I am looking at buying a new 7mm for my encore and was wondering how much bullet drop there is from 200 yds to 300 yds and so on. I was wanting to know this because the scope i was looking at is the Nikon BDC and was trying to figure out if i should go with it or just stick with the regular crosshairs. Im pretty new to rifles so any help would be very much appreciated. thanks

7mm? witch one? 7mm rem magnum, 7mm-08, mauser?

It all depends on how fast the bullet is going...

All bullets drop at the same amount of time...faster bullets simply travel farther as they drop...

Point blank range for the 7mm RM (3100 ft/s) is just past 300 yards, so you do not need a BDC for shots out to that distance...

My rifle is sighted in at 200 yards and I have the mil-dot scope marked out to 500 yards...furthest shot I have taken is 275 though...

The bullet, if fired perfectly horizontal will have the same time of flight, regardless of the caliber or how fast the bullet is shot. In this condition, if you dropped a bullet from the same height at the muzzle at the same time the gun was fired, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.

That being said, when you sight in your rifle, the bullet is not fired perfectly horizontal to the ground. The barrel is angled slightly upward to provide a ballistic trajectory and have the bullet impact the target at the sight plane at the specified zero distance.

For something like a .270 Win zeroed at 200 yards, when the bullet is fired, at the muzzle it is about 1.5" low (distance between the muzzle and the center of the scope optics. The bullet will continue to rise, passing the optic plane just shy of 50 yards. It will continue to rise until it hits it's ballistic apex at about 120 yards. At this distance the bullet is about 2" high. It will start to drop from this point on, passing through the sight plane at 200 yards (zero mark) and dropping progressively faster as you go out. At 500 yards, the bullet is about 50.8" below the sight plane.

Outside of a vacuum, I'm with RR. The bullet from the gun will be in the air longer.

I'm with RR on this one, there are way too many variables to say that the time of flight will be the same. You have to know what the true muzzle velocity is then you can get an estimated bullet drop. The only way to know for sure though is to actually shoot at those distances. Try educating yourself on ballistics then come back and tell us we're wrong.

Take a look at this page on the Hornady website (External Ballistics)

It ihas the exact scenario you describe discussed at the end of the first section (Trajectory).

Try this one.

http://www.winchester.com/learning-c...alculator.aspx

Hook, Line, and sinker.

In REAL LIFE conditions, the amount the bullet will drop at extended ranges will depend on MV, BC, atmospheric pressure, temp, and numerous other factors. For ranges anyone asking these questions should be considering, you at least need to qualify what bullet you are shooting (to define BC) and the muzzle velocity at which it will be launched. As distance increases, any errors due to approximating either one will increase rapidly.