Anyone here good at math? Specifically Pythagorean theorem? I just googled how to do it. Can anyone verify that a higher shot is always a longer shot? Don’t think it matters much for compound guys. Saw where it might benefit Trad guys to be a little lower as far as shot distance. Think it was a couple yards different in being 15 feet high and 30 feet. Also the with the angle it makes your shot area smaller so maybe trad guys wanna be a little lower? I know then it’s probably even harder to get a shot off. Not a trad guy, not gonna act like I have any idea about it either just mainly wanted to mention it so if someone wayyyy smarter than me which isn’t hard to do could verify? Or see if it’s even worth mentioning or thinking about
If this is dumb be easy on a fella. Online school my high school years and let’s just say I didn’t pay much attention since you could turn a class on and walk away. Then right into the deer woods.
imagine dropping a plumb bob from your rangefinder to the ground
this gives us a vertical line representing the direction of the force of gravity
now draw an imaginary line at a 90 degree angle to that plumb line to the deer's vitals you want to hit, this makes that line perpendicular to gravity and parallel to the Earth's surface (assuming Earth is flat over small distances)
this starts to setup a right triangle with your various measurements, with a right triangle having one angle a 90 degrees, and right triangles are easier to deal with mathematically
the horizontal distance from the plumb line to the deer is called distance X
the vertical distance from the your rangefinder to where the horizonal line hits the plumb line is distance Y, measured along that plumb line
your rangefinder measures from it straight to the deer which we'll call distance Z
X x X + Y x Y = Z x Z
instead of writing out squared or using the square symbol, i'm just multiplying each distance by itself which is the same thing
you always want to shoot the shot for horizontal distance X because that is the length over which gravity affects the arrow (however, this is a compromise that we have to live with, more later if anyone is interested)
if you know distances Z and Y, then you put them into this equation to get X
X = square root of (Z x Z - Y x Y)
Z is always greater than X and Y unless the deer is directly below you or at the same elevation
i'm writing out square root because i don't think i can put the symbol in here, and do what is in the parentheses first before taking the square root
now, what your rangefinder actually does is measure the distance Z and the angle between the line between your rangefinder and the deer and that plumb line
so, let's say that the deer is 10 feet from the base of the tree and you are 10 feet up in the air, the rangefinder will read 14.14 feet, but if you have on the angle compensation it will also show 10 feet as the horizontal distance
the angle for this example deer is 45 degrees from the vertical, and many rangefinders will also show that angle, some might show the distance from the horizontal (but that is just 90 degrees - the angle from the vertical)
what the rangefinder does is use trigonometry
the sine function takes an angle (from a right triangle) and outputs the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse, here the opposite angle is the horizontal distance (10 feet) you want to shoot for and the hypotenuse is the straight line to the deer (14.14 feet)
so, the rangefinder measures 14.14 feet straight to the deer and the angle (45 degrees)
it then does something like this sine(45 degrees) x 14.14 feet = 10 feet
be careful though, if you use microsoft excel or some calculators, then they don't do angles in degrees but in radians and you have to convert your angles to get answers that make sense
