The Firearm Blog

Alan finds an innovative use for his iPhone.

Hat Tip: SayUncle via. FatWhiteMan

As the author of two books on iPhone software development published by the prestigious IT published O’Reilly you would expect any iPhone / iPod Touch application by Jonathan Zdziarski would be of high quality. He does not disappoint with his ballistics calculator simply named “Ballistic”.

Quite frankly there are to many features to list so I will summarize coolest ones:

- Ballistics Library with over 1500 bullets. No need to go online to find ballistic coefficients.

- Automatic weather conditions. It uses the GPS to find your location and look up weather conditions online.

- If mounted on a rifle it can automatically calculate the angle and adjust measurements accordingly.

- Range log (see screenshot below).

Range Log


Windage Charts


HUD Display (Field Tactical Edition)

Two versions are available. The Standard Edition (iTunes Store link) costs $7.99 and the Field Tactical Edition (iTunes store link) costs $9.99. The Field Tactical features an HUD designed to be use on iPhones that are mounted on the rifle.

More info about the app here.

iSnipe is a very polished looking external ballistics calculator for iPhone / iPod Touch created by a Canadian firm.

Created with ease of use in mind, iSnipe is the perfect companion for any gun aficionado, competition shooter, or even law-enforcement officer… It’s just that accurate. With all the ingredients you’d expect from a portable ballistics calculator, including the ability to save and load ballistic profiles, automatic save of form values and all the other features you’d expect from an integrated iPhone app, there is no better way to get on target every time. Finally there is a portable desktop quality application that we can all take along with us to the range.

A Palm OS Calculator for comparison.
I was a palm fanatic back in the day.

According to Joe Huffman, the current version does not include the ability to set altitude or temperature these features will be available soon (See update below).

A couple of weeks ago I predicted this application would be available soon (not a hard prediction to make considering there is a ballistics calculator for just about every mobile platform invented), now just waiting for my other prediction, a full IPSC timer.

UPDATE: iSnipe has been updated and how includes many new features including temperature, weather conditions, air pressure etc.

Hat Tip: SayUncle

Surefire have released a Shot Timer iPhone application called, you guessed it, “ShotTimer”. It shows elapsed time, split time and allows you to email results.

I am slightly annoyed, I was seriously thinking about writing a shot timer but looks like I was beaten to it.

I predict it will not be long until a full IPSC timer and external ballistic calculator are released for the iPhone. Both make sense for such a cool device.

Hat Tip: Captain of a Crew of One va. Snow Flakes in Hell