An Energy/Leathality Calculator for Windows
The program was written out of frustration. I am a handloader, and sometimes experiment with different loads, in different firearms. I possess a chronograph, and am able, thus, to measure the speed of my loads. The calculations are straighforward enough, but are very tedious. In particular one of the constants is very large, and it is easy, when calculating for many different loads, to make a mistake.

Using the calculator
    The program was written in Visual Basic.Net. If you have not already got the .Net framework on your computer, you will need to install it from the Microsoft Download site. Be forwarned that it is about 20mb in size.I have included some details in a section below.
    This calculator is capable of figuring bullet energy, using weight and velocity, and bullet lethality by applying compensation factors, based upon bullet styles. In order to use the program, you must first enter the bullet weight, bullet velocity, and bullet diameter. Once these variables are entered in the appropriate spaces, click on the "Click Here to Calculate" button. This will calculate bullet energy, and will calculate lethality for a standard round nose lead bullet.
    Once the energy calculations have finished, you may chose a different bullet style by clicking on one of the "Bullet Type Factors" buttons on the bottom of the window. This will not affect the energy calculations, which would be the same for any bullet style, but will change the lethality ratings. The program is also set to recognize the speed of effectiveness of certain bullet types. For example, if you are calculating a 230 grain bullet traveling at 750 fps, and use the hollow point bullet type factor, you will notice no change, because hollow points do not reliably expand at that speed.
    This calculator will calculate lethality according to the Hatcher, Taylor, and Hatcher short scales, as well as a little system that I came up with myself, based upon diameter, and energy per square inch.
    There are only two bugs, of which I am aware, in this program. The first is that it will not calculate very large energies. This will not be a problem for most shooters; but if you are calculating the energy of your 50BMG, you may get an error message as the program will run out of calculating space. The other bug is in the way that the bullet type factors are figured out. The bullet factors multiply the energy, and sometimes the diameter, by a known constant related to a specific bullet type. If you click on more than one bullet type factor, both factors will be applied. If you have one load, and wish to calculate it's lethality with several different bullet types, you will need to do each calculation individually.


Energy/Leathality Calculator
About the .Net Framework
    This program was written in Microsoft Visual Basic .net, and will require the .net framework in order to run. Your computer may already have .Net installed. If the .net framework is not installed, you will get one of the error messages shown below.:

 The solution to either of these mesasges is to install the Microsoft .Net framework. This can be downloaded for free, as a 19.7 mb file, from Microsft's website.You will need to unzip this file to a known location, and then run it to update your system.