Can suppressor mirage effect your dope?

[Namekagon]

I was gathering dope on a new load and forgot to put my suppressor cover on. I've never shot without one, and while shooting couldn't figure out why the scope got so hazy towards the end of the evening. At the time I thought it was moisture in the air, as I was shooting at dusk. Range was 590 and then 890 yards. It didn't hit me until I was packing up that it was mirage off the can. I didn't notice it until the the later part of the evening because the wind died down about then. Before that it was 3-4 MPH steady.

So now it makes me wonder, is the dope I gathered at 890 at the end of the day flawed? I seemed to shoot about 6-7" higher than Trasol predicted, but that could easily be the app's error, as I have not trued Trasol for this load yet, that was the point of gathering the data. Would you trust the data shot through the hazy view?

 

[newgunguy3]

The heat from the suppressor can create mirage interference for the optic. Is it enough optical interference to shift the sight picture from what it should be? That I don’t know.

what I do know is I’ve had times shooting in the desert late in the afternoon when the sun went behind a mountain range and the temperature started to drop. the air cooled and dropped towards the ground which was still warm. The cooler air started to compress the ground air and it seriously affected the sight picture. For example we started to see targets looking like funhouse mirror images where they were stretched out or severely compressed. At one point it looked like a snake track all wiggly. We had absolutely no clue where the real bullseye was even though there was plenty of light left to see with.

the instructor said there was a name for this atmospheric phenomenon and the optical distortion it causes but I can not remember what it is.