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Stomped by wind

aslrookie

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 19, 2017
1,423
965
Yesterday I took the LMT 20" 6.5cm out. I am shooting factory hornady 140gr ELD-M ammo. Right now the barrel has 100-120rds of this ammo (and only this ammo) through it, so my MV is a little slow, trued with AB app to 2514FPS out to 700 yards. Everything from 300 to 700 was no problem. 900 made me look like a fool.

The shooting line and targets to 700yds are in the wide open fields. The wind was coming from left to right gusting from 4-12mph, and the wind would switch from 12 to 10clock. My gun appears to be a 6mph gun based on my holds.

The 900yd targets are surrounded by trees and not in the open at all. The mirage at 700 was horizontal but the mirage at 900 was difficult to see (10x binos and Mk5 5-25). The 10x binos weren't strong enough to see mirage at 900 and Mk5 was the same result. If I cranked up the magnification, it didn't seem like I was cutting through the 700yd mirage, so backing down the magnification I watched the vegetation and trees.

According to my AB app, I should've been around 1.2mils for a 6mph wind at 900 from 10clock. I tried bracketing the plate C-zone silhouette giving more room in case the wind was stronger. Since it's all trees and tall grass, I couldn't spot any splash. I could not see bullet trace either. I was on about 17x at 900. I went bold and put my 2mil marker on the center of the plate thinking it may hit left or right. Nothing. I could see the horizontal mirage at 700 and vegetation moving, plus my wind at my shooting position. I started watching this patch of small trees about 40 yards in front of the 900 yard targets. These trees would either be standing still or would whip around in a 360* manner. So I started reducing my wind call thinking I was adding too much. I started getting desperate and would hold .75 (PR2 reticle) and even just left edge hoping to get some indicator. I tried splitting the difference between wind at my position and what the vegetation was showing at 900. Nothing.

After much frustration, I drove down to the 700 yard targets and felt the wind was doing the exact opposite of my shooting position. It would go from 12 to 2clock and velocity was less. Over a few hours of shooting, I spent 60rds of ammo total from 300 to 900. So I was doing my best to take the time to evaluate wind conditions, switch from binos to scope while observing mirage and veg.

I did get hits on the big square plate at 900 but I couldn't see any new impacts or paint splash on the target. I just placed my center dot on the left edge which gave me almost 2mils worth of windage on the plate. I was at a loss doping that wind at 900 today.

Long story short, what methods do you use for shooting at targets that are sucked into tree lines with vegetation showing nothing to whipping around? I owned it from 300-700 but after that I got my teeth kicked in.

I included a photo of the range that was taken through my leupold 10x binos with gopro camera. The 700 yard targets are on the left. I was shooting the silhouette to the right of the square plate. At 900, I was shooting the silhouette under #4 and circle plate at #6.

range.jpg
 
That’s tricky. The range I shoot 600 on has a berm like that. 6.5 is easier to see than 223/5.56 without a spotter. Keeping on the gun and managing recoil will help with spotting for yourself, but some it is just hard or not possible to see your own misses. I’ve helped more people than I can remember spot some if they were having issues with this. Maybe ask another shooter to help if there is one
 
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Switchy winds are a challenge, even more so with poor spotting conditions. The best chances of succeeding are to monitor the winds for a long while to see if there is a repeatable pattern then shoot in the identified favorable (or most consistent) condition.
 
A spotter helps when there’s an absence of splash, specially a spotter who can call and see trace.

I would suggest being more bold with your wind corrections. After left 2 mil, and left .75.. sometimes coming back with a center or right .4 is the next correction. When calling off of nothing but vegetation it’s easy to miss call the wind direction if you’re not careful.

If you’re chasing elevation and windage on small targets at distance, without splash or a spotter, that’s a tough spot. Not sure if your elevation is spot on at 900 but could be a factor too.

When you called the wind and went down range, you’ll learn more from that than actually shooting the shot sometimes.
 
Can you shoot prone? Prone you should be able to see your trace pretty well at 900 yards due to the TOF. Look for it above the horizontal on your reticle at about 1/2 your total dope dialed on the scope for the shot. If you've got 9.2 MILS of elevation dialed, look for trace at around 4.5-ish above center.
 
