Manual / Scope Level
Scope Level
A canted rifle throws long shots wide, and a rifle-mounted watch can't tell you your shot angle from its own tilt. Scope Level answers both. It is a full-screen anti-cant level on Apple Watch and iPhone, free, with beeps that quicken as the cant grows. One calibration tap, and two Pro switches, take it the rest of the way: the level glows behind your firing solution, and your shot angle starts coming from the bore instead of the bracket.
The level is free
Live cant, Zero Level, beeps and tuning on both devices — no upgrade.
Zero it first
Nothing downstream works until the level is calibrated. One tap, rifle held level.
Two Pro switches
The glow behind your dope, and rifle-mounted shot angle. A free 7-day trial starts on the watch.
The LEVEL page: live cant readout, ZERO LEVEL below, sound pill and settings gear above.
Step 1
Zero the level
Swipe to the LEVEL page — the full-screen level with the big cant readout (2.5° R means 2.5° of right cant). Then:
- Mount the device where it will ride during fire — wrist, or clamped to the rifle.
- Hold the rifle truly level. Check it against a scope-mounted bubble level or a plumb line.
- Tap
ZERO LEVEL. A success tap confirms the calibration captured.
That one tap is the whole calibration, and it does more than square the display. It teaches the app where your bore points relative to the device, which is what makes rifle-mounted mode possible further down this page.
The zero is saved and survives restarts. To review or clear it, the gear settings show the stored offset with a Reset to 0 button. Re-zero whenever you change how the device is mounted.
The iPhone LEVEL page. Same calibration, same readout, both switches in reach.
Step 2
The same level on iPhone
Scope Level is not a watch-only feature. The LEVEL tab on iPhone is the same level: the same cant readout, the same Zero Level button, the same stored offset and Reset to 0. Use whichever device is on the rifle.
The level itself, the calibration, the beeps and the tuning are free. Nothing on this page so far costs anything.
Each device carries its own calibration, because each one is mounted differently. Zeroing the watch does not zero the phone.
Muted: crossed-out speaker, dimmed bar. Tap the pill to unmute; the Crown sets volume.
Step 3
Mute, unmute, and volume
The level beeps as you cant — faster the further off you are — so you can level the rifle without leaving the glass. Sound control lives in the pill at the top-left of the LEVEL page:
- Tap the pill to mute. The speaker icon crosses out and the volume bar dims.
- Tap again to unmute.
- Turn the Digital Crown on the LEVEL page to adjust volume — the bar in the pill tracks it live.
Prefer a different beep? The Sound section in the gear settings auditions each timbre as you tap it. Two more pickers there set how strict level is (Precision) and the cant at which the beeps and blink reach full speed (Max angle).
Gear → Level on live fire. This switch puts the glow behind your solution.
Step 4 · Pro
Put the level behind your dope
On the LEVEL page, tap the gear in the top-right corner and switch on Level on live fire. The glow then renders behind Live Fire and the Match stage card on both devices, and behind the Range Card on the watch. The same switch turns it off whenever you want those screens plain black.
This switch is the mounted-rifle master. Flipping it on also switches on Use level for shot angle, and flipping it off switches that back off, because turning the glow on almost always means the device just went on the rifle. Either one stays adjustable on its own afterwards.
Both switches are part of the one-time Wrist Dope Pro upgrade. Not on Pro yet? Tapping a switch shows the unlock card, and a free 7-day trial starts right on the watch.
Live Fire with the overlay on: the red right-side glow says level the rifle left.
Step 5
Read the glow behind your dope
Swipe back to Live Fire. The level now renders behind your solution:
- Steady green — you're level. Send it.
- Red glow on the right — rifle is canted right.
- Blue glow on the left — rifle is canted left.
- The glow pulses faster the further you are from level.
How strict “level” is, and the cant where the pulse maxes out, are the Precision and Max angle pickers in the gear settings.
