I have a rifle built by Hart, with a sniper contour barrel, its a quality piece. In trying to work up loads of the bench my 1" target spots are shimmering and dancing a bit. This frustrating to me. I think it is the barrel heat and high magnification causing this. If I wait and have totally cool barrel and clean sight picture it shoots one hole groups. How other than the cool down time do you guys deal with this??
Mirage
- Thread starter Snoman
- Start date
Not just the heat off the barrel will cause this.
Terrain and conditions can have the same effect. Go out shooting after a fresh snow fall or shoot across a pond etc...temperature and the humidity/wetness in the air will have the same effect and I’ve seen it on a cold barrel right from the get go.
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
Terrain and conditions can have the same effect. Go out shooting after a fresh snow fall or shoot across a pond etc...temperature and the humidity/wetness in the air will have the same effect and I’ve seen it on a cold barrel right from the get go.
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
If you’re sure it’s from the barrel and not terrain, just make a make-shift mirage band/board.
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Yeap ^
If only I was taught this instead of shooting through it stupidly for a long time. Natural instinct is to crank the power all the way up when shooting for groups lol
like owning a supercar and only using 1st gear if you can use it use it ,if you can't then settle for less especially when the picture is too blurry , if you can and its clear why not put the peddle down and enjoy the view .
The one thing most miss is learning when enough is enough, If you can quarter the target with your aiming point that is enough power, an sometimes adding more will make your groups open more. Where I shoot most of the time in the winter there is very, very little air moving an after the 3-4 shots the barrel mirage starts. I can still quarter a MOA target at 8x but there are times an depending chambering I have to drop below 8x. The out is use a 2 MOA target at 6X as most of my glass is only 10X max so it now seems like I'm using 12X on a 1 MOA target.
The other thing I have found that helps me is to use a horizontal line only,... for zeroing the up an a vertical line only,... for the windage. Make the lines the same subtension as you ret an your true zero is easier to define. Once you have done that take a blank paper an learn to hold the center of same until it's second nature for you to place the bullet where you what it w/o a defined aiming point.
Another good zeroing drill or scoring drill is to draw a line at 45* across a blank paper an try using your ret an dot that line at every 1MOA using you ret. Score yourself an after awhile the knack of placing the bullet in/on to something,... w/o a defined aiming point will become,... second nature.
The other thing I have found that helps me is to use a horizontal line only,... for zeroing the up an a vertical line only,... for the windage. Make the lines the same subtension as you ret an your true zero is easier to define. Once you have done that take a blank paper an learn to hold the center of same until it's second nature for you to place the bullet where you what it w/o a defined aiming point.
Another good zeroing drill or scoring drill is to draw a line at 45* across a blank paper an try using your ret an dot that line at every 1MOA using you ret. Score yourself an after awhile the knack of placing the bullet in/on to something,... w/o a defined aiming point will become,... second nature.
^^^ This. Listen to these guys. I have been having the same problem heat from the barrel and on top of that the heat from the dark target doing two different things. There snow here and was -6 Saturday. Use a slightly bigger target and less magnification. You just don’t want to keep fighting it while trying to build a load.
Palma shooters have dealt with barrel mirage by adding a mirage band. Basically a length of suspender strap held on by a scope base screw and clipping it to the front sight assembly.
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Yep what Chad said! Very rarely do I leave home with out having one with me and some extra velcro!
