As an avid Mac user and long-time firearms enthusiast, I often find myself looking for new and exciting apps that land in the “guns” category, but unfortunately these search’s don’t often end in much success. There is a plethora of Windows apps pertaining to the gun world for everything from Exterior and Terminal Ballistics (Bullet Flight and Impact calculations) to ammunition reloading calculators. These are extremely useful and, for some, necessary tools that are needed on a regular basis and the lack of programs like these for the Mac can be quite disappointing, especially to those that don’t have an Intel Mac that is capable of dual-booting OS X and Windows.

Personally, I’m into competition target shooting, so calculating the exterior ballistics for a specific bullet is something that is very important to me. Many products exist out there that will do the job, but almost all of which are Windows only… with the exception of one. You guessed it, the GNU Exterior Ballistics Computer.

When I stumbled upon the sourceforge page for the GEBC project a few weeks ago, I knew right away that it would be a very useful app. Initially I was a little disappointed to see that it was only available for Linux and Windows but the description page told of open-source, cross-platform goodness so I thought I’d give my luck a go. I emailed the developer, Derek Yates, and pled my case for an OS X release and was received with open ears. Derek was indeed interested in releasing his creation for OS X but had not had access to a Mac thus far and so had not been able to compile any mac software.

Being the graceful gentleman that I am I offered the use of my Mac, over ssh as we’re a few thousand miles apart, and Derek being the gentleman that he is, graciously accepted… Within hours we were basking in the glory of the first full-featured ballistics calculator for OS X. Range Plots, Range Cards, PDF Export all working seamlessly. It was very cool.

I slapped together a logo that night, since the project didn’t yet have one it was the least I could do and I’m pleased to say that the OS X version(PPC/Intel) is now available for download from the project site or our downloads sections. If you find this app as useful as I do, consider donating a few dollars… Derek is a good guy and I can vouch that the money will be well spent on future updates