G'day fellas, I have been reading , and talking to the odd bloke about wind.
Now I use to hold off in the wind when I was hunting, and I avoided hunting when it was real windy, but since I have gotten into target shooting a bit more I have found that there is more to it than just holding off.
For instance at Leeton 200 mtr fly, the wind was doing 25-35kmh and the bloke that won still managed a 1" group with a rimfire. My group was about 14".
Now I have made some wind flags from Ned Kelly's design, and now I am asking if anyone can point me in the right direction for some good reading about wind dopeing please ?
Knackers,on Benchrest central there was a good article by Team40x called the wind is your friend ,It's not my friend I can tell you that much.I have some home made flags and I bought BRT flags as well and once you understand what they are telling you about the conditions down range and what it means you won't shoot with out them.
I had been told by other competitors/shooters for a long time that even if you buy good ones,(which I always could not see the value in spending around $550-600 on flags when for that sort of coin I could get a lot of powder,projectiles or almost a new scope) that for the money invested there is nothing that will shrink your groups like shooting over flags,and now that I have shot over them for a while I can see the benefit at the target.
Having said that I still throw shots away,I don't think the wind has blown near as many into the groups as it has blown out of the groups.
G'Day knackers,
from my experience, with my flags watch the ribbons, if the ends are gently flicking the air is nice and smooth, if the ends are agitated and moving rapidly (when the wind appears to be the same strength) is is turbulent air. Try to see what I mean. I have one set up in the back yard all the time for me to learn from.
General rules for wind reading are....
1. Look for a patten where it stays about 80% or more of the same for at least 30 seconds or more.
2. try never to shoot when the wind is strengthening, only when it is easing (a wind reading error will be lessened and the bullet wont stray as much)
3. Try to shoot when the wind is 12 or 6 o'clock. The top shooters prefer a little vertical from this wind direction as opposed to shooting a pure cross wind.
4. Diagonal winds from 2, 4, 8, 10 will give you diagonal groups learn from these.
5. Little or no wind is good for tuning but it is not martch practice.
6. Little or no wind can cause unexplained flyers, you sometimes need wind to blow so as to give reliable indications. It blows all the little eddies, swirls and back drafts away.
7. always make sure the flags and the mirage point the same way. failing that trust the mirage!
8. Try and remember the "look" of the mirage pattern and you will see slow & lazy, fast aggro, and boils where the mirage goes straight up, this gives plenty of vertical.
9. paint your target board white and get some black tape about 2" wide and stick on horizontally with 2" gaps between each strip. This shows the mirage beautifully. Nail your target right over the top.
10. remember the wind is fliud and always changing, what looks the same as when you started usually ISN'T! fire a sighter if your not sure. This is why BR shooters need to be able to get 5 away in 30 seconds or less.
Hope this helps, but experience is the key.........and a good memory!
Good Luck and remember to say all the time that this is FUN!
Since no two moments in time will ever have the same wind condition and therefore no two wind flag pictures in your minds eye will ever be the same, wind reading or small group shooting is often mastered by those with the best memory or those that can run shots quickly. The later is fine if there is time where the wind holds a set for enough time to get the shots off.
Having said that, some of the best long range shooters about use the bracket method whereby they use a sighter to see where the lowest wind speed drifts the shot and then also where the worst wind may drift it also. The medium is where the group will form and one should aim off accordingly. The best practice for this type of shooting is definetly with a rimfire. Without windflags of adequate sensitivity you will learn little. My addage has been for some time now, don't build a better gun, build a better set of windflags.
Knackers,
Ned has covered it well, when shooting over flags try to position them as close to your bullet path as possible , before you shoot watch what is going on with the flags & try & pick one two repeatable conditions that are showing more often. I dont like to hold off because when the wind changes you miss by more, so i try to shoot when the flag ribbons are just lifting.
200 yard fly rimfire is another whole new set of problems with out the luxury of waiting or unlimited sighters.
With only 3 sighters allowed you will have to judge your hold off as 7 minutes probable wont allow you to wait for ideal conditions.
If your freind is shooting 1 inch groups at 200 yards he probably has found the right combination of ammunition . Test your ammo at 200 yards in great conditions first & see if it is capable of grouping under 2" if not try different ammo till it does.
Fly shooting needs a very light crisp trigger release & a repeatable recoiling rest /bag setup, concentrate on these 2 untill it an automatic routine.
Wind flags are something that with practice you will become comfortable with & come match time if you find a condition thats favourable & you lock into it ( i call it "in the zone") you will get much satisfaction from your efforts .
Good luck with it & dont get discouraged by the 200 yard rimfire stuff its a very tough game.....
G'Day Knackers,
one other thing, when holding off as a rule of thumb when learning, estimate what you think you need than halve the amount and shoot!
this achieves 2 things;
1. its probably closer to the correct amount of hold off
2. If your wrong its only 1/2 as bad a miss! (seriously!)
And as Harlyboy said, keep the flags as close to the height and path of the bullet and wlk the range to find out where the wind is coming from and place you flags there. Many shooters ignore the ground and topography when placing flags, they should be where the wind comes from, not neatly every 20-25paces.
Thank you very much fella's.
I will put all your advice into practice and post some picks of my results.
If anyone else has some advice to offer, I'll happily read it.
BTW the bloke that shot the 1" group at the Leeton 200 fly, was Shane Clancy.
Castlemaine OPM is on Saturday 500, 500, 600yds. This will be your last chance to enter the 2007-8 Pro-Cal series, because there are only 4 legs left. When was the last time you shot F-Class? It must be a distant memory!
The advice above is all very good and very accurate, however your bench technique will cause you more problems than any misread of the breeze until you are consistant with it.
Practice your technique at the bench, set up, position, bag work etc .. until this is working then a flier can be a bad read or bad technique .. you have to have one right for sure to know its the other.
The only other advice I will give is:
Lay all your flags side by side on the ground and it will amount to a few feet .. there is a lot of condition between flags.
G'Day Alan,
yeah its been a while, last time was June last year in Bendigo, just before we found out about Annette's cancer. But thankfully, thats just about behind us and I'm currently reloading the .223 right now for the weekend.
I've done a little F class down with the VPRC and at the Police and Emergency games this year, but little else. Even my BR shooting attendances have suffered!
The .223 sports a NF 8-32BR scope now and it has a rough zero for 150yds, I'll work it out for 500 and at this stage plan to be in Castlemaine on Saturday to shoot FO and fly the flag so to speak! I dont expect to break any records, just to have a go.
Knackers, one more bit of advice and old BR shoter gave me once which I have found to be invaluable. Have a "WON"T SHOOT" rather than a "WILL SHOOT" attitude. In other words wait till the conditions are right. It has helped me.
Pete
couldnt agree more with Foxhunter Knackers. At the 1000yd in canberra after the sight in period when the range officer was calling orders for the record shoot the wind completely reversed, all the flags went the other way.
On the fire order there was complete silence for about three minutes. No one would have had any idea where the rounds would have ended up as the condition was completely the reverse of where they had sighted in.
Of course this was nerve wracking for the newbie but I resisted until the flags turned!
,It's not my friend I can tell you that much.I have some home made flags and I bought BRT flags as well and once you understand what they are telling you about the conditions down range and what it means you won't shoot with out them.
