This program was a game changer back in the day, a system that could, in the field take real time conditions and calculate an accurate shot solution. The first mobile ballistic program I used was the Perry Systems Exbal program marketed by Nightforce optics. It was also about this time that ballistic programs ushered in by the personal computer device era started to really extend first round hits in the field. Once we had laser range finders available and we started using them to good effect people would develop a good drop chart and shot log to aid in long range field shooting. Today we have available to us laser range finders that are truly 3000 yard capable and accurate. This was arguably the biggest thing to come to the long range community and continues to be a critical piece of gear today. Move forward to the early 90’s when the first laser range finders hit the market.

While this was substantially better than guessing at the yardage its accuracy was +/- minus 50 yards at 1000 yards. This device was a split image range finder that you focused the two images to one image then read the dial to see the yardage. This was the first of what started an explosive market in ranging technology. Then in the late 80’s a magical device came to the civilian market called the Ranging 1000. While using th e reticle to range a target of known size can be pretty accurate to issue with long range hunting is that the target size varies so much. Some were educated in using a reticule to estimate range. Most people simply guessed at the yardage.

In the early days of long range field shooting / hunting ranging was the big issue. These devices we have today are truly remarkable but let’s take a look at where it started from. As technology drives on combining the devices together we now have weather stations like the Kestrel 5700 weather station loaded with the Applied Ballistics software and it also has a built in compass to aid in calculating corrections for coriolis effect. These days most everyone has access to or owns a laser range finder, ballistic program, weather station and a device to read the angle of the shot. Early technology, the original gangsters of long range shooting devices were not really shooting devices but rather devices for other uses adapted for long range shooting.

Exbal nightforce ballistic program