Biggest thing I am seeing here is you don’t seem to have a process. You’re all over the place in describing your observations.

I’d highly recommend taking a class, getting some coaching, develop your process for solving wind. You need to know where to read the wind, how to read wind and hue to solve it in a timely manner. Otherwise your going to be casing your tail.
 
if it were that easy everyone would be doing it keep at it you will get there . also you might want to buy a mouth guard if under 1k kicked your ass cause it's only getting harder the further out you go , but well worth it when you do get it best of luck to your future shooting .
 
I am starting to wonder if I misread my impacts to gather my initial dope and calibration with the AB app. I was thinking about after I went downrange to feel the wind, my impacts on the 700yd target were upper left shoulder on the silhouette plate. Through the scope, it looked like they were hitting center mass. This means my MV is quite a bit faster than what I entered for elevation and AB app provided a MV solution.

That would also explain why on the big square plate at 900, holding center of the plate elevation but left edge to allow up to 2mils of wind on the plate, there was no impact. I thought my bullet may have been high so aimed at the bottom left edge of plate and impact. Mirage was bad, so I could not tell exactly where on the plate my impact landed.

I took 3 things away from this last outing, 1) get a kestrel, 2) get a spotting scope, and 3) I normally put a water line on a target and didn't do it this time. I really want to take a class with Frank and Taylor. Get me squared away.
 
I am starting to wonder if I misread my impacts to gather my initial dope and calibration with the AB app. I was thinking about after I went downrange to feel the wind, my impacts on the 700yd target were upper left shoulder on the silhouette plate. Through the scope, it looked like they were hitting center mass. This means my MV is quite a bit faster than what I entered for elevation and AB app provided a MV solution.

That would also explain why on the big square plate at 900, holding center of the plate elevation but left edge to allow up to 2mils of wind on the plate, there was no impact. I thought my bullet may have been high so aimed at the bottom left edge of plate and impact. Mirage was bad, so I could not tell exactly where on the plate my impact landed.

I took 3 things away from this last outing, 1) get a kestrel, 2) get a spotting scope, and 3) I normally put a water line on a target and didn't do it this time. I really want to take a class with Frank and Taylor. Get me squared away.
More gear won't solve your training/skills deficit. @Rudy Gonsior gave you the answer and you went straight to gear queer land.
 
I took 3 things away from this last outing, 1) get a kestrel, 2) get a spotting scope, and 3) I normally put a water line on a target and didn't do it this time. I really want to take a class with Frank and Taylor. Get me squared away.
You already have a way to 'put a waterline on a target' - use your reticle. Just make sure there's the same amount of real estate above and below the centerline of your reticle on the target.

Keep at it.
 
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What are you using for rear support? Shooting from a bench with a bipod and rear bag? You feeling the recoil dropping your rifle down into the rear bag? I feel like your rifle isn't recoiling strait back or the same every time. Remember the fundamentals of breathing, trigger pull, and natural point of aim.
 
How in the fuck is a kestrel helpful to show you what the wind is doing hundreds of yards downrange? 🤔
Take the wind reading at your firing position, mid range, and at target. I can drive down to each target area.
 
If you want to learn to shoot in the wind, go shoot in the wind every chance you get. There is nothing on your phone or the various other electronic gizmos that that will tell you what's going on with the wind down range.

Learn to understand how wind behaves in various terrain. Learn how diurnal adiabatic winds work. Learn how to read mirage. Learn how to read vegetation, water, dust, etc. in relation to wind. Meticulous spot your hits/misses and adjust POA meticulously (and do it quickly as the wind just might change).

You can't solve the problem if you don't have the good data. A very precise answer from your electronic gizmo that is based lousy data is worthless.
 
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Your shooting Rush lake. I was just there for the PRO/AM this weekend. It was a great range with challenging winds.

We would have wind left to right from the 458 all the way to 6-700. Then at 900 it would be right to left. Or none. Alot of the match i held center and had solid hits just inches off center.

