range X cosine = Angle range Therefor - Distance X cosine = Mil Range X cosine Or - Distance = Mil Range So you can use Mil range for Distance directly - no problem. Note this is for vertical Mil range only not horizontal Mil ranges.

Thank you vary handy vd

Couldn’t you also calculate range values by determining your elevation and distance to target using the Pythagorean Theorem?

Did you guys notice how a 60 degree angle (not 45 degrees) gives you a .5 Cosine.. I always though a 45 degree would give you half the distance. Glad to learn about these Cosines.

So Ryan, in shooting at an angle, with target downhill (in this example) are you saying you simply substitute your mil height with mil width in the "Mil Estimation" formula, right from the start and then what step would that allow you to skip, the "Angle Range" formula. I've tuned into your videos time and time again, you have an impressive ability in delivering concise and clear subject matter. Great videos.

God has given you the means to find angles. We call these arms, fingers, open palm, and closed hand (fist). Most sailors know how many fingers (at arms length) equal how many degrees. This method is for finding angles so will work in the verticle as well as the horizontal. Sure, these give approxomates but they are quite accurate. With practice, you'll develop better accuracy.