Long range range finder, well kinda

[wvuredneck09]

Found a neat site that given coordinates. will map points on google and give you the distance from those points. Kind of cool for verifying a range finder or determining good target placement for longer ranges that your typical range finder just wont reach out too. I'm sure there are other sites and apps likes this but I thought it was neat. Was showing a friend on google maps where I took a shot and successfully took a deer from today. He didn't believe the yardage so I plugged in the coordinates and made him eat crow . Only issue is it reports back the distance in KM which then have to be converted to yards. Yet another reason to ditch our measuring system.

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html

 

[Nomad47]

Google Earth has a ruler function that I use to locate yardages on AZ BLM land where I can set my portable steel. You can follow along the line created by the ruler to determine if there is a mound in between that is too tall, which would block the shot. And you can also do an elevation profile of the line. But I have found that to be inaccurate at times.

We're planning on spending a month at Carlsbad, NM on our way to NC this spring and I have already located 500, 700, and 1000 yard locations for my steel on BLM land on the west side of town.

BTW, I also used the same ruler function to confirm 1000 yard kills on groundhogs last summer in Ohio.

 

[wvuredneck09]

I'm new to google earth although I have used it some, I'll give it a try, on your way back to Ohio stop by and pick me up so I can shoot some hogs with you . Follow your post all summer long, it will be a while before I could even think of shooting that many hogs.

 

[Nomad47]

LOL. I see you didn't list a town on your profile.

If we're going directly from NC to OH, we travel up I-77. But if we visit my sister in western PA before our OH stay, we will travel thru Berkeley, WV. Although last spring we traveled over the New River gorge and past Morgantown on our way to visit her.

And by the way, due to granddaughter graduations in NC, I'll be getting a very late start on my OH groundhog shooting.

 

[wvuredneck09]

perfect go the same way this year and I'll meet you in Morgantown lol. Sorry to hear you'll get a late start, but knowing you that will just give the hogs some time to put on weight. Not near enough time for them to get far enough away from your muzzle.

 

[Nomad47]

You're too kind. But seriously I don't expect to even get within a sniff of the 427 I got last year. Although we're staying a month longer (not leaving OH until the end of Sept), we won't get there until mid June. Oh well, at least the pups will be out and about when I get there. But the beans will already be getting tall.

 

[lrgoodger]

Google Earth is too cool. I would not have my 500 yard range if it were not for Google Earth. My property is all woods and the thickest (younger) ones were right in the only path where I could get a full 500 yards. I could not think of a way to plot a straight course so that I didn't wind up cutting a lot more than I needed to, so I wouldn't do it until I thought of Google earth. I was able to draw a straight line between the intended bench site and the corner of my property 500 yards away. I placed markers on the line every 50 yards and got the gps coordinates from the satellite map. I then took my handheld GPS and tied flags at each point so I could see from one to the next and started cutting. It worked like a charm and I have a lane straight as an arrow just wide enough to drive the pickup truck through. Makes for great load tuning in the summer here in Michigan where the wind doesn't blow early and late in the day. Even if it is blowing, the trees shelter the path to the target.

I love Google Earth.

Ron

 

[Nomad47]

Excellent, Ron.

Also, if you have a handheld GPS unit, you can mark your shooting and kill locations as waypoints. Then most GPS's will give you the distance between. But if not, you can use the ruler function on Google Earth to get the yardage.

And there is another way, but I haven't used it in two or three years now. First you convert the coordinates to UTM (IIRC) and the Pythagorean Theory is involved. I think there was also a conversion to yards IIRC. Anyway, I created a formula in Excel so that when I entered the numbers, excel gave me the yardage. Again this is an after-the-fact as you have to physically be at both ends of the shot. I'm sure I could come up with the formula again if someone really needed it.