The only thing that really helped me was good spotters and glassing the terrain and mirage. Even then at times it was a crap shoot. Alot of the top shooters if un sure would burn one into the center and hope they could see a miss. Doesn't always work though.
 
Like I said, if you’re chasing elevation.. you’ll not have a lot of success. Sounds like you might have had the right wind call but sailed over the target?

Get a class, get your rifle doped out right and you’ll have less of these frustrating moments.

I would add, that target at 900 without splash and switching winds is the type of target that beats everyone up. But where guys have success is their plan on what to do after they missed.
 
Take the wind reading at your firing position, mid range, and at target. I can drive down to each target area.
This is exactly my point. You clearly don’t have an clear understand or an effective process. You, much like the rest of the masses think “if I just buy this…” or you hear some snippets on a podcast/YouTube video and think this little trick here with solve my problems.

But the reality is while yes these bits of equipment and tricks certainly can help, you have no fundamental baseline process to integrate those into. You are likely to waste copious amounts of energy and resources chasing you tail rather than building a legitimate skill from the ground up.

Take what you have, go to school, build a baseline, learn the actual mechanics. THEN purchase items that support/enhance your ability to perform fundamentals task, continue to refine and maintain those skills particularly through pressure testing until it the process becomes second nature.

This is the way to mastery.
 
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This is exactly my point. You clearly don’t have an clear understand or an effective process. You, much like the rest of the masses think “if I just buy this…” or you hear some snippets on a podcast/YouTube video and think this little trick here with solve my problems.

But the reality is while yes these bits of equipment and tricks certainly can help, you have no fundamental baseline process to integrate those into. You are likely to waste copious amounts of energy and resources chasing you tail rather than building a legitimate skill from the ground up.

Take what you have, go to school, build a baseline, learn the actual mechanics. THEN purchase items that support/enhance your ability to perform fundamentals task, continue to refine and maintain those skills particularly through pressure testing until it the process becomes second nature.

This is the way to mastery.
A kestrel is literally a tool to confirm or deny what you think you may know. Frank literally describes using a kestrel to learn wind by feeling, looking at vegetation, mirage, etc and then use the kestrel to determine if your guess was right or not.

Some of you act like you’re the best LR shooters in the world, but yet provide no actual feedback other than to talk shit about buying tools. Nowhere did I indicate that a kestrel would solve my problems. It’s a tool that’s used to eliminate another variable which is guessing.

Post your shooting stats or skills or otherwise shut up. If you’re some top level competition shooter winning matches around the country, cool…I’ll eat my words.
 
Some of you act like you’re the best LR shooters in the world, but yet provide no actual feedback other than to talk shit about buying tools. Nowhere did I indicate that a kestrel would solve my problems. It’s a tool that’s used to eliminate another variable which is guessing.

Post your shooting stats or skills or otherwise shut up. If you’re some top level competition shooter winning matches around the country, cool…I’ll eat my words.
Well way to make this awkward, I used my real name here in an effort to alleviate a situation like this.

While I have a healthy sense of accomplishment, I am not terribly interested in have to continually cite them but since you asked.

Long range shoot has been the core of my professional practice for the last 20 years. Durn this carrier as a Special Forces operator I have spent an unusual amount of time specifically as a sniper. I also spent several years as an Special Forces Sniper instructor not only teaching but building new curriculum and participating in competitions.

And Yes I do actually hold an international title in long range competitive shoot. I won the 2014 International Sniper Competition. I have a variety of other top 5 finishes in several other international event to include USASOC, Ko2M.

I am not hear to simply listen to the sound of my own voice. You’ve already demonstrated some level of commitment, through buying decent equipment, now I am trying to save you 5-10 years of chasing your tail and having to figure it out the hard way.
 
Well way to make this awkward, I used my real name here in an effort to alleviate a situation like this.

While I have a healthy sense of accomplishment, I am not terribly interested in have to continually cite them but since you asked.

Long range shoot has been the core of my professional practice for the last 20 years. Durn this carrier as a Special Forces operator I have spent an unusual amount of time specifically as a sniper. I also spent several years as an Special Forces Sniper instructor not only teaching but building new curriculum and participating in competitions.

