Choosing a tool
How Pellet App Compares
Most air rifle shooters already track something — a notebook, a spreadsheet, a scoring app, a ballistics calculator. Each does one part of the job well. Here's how those common approaches stack up against Pellet App, feature by feature, so you can see where the gaps are.
| Capability | Pen & paper / spreadsheet |
Target-scoring apps |
Ballistic calculators |
Generic log apps |
Pellet App |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measures group size from a photo | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Works on any target, in the field | ~ | ✗ | ✓ | ~ | ✓ |
| Group size in MRAD as well as millimetres | ~ | ~ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Turret clicks worked out from a photo of your group | ✗ | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Explains what the group's shape suggests | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Logs weather & conditions automatically | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Wind angle relative to your shot | ✗ | ✗ | ~ | ✗ | ✓ |
| GPS distance & location capture | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Identifies pellets from a tin photo | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Lot / batch number tracking | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Ranks pellets by measured group size | ~ | ~ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Maps velocity across a PCP fill | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Correlates conditions with your results | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Trend analytics over time | ~ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Little or no manual data entry | ✗ | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Scroll the table sideways on mobile to see every column.
What the matrix is really showing
Each existing approach is strong in its lane. Pen and paper or a spreadsheet is flexible and free, but every figure is manual and nothing is measured for you — the record is only as good as your discipline on a cold day. Target-scoring apps are excellent at reading a group from a photo, but they're built for formal, official cards on the line and ignore the conditions, distance and kit that shape field shooting. Ballistic calculators predict where a pellet should go, but they don't record where it actually went, so they can't learn from your real results. Generic shooting-log apps store sessions tidily, but you're still typing everything in by hand.
The pattern is clear: the existing tools each capture one slice. The conditions live in one place, the group size in another, the pellet details in a notebook, the velocity in a chronograph's memory — and none of them talk to each other. That disconnect is the real problem, because improvement comes from seeing all of it together.
Measuring is the easy part
Reading a group size from a photograph is no longer unusual — several apps do it, and do it well. What happens next is where they diverge, and it's worth being specific about three things Pellet App does that a measurement tool doesn't have to.
It tells you what to dial, not just how far off you are. Knowing the group sits 2.7 mm high is only half an answer; you still have to convert that to an angle at your distance and divide by your scope's click value. Pellet App reports the correction in millimetres, MRAD and turret clicks, elevation and windage separately. When the error works out smaller than one click it says zero clicks, which is the honest answer and the one that stops you chasing your own tail. There's more on this in the zeroing guide.
It reads the shape, not only the size. Two 30 mm groups can mean completely different things — one strung vertically, one scattered evenly, one tight with a single flier. Pellet App comments on the pattern in plain English and points at a likely cause, so a vertically strung group gets flagged as probable velocity drift across the fill rather than left for you to puzzle over. A number tells you how you shot. The shape tells you what to change.
It works with the targets you already buy. Scale comes from references printed on the target itself — a grid, a ruler — so a standard shop-bought zeroing sheet works. You don't have to adopt a proprietary card to get a measurement out of it.
That's the gap Pellet App is built to close. One session captures the group (measured from a photo), the conditions (logged automatically), the distance (from GPS), the pellet and its lot number (scanned from the tin), and the fill pressure — all in one record, with no spreadsheet to maintain. Then it shows you which pellets and conditions produce your tightest groups.
Which should you use?
If you only ever punch official 10-metre cards indoors, a dedicated scoring app does that job well. If you just want a trajectory prediction before a shot, a ballistics calculator is the right tool. But if you shoot in the field — different distances, real weather, multiple pellets and rifles — and you want to actually understand what makes you shoot well, you need the whole picture in one place. That's where Pellet App sits.
Built for the field shooter. Pellet App launches first on iOS. Join the waitlist to be first in when it goes live.
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