The Target angle on FIELD. Rifle-mounted mode re-sources this number from your level calibration.
Step 6 · Pro
Rifle-mounted mode and the target angle
The switch labelled Use level for shot angle is rifle-mounted mode. It exists because of one plain problem: a device clamped to a rail cannot use its own tilt as your shot angle.
Handheld, the app reads shot angle from device pitch — you point the phone or the watch face down the target line and its nose-up angle is the angle of the shot. Clamp that same device to the side of a handguard and the reading is meaningless. The screen is no longer facing the shooter, the top edge is no longer pointing at the target, and the tilt it measures is the tilt of a mount, not the elevation of a bore.
Rifle-mounted mode fixes it with the calibration you already did. When you tapped ZERO LEVEL with the rifle held level, the app captured the direction of gravity in that pose — which pins down where the bore axis sits in the device's own frame, whatever angle the mount holds it at. With that reference stored, every later reading is measured against your zero pose instead of against the device: how far the bore has risen or fallen from level, plus for right or minus for left of it.
What changes on screen is the Target angle — the +0° readout on FIELD (iPhone) and on the Target page (watch), the number that gets frozen into the solution when you tap LOCK TARGET. Voice commands take the same number. With the mode off, that readout is raw device tilt. With it on and the level calibrated, it is your bore inclination.
It needs the zero. Turn the switch on without calibrating and nothing announces itself — the Target angle quietly stays on raw device tilt. Same if Pro lapses. Zero the level first, then flip the switch.
What the shot angle actually changes
Gravity only pulls the bullet perpendicular to the horizon, so an inclined shot drops less than a level shot of the same distance. Feed the app the angle and it trims your come-up; feed it a wrong angle and it trims the wrong amount. That is the whole reason this switch exists.
A worked example, solved with the app's own engine — .308 Winchester, 175 gr, G7 BC 0.243, 2650 fps, 1.5 in sight height, 100 yd zero, standard atmosphere:
| Shot | Come-up | If the angle never reaches the solver |
|---|---|---|
| 300 yd, level | 4.81 MOA | — |
| 300 yd, 15° uphill | 4.64 MOA | 0.5 in high |
| 500 yd, 30° uphill | 10.16 MOA | 8.2 in high |
| 700 yd, 30° uphill | 17.86 MOA | 20.3 in high |
Read the last column as the cost of a wrong angle. Close in and near flat it rounds to nothing. Steep and far it is a clean miss on a torso. Downhill costs exactly the same as uphill — the correction depends on the size of the angle, not its sign.
The long version, including the double-correction trap when your rangefinder already corrected the range, is in Do you aim high or low shooting uphill and downhill?
When something isn't showing up
- Zero Level was never set. Both Pro behaviors stay dormant until the level is calibrated — no glow on Live Fire, and the Target angle silently stays on raw device tilt. Go to the LEVEL page and tap
ZERO LEVELwith the rifle held level. This is the most common cause of both. - The switch is off. LEVEL page → gear →
Level on live firefor the glow,Use level for shot anglefor the angle. They are separate after the first flip. - Pro isn't active. Both are Pro features; if a trial has ended, the glow stops rendering and the angle falls back to device tilt even with the switches still on. Tap either switch to check your status on the unlock card.
- You zeroed on the wrong device. Calibration is per device. If the phone is on the rifle, zero the phone.
- You're level. At true level the glow is a steady green wash — subtler than the red/blue cant warnings. Cant the rifle a few degrees to confirm it's alive.
Rifle-mounted tip: the watch screen sleeps on its own schedule. In Watch Settings → Display & Brightness, set Wake Duration to 70 seconds; then under Settings → General, set Return to Clock to After 1 hour so the level stays visible without a wrist-raise. The watch settings guide covers both, and what they cost you.
The anti-cant glow rides behind the Match stage card too, on the same switch. See Match Mode.
Still stuck? support@wristdope.com