And Yes I do actually hold an international title in long range competitive shoot. I won the 2014 International Sniper Competition. I have a variety of other top 5 finishes in several other international event to include USASOC, Ko2M.

I am not hear to simply listen to the sound of my own voice. You’ve already demonstrated some level of commitment, through buying decent equipment, now I am trying to save you 5-10 years of chasing your tail and having to figure it out the hard way.
Alright, I stand by what I said. I ate my words. I’ll shut up and listen now.
 
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Well way to make this awkward, I used my real name here in an effort to alleviate a situation like this.

While I have a healthy sense of accomplishment, I am not terribly interested in have to continually cite them but since you asked.

Long range shoot has been the core of my professional practice for the last 20 years. Durn this carrier as a Special Forces operator I have spent an unusual amount of time specifically as a sniper. I also spent several years as an Special Forces Sniper instructor not only teaching but building new curriculum and participating in competitions.

And Yes I do actually hold an international title in long range competitive shoot. I won the 2014 International Sniper Competition. I have a variety of other top 5 finishes in several other international event to include USASOC, Ko2M.

I am not hear to simply listen to the sound of my own voice. You’ve already demonstrated some level of commitment, through buying decent equipment, now I am trying to save you 5-10 years of chasing your tail and having to figure it out the hard way.
I knew I recognized your name. I won the ISC 2021 and 2022.
Props to @aslrookie, you said you would come back and eat your words, and you did. Good on you.
 
Hoping for the input of @Rudy Gonsior @JustSendit and other accomplished shooters and windreaders here:

So two days ago I was out shooting my AI AW (7.62x51). I was firing from the top of a ridgeline down into marshlands at the bottom of the valley.
Distance was 930 yards.

At my firing point, there were some tall trees. I could maaaaaybe see some leaves angling towards the right, indicating a left to right crosswind... But just maybe. Leaves, bushes at ground level around me were still.

Looked down into the valley. Nothing is moving. Not even branches or leaves moving in the top of the trees. So.. no wind, right?

Cool... I'm estimating 1mph left to right, just to be safe.

Make my shot, and to my surprise I'm impacting two whole mils to the right of the target.

Reverse engineer the solution and the wind is actually 8mph.

I dial that in to my solution and hit all targets in that area from 750 - 930 yards.

My question is: Is there a rule of thumb I should know about with regards to firing from ridge lines into "open space" like this? There is no way I would estimate those small leaves angling right to mean an 8mph wind out in the open where the bullet travels.

Or am I stuck with shooting, spotting the miss, and dialing?

How would you have solved this?
 
Hoping for the input of @Rudy Gonsior @JustSendit and other accomplished shooters and windreaders here:

So two days ago I was out shooting my AI AW (7.62x51). I was firing from the top of a ridgeline down into marshlands at the bottom of the valley.
Distance was 930 yards.

At my firing point, there were some tall trees. I could maaaaaybe see some leaves angling towards the right, indicating a left to right crosswind... But just maybe. Leaves, bushes at ground level around me were still.

Looked down into the valley. Nothing is moving. Not even branches or leaves moving in the top of the trees. So.. no wind, right?

Cool... I'm estimating 1mph left to right, just to be safe.

Make my shot, and to my surprise I'm impacting two whole mils to the right of the target.

Reverse engineer the solution and the wind is actually 8mph.

I dial that in to my solution and hit all targets in that area from 750 - 930 yards.

My question is: Is there a rule of thumb I should know about with regards to firing from ridge lines into "open space" like this? There is no way I would estimate those small leaves angling right to mean an 8mph wind out in the open where the bullet travels.

Or am I stuck with shooting, spotting the miss, and dialing?

How would you have solved this?
What did the mirage show you?
 
The scope is a fixed parallax (300 yards) PMII and it showed me absolutely nothing. Im totally open to me just beeing retarded here.
 
Hoping for the input of @Rudy Gonsior @JustSendit and other accomplished shooters and windreaders here:

So two days ago I was out shooting my AI AW (7.62x51). I was firing from the top of a ridgeline down into marshlands at the bottom of the valley.
Distance was 930 yards.

