Building a personal 1K range. What direction?

Schnyd112 said:

North/south. shooting north you will never have the sun in your eyes.

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^^^^THIS^^^^
My range is shooting east, and is pretty useless till noon. My experience from shooting 1000 yard matches at a few different ranges....NORTH is the way to go....Like the Harris Range in MN

Tod

JTB said:

We set up a range on our ranch that I luckily live on. About 5 minutes by RZR to the range. The best thing we did is to pour a concrete shooting table. View attachment 80946 We hung 18"x18" steel at 500, 750, 1000, 1200 and 2000 yards. Those distances used to hone-in the ballistics calculators. Have paper set up at 100, 200 and 300 yards. Runs north to south by necessity.

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That's a pretty sweet bench for sure. I'm setting this range up mainly for drop collection and field shooting position practice. I hardly ever shoot off a bench any more these days. I get much better results from prone. More confident i guess.

I like the poured bench. I've poured a few myself

I do my best to whenever possible shoot either directly into the wind or with it straight up my six whether I'm in the field or practicing. The more variables you remove the more I can concentrate on the basics.

My vote is either with or into the prevailing winds and if you can't do that 90 deg to the wind.

WildRose said:

I do my best to whenever possible shoot either directly into the wind or with it straight up my six whether I'm in the field or practicing. The more variables you remove the more I can concentrate on the basics.

My vote is either with or into the prevailing winds and if you can't do that 90 deg to the wind.

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No better way in the world to screw up groups at 1000 than to shoot directly into or away from the wind.

Tod

BillyGoatGruff said:

Hey Guys,
I'm setting up a little practice range on my mom's farm. Question, Do I set it up North South or East West? or does it even matter? East to West is much easier to set up. No real work necessary to do. Already has a natural backstop. North South will take more effort.

At what range will Coriolis significantly come into play? I might try to stretch the range to 12-1300 if I can.

Thanks,

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On the coriolis thing.....once you build your range...which ever direction ... and figure the coriolis, it will NEVER, EVER change.

Of course....coriolis at 1K is really a non issue to begin with.

Tod

4xforfun said:

No better way in the world to screw up groups at 1000 than to shoot directly into or away from the wind.

Tod

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Still interested in knowing why

Because if you are shooting with a 9:00 wind and the wind changes to 8:00 or 10:00, not much happens on the target. Shoot with the wind at 12:00 and the wind switches to 11:00 or 1:00, or from 11:30 to 12:30 things go to hell in a big hurry. It is very hard to tell a small switch like this. Stake some flags out and just sit and watch them.....a 1 hour switch is almost always happening, and it is almost inpreceptable without flags. And, unless you have flags every 50 yards there is no way to tell what is happening at 1000 yards. Wind SPEED is fairly easy to detect.....wind direction....not so much and you MUST have flags to even have a chance to see a 1 hour direction change.


Grab you balistic program and play with it....run some numbers with your favorite load and compare. I have shot HUNDREDS of 1000 yard IBS relays...even won a time or two, and the result is the same every time. I have seen WAY more DQ's in a head/tail wind than any other condition. Groups are usually way bigger with the head/tail wind.

And then there is the vertical winds!!

Now, if you are hunting or shooting steel and need to make a first round hit, well, that is a different story, because obviously there is less deflection in a head/tail wind. Maybe that is all that matters to the OP poster. But if you intend to shoot groups....

Also...if it is a practice range and not for group shooting, and the goal is 1st round hits WHILE HUNTING, then wouldn't you WANT to shoot in ****** conditions....when a miss is no big deal? If wind reading is your goal , just build where ever is easiest and take what ma nature throws at you.

Just my .02...take it for what it is worth,

Tod

awesome, thank you.

it's been a while since I messed with this stuff, so I pulled out my shooter app and used my 300 WBY with the 210 berger for my test.

First we need to come up with a value in degrees for the whole "clock" thing. Head wind to tail wind (0 degrees to 180 degrees) 1 Hr on the clock = 30 degrees. (180 / 6 = 30)

Lets use a 10 mph constant wind.

three o-clock (90 degrees) @ 10 mph = 5.8 MOA .....58 inches drift.
two or four o-clock (60 or 120 degrees) @ 10 MPH = 5.0 MOA....50 inches, for a drift change of 8 inches. If it changes back and forth between 2 and 4 o-clock the net change is ZERO.

Now lets shoot into (or with) the wind...same...

Obviously a 0 or 180 degree wind would produce ZERO wind deflection.
Change the wind from 6 o-clock to 7 o-clock, we get a 2.9 MOA shift...29 inches. Or...a 7 o-clock to 5 oclock (like the 2-4 oclock) we can double that.....58 inches drift change.

Or, a 1/2 hr switch...from 6 to 6:30 = 1.5 MOA...15 inches. That same 1/2 hr at full value....from 3:00 to 3:30 = a TWO INCH CHANGE......NOTHING.

I won a 600 yard BR match once by being the only one NOT to DQ! Strong head wind. Had that been a strong cross wind we all would have had the wind dialed in during the sighter period.

Just stirring the pot,
Tod

I like it! the purpose of this range,
Is 1, to verify drop data with my solver once I have loads I like, when conditions are good
2nd and more important is to practice field shooting positions in the field and practice reading the wind. It's pretty much always windy on the eastern plains of CO.

Thanks for all the comments!

BillyGoatGruff said:

I like it! the purpose of this range,
Is 1, to verify drop data with my solver once I have loads I like, when conditions are good
2nd and more important is to practice field shooting positions in the field and practice reading the wind. It's pretty much always windy on the eastern plains of CO.

Thanks for all the comments!

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Then I say build it which ever way is easiest. I would still take the sun into consideration. As far as drops...the bullet drops will pretty much be identical weather you shoot in ZERO conditions or 30 MPH cross winds.....drop is drop.

ENJOY!!!

Tod

If you have east to west reverse it same for north to south. Practice shooting all wind angles and sun angles.
my.02
SnT

East to West is pretty much done. When I was out on Saturday helping my mom move some cows I took the tractor and smoothed out my shooting positions mainly to clear the weeds and grass to clear vision for shooting prone. Just need to hang some flags off the corresponding fence posts. ( range runs parallel down a fence line two track). Spent some time looking at the area for the North South setup. Prone might be tough past about 850. Need to work on beefing up the backstop before I can test it out.

Thanks interest guys!