At my firing point, there were some tall trees. I could maaaaaybe see some leaves angling towards the right, indicating a left to right crosswind... But just maybe. Leaves, bushes at ground level around me were still.

Looked down into the valley. Nothing is moving. Not even branches or leaves moving in the top of the trees. So.. no wind, right?

Cool... I'm estimating 1mph left to right, just to be safe.

Make my shot, and to my surprise I'm impacting two whole mils to the right of the target.

Reverse engineer the solution and the wind is actually 8mph.

I dial that in to my solution and hit all targets in that area from 750 - 930 yards.

My question is: Is there a rule of thumb I should know about with regards to firing from ridge lines into "open space" like this? There is no way I would estimate those small leaves angling right to mean an 8mph wind out in the open where the bullet travels.

Or am I stuck with shooting, spotting the miss, and dialing?

How would you have solved this?

So what you’re experiencing is cross compartment wind (aslrookie’s situation has similarities). The approach to cross compartment wind management follows the same basic tenants but with the addition necessities of going much deeper.

1. Establish Wind indication points. The simple 1/3 -2/3 rule doesn’t normally work out. Reading wind at your location or the target is nearly irrelevant, you’ll need to understand how to read the terrain, you need to establish the different components of the terrain in order to deduce which parts are most relevant to your trajectory.

2. Direction/Value, now that you know where to properly look, you’ll need to account for the value(s) at play. They may need to be stacked or subtracted from each other, you may even find that some of them are actually irrelevant your situation. These values are also not only left to right but potentially up and down. In some particular Instances you may have to extrapolate wind value at altitude solely based off of observable wind effects at ground level.

In short keep it relevant, keep it simple. Fancy wind roses with cosines and all that bullshit it’s all fine in the theoretical but on the real world has a tendency to overwhelm and bog people down.

3. Establishing a wind speed (at each point). Again this comes down to understanding the relationship of fluid mechanics to the train at hand. You’ll have to be familiar with concepts like Venturi effects, slope compressions, wind gradients, duration cycles, etc.

At the end of the day thought you need to simply Establish a wind speed, ideally A high and a low based off of the observable wind cycle. The chances of completing an accurate timely calculation inside a single one cycle is reduced dramatically the more complex the scenario becomes.

4. Apply corrections based off of your guns Wind Speed Constant just like normal.


So the concept it’s self is simple but the practice of is another thing altogether. I am hesitant to bother even a rough outlining not because I worried about giving a way the keys to the kingdom but the fact that people are going to completely miss the critical points.

There’s one thing I’ve learned teaching this, it’s that texts regards less of detail and depth is a poor choice for conveying such a multi dimensional concept. I first started teaching cross compartment wind in 2015 as part of our HTI/ELR course at 1st SFG and even then with some of the most brilliant and accomplished shooters, it took experiential learning in real time and space for this to click in.

When I wrote the curriculum for Ridgeline’s Mountain Rifleman Course this past year this is exactly the model I used. We teach the fundamental mechanics at play, we then teach the process to mitigate task saturation and get straight to the point of delivering the payload. You get the theory through text, graphics, audio engagement and then we all work the mountain together. You get to observe in real time with the benefits of my dry, smoky monotone voice narrating the winds disposition in relation to the terrain.

This just honestly requires exposure across all the adult learning wickets to really be effective. There’s this idea that you can just YouTube you way through anything these days and I think there’s a truth to that but it’s only going to work for those that have strong fundamental understanding. And frankly that’s not 90% of you (us), we all like to think we’re special but we’re not most of the time. If you don’t believe me just thinking of a topic that you know well, like something you are trained or well studied in, a trade, craft, profession, whatever. Now look up the Wikipedia page on that, you probably find it’s something like 1% of the knowledge and context you possess on the topic. But yet this is very much the approach our society has taken to learning.


So you either learn from a professional or you spend years of effort figuring it out on your own. You pay either way.
 
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My advice for some sort of a quick fix version would be go back and shoot 700. Get on the plate; dial in whatever wind you used for the 700yd target then come up 2mils and poke at the 900 bottom edge. look for a splash infront of the 900yd plate and walk it out. And do this in under 3minutes~ so conditions are relatively similar.

If your MV is 2500~ the wind is going to give your hell without finding that trace at 900/1000yd, nature of spotting and angles etc mean you want to get info from just infront of 900 not 900 (whatever your elev may be).

Or go there on a calm day and get your elevation good so you at least can eliminate that as a possible reason for the misses.
 
The scope is a fixed parallax (300 yards) PMII and it showed me absolutely nothing. Im totally open to me just beeing retarded here.
Now you know why I still carry a spotting scope even if I'm alone. A spotting scope, correctly used, will show you lots of mirage information. Actually more information than most adj parallax scopes will show you. Unfortunately that's not something that can be taught anywhere but in the field.
 
Looking at the picture in the original post, I'm thinking it might help aslrookie to think of the wind a bit like water flowing over rocks in a river. It bounces off and creates suction zones around obstacles, and there are obstacles in the pic.

There is a heavy tree line on the left and behind the target and comments said the wind was from 12-2 oclock

If you are shooting on the left side of the range, you can expect a few things to happen as the wind changes direction...

When it comes from 12, basically there is pretty much no left right wind effect, but there will be a variable down draft and that will cause verticals.

If the wind swings around to 2 oclock, it will be bouncing off the tree line to the left, and again cause verticals as well as a left drift effect.

You would almost never get the full effect of the measured wind speed because of the tree line acting as a wind break, although you should think about how high the bullet is getting at the top of the arc. That will change depending on how far from the target you are.

All I can really offer is to keep a sharp eye on mirage and react to what you see changing. If a cloud covers over the range, don't fall for it as though there is a let off when you can no longer see mirage.
 
Now you know why I still carry a spotting scope even if I'm alone. A spotting scope, correctly used, will show you lots of mirage information. Actually more information than most adj parallax scopes will show you. Unfortunately that's not something that can be taught anywhere but in the field.
I’ve only shot on very flat ground, and no more than about 20’ off the ground. So this is a serious question based on having zero experience shooting across elevation changes: is there perceptible mirage when looking over a valley?
 
So what you’re experiencing is cross compartment wind (aslrookie’s situation has similarities). The approach to cross compartment wind management follows the same basic tenants but with the addition necessities of going much deeper.

1. Establish Wind indication points. The simple 1/3 -2/3 rule doesn’t normally work out. Reading wind at your location or the target is nearly irrelevant, you’ll need to understand how to read the terrain, you need to establish the different components of the terrain in order to deduce which parts are most relevant to your trajectory.

2. Direction/Value, now that you know where to properly look, you’ll need to account for the value(s) at play. They may need to be stacked or subtracted from each other, you may even find that some of them are actually irrelevant your situation. These values are also not only left to right but potentially up and down. In some particular Instances you may have to extrapolate wind value at altitude solely based off of observable wind effects at ground level.

In short keep it relevant, keep it simple. Fancy wind roses with cosines and all that bullshit it’s all fine in the theoretical but on the real world has a tendency to overwhelm and bog people down.

3. Establishing a wind speed (at each point). Again this comes down to understanding the relationship of fluid mechanics to the train at hand. You’ll have to be familiar with concepts like Venturi effects, slope compressions, wind gradients, duration cycles, etc.

At the end of the day thought you need to simply Establish a wind speed, ideally A high and a low based off of the observable wind cycle. The chances of completing an accurate timely calculation inside a single one cycle is reduced dramatically the more complex the scenario becomes.

4. Apply corrections based off of your guns Wind Speed Constant just like normal.


So the concept it’s self is simple but the practice of is another thing altogether. I am hesitant to bother even a rough outlining not because I worried about giving a way the keys to the kingdom but the fact that people are going to completely miss the critical points.

There’s one thing I’ve learned teaching this, it’s that texts regards less of detail and depth is a poor choice for conveying such a multi dimensional concept. I first started teaching cross compartment wind in 2015 as part of our HTI/ELR course at 1st SFG and even then with some of the most brilliant and accomplished shooters, it took experiential learning in real time and space for this to click in.

When I wrote the curriculum for Ridgeline’s Mountain Rifleman Course this past year this is exactly the model I used. We teach the fundamental mechanics at play, we then teach the process to mitigate task saturation and get straight to the point of delivering the payload. You get the theory through text, graphics, audio engagement and then we all work the mountain together. You get to observe in real time with the benefits of my dry, smoky monotone voice narrating the winds disposition in relation to the terrain.

This just honestly requires exposure across all the adult learning wickets to really be effective. There’s this idea that you can just YouTube you way through anything these days and I think there’s a truth to that but it’s only going to work for those that have strong fundamental understanding. And frankly that’s not 90% of you (us), we all like to think we’re special but we’re not most of the time. If you don’t believe me just thinking of a topic that you know well, like something you are trained or well studied in, a trade, craft, profession, whatever. Now look up the Wikipedia page on that, you probably find it’s something like 1% of the knowledge and context you possess on the topic. But yet this is very much the approach our society has taken to learning.


So you either learn from a professional or you spend years of effort figuring it out on your own. You pay either way.

This is fantastic advice. Shy of coming to an actual class (travelling across the atlantic is a bit of a hassle..), are there any books etc you would recommend to be able to learn more about this?

Thank you so, so much for the well thought out reply, I learned a lot from it, mostly that I need to learn a LOT more.
 
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I’ve only shot on very flat ground, and no more than about 20’ off the ground. So this is a serious question based on having zero experience shooting across elevation changes: is there perceptible mirage when looking over a valley?
Tough question to answer as it depends on the elevation changes and atmospheric conditions. Most of the time there is mirage you can pick up somewhere along the way. Best is to use all available indicators.
 
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This is fantastic advice. Shy of coming to an actual class (travelling across the atlantic is a bit of a hassle..), are there any books etc you would recommend to be able to learn more about this?

Thank you so, so much for the well thought out reply, I learned a lot from it, mostly that I need to learn a LOT more.

I've never personally read this, but guys in the Ontario Rifle Association spoke highly of it.

The Wind Book for Rifle Shooters by Keith Cunningham (Author)​

www.amazon.ca/Wind-Book-Rifle-Shooters/dp/1581605323
 
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This is fantastic advice. Shy of coming to an actual class (travelling across the atlantic is a bit of a hassle..), are there any books etc you would recommend to be able to learn more about this?

Thank you so, so much for the well thought out reply, I learned a lot from it, mostly that I need to learn a LOT more.
I can’t say I’ve ever really seen a book that lays it all out in terms of process especially cross compartment wind. 🤔
 
It's a great book but take a look at the Amazon prices, the paperback is more than hardcover and used hardcover is more than a new one - weird. One would think they would update the book, maybe with wind hacks, formulas, etc. Hard to believe that in 15 years nothing new on the subject.

View attachment 7931520
18 bucks from Rockwood Books on Amazon:

 
I also had a pretty good wind experience the other day. I went out to the field and set up to shoot the 22. I am shooting west 275°. set up the weather into ballisticARC and checked the local wind, 10mph. I am surrounded by windmills so I look with the compas, wisd is from 75°, so behind me from the right. I shoot 50 yards and confirm I need to make a couple clicks right. Made my correction and shoot good. Move to 110, just making sure the app matches the real world for a match this coming weekend. shoot and not I'm WAY right.... what the hell happened? Click back to zero and I'm still right... ok now I'm looking at the target and my scope and thinking I'm stupid. I feel the wind.... from my left. I get up and look at the windmills, they're pointed kind of south now. Compass says 125°. Correct again and too far. Cut the wind in half and right on. Moved to 200 yards and used half the wind correction, right on. Went to 300 and shot half the wind, right on. 400 the wind was good but I had a huge vertical string.
Anyway, learning wind is frustrating and fun at the same time. When you figure it out and its stays steady for a little bit it feels like sweet victory.
 
If it were me and I was getting no hit indicators I would have shot at the large plate under 3....
With the advances in technology that we have, a phone scope and a spotter would be a great investment especially if you do not have a shooting partner.
Keep at it and don't give up.