Hey guys, I was just wondering if some of the seasoned veterans could share their methods of wind doping. Maybe discuss their method of reading mirage, and watching trees and grass. I need major help with figuring the direction of wind by mirage. Once out of every ten shooting sessions I feel like I have a good read on the wind. The next nine sessions it just completely handles my -ss! I find myself too many times saying "oh, hell I can't tell what its doing down there" and just pulling the trigger. We all know where those shots go-nowhere near the target! Thanks in advance
Hey experts, Can we have a lesson on wind doping?
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sniper2
Well-Known Member
Ultimate sniper is a good read...
royinidaho
Well-Known Member
[ QUOTE ]
Hey guys, I was just wondering if some of the seasoned veterans could share their methods of wind doping. Maybe discuss their method of reading mirage, and watching trees and grass. I need major help with figuring the direction of wind by mirage. Once out of every ten shooting sessions I feel like I have a good read on the wind. The next nine sessions it just completely handles my -ss! I find myself too many times saying "oh, hell I can't tell what its doing down there" and just pulling the trigger. We all know where those shots go-nowhere near the target! Thanks in advance
[/ QUOTE ]
I could say the same thing. Sorry, no help here but watching /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Hey guys, I was just wondering if some of the seasoned veterans could share their methods of wind doping. Maybe discuss their method of reading mirage, and watching trees and grass. I need major help with figuring the direction of wind by mirage. Once out of every ten shooting sessions I feel like I have a good read on the wind. The next nine sessions it just completely handles my -ss! I find myself too many times saying "oh, hell I can't tell what its doing down there" and just pulling the trigger. We all know where those shots go-nowhere near the target! Thanks in advance
[/ QUOTE ]
I could say the same thing. Sorry, no help here but watching /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Jon A
Well-Known Member
The only advice I'm qualified to give (in other words, any good at) is cheat as much as possible! Launch the highest BC bullet you can find as fast as you possibly can. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
G
Guest
Guest
Sniper2 has read my mind... a lot of that book is basic knowledge that most know but there are some good necessities in there too... it isn't exact by all means but, has some really good information.
every area of the country is different so you can not generalize the reaction of ALL vegitation to a standard number( MPH )
the best thing to do is get a wind meter .. doesn't have to be the most expensive. Once you have it wait for breezes and wind and make mental notes of what the different vegitation does/looks like on these days. Then literally walk to the vegitation and take a wind reading. Be sure to make a very specific observation, from distance, prior to taking the reading. Take note for the first few times if necessary. larger trees will react differently at different heights. I have at times touched different vegitation to see how "soft" or " springy" the core or branches were to get a better feel of how wind effects the "softer" vegitation as compared to the "sturdier" vegitation
As with most things over time you begin to "learn" your area and the wind habits and characteristics of the "local" vegitation.
All of this combined will begin to write a story of how to call your dope.
Now with LRH in mind the wind may be 6 mph at your muzzle and 10 mph half way to your target and then 4 mph at the target. Intitial wind effects bullet flight more than the wind at the target. ie: 10 mph at the muzzle will push the bullet off target much farther than a 10 mph wind at the target.
once you begin to learn these things go shoot in windy conditions. All of us know how to shoot in perfect conditions and can achieve good groups when the weather is perfect. If you look outside and say " to nasty of a day to shoot" rethink that.. grab your gear and a note book and go educate yourself.
Hope this helped...
every area of the country is different so you can not generalize the reaction of ALL vegitation to a standard number( MPH )
the best thing to do is get a wind meter .. doesn't have to be the most expensive. Once you have it wait for breezes and wind and make mental notes of what the different vegitation does/looks like on these days. Then literally walk to the vegitation and take a wind reading. Be sure to make a very specific observation, from distance, prior to taking the reading. Take note for the first few times if necessary. larger trees will react differently at different heights. I have at times touched different vegitation to see how "soft" or " springy" the core or branches were to get a better feel of how wind effects the "softer" vegitation as compared to the "sturdier" vegitation
As with most things over time you begin to "learn" your area and the wind habits and characteristics of the "local" vegitation.
All of this combined will begin to write a story of how to call your dope.
Now with LRH in mind the wind may be 6 mph at your muzzle and 10 mph half way to your target and then 4 mph at the target. Intitial wind effects bullet flight more than the wind at the target. ie: 10 mph at the muzzle will push the bullet off target much farther than a 10 mph wind at the target.
once you begin to learn these things go shoot in windy conditions. All of us know how to shoot in perfect conditions and can achieve good groups when the weather is perfect. If you look outside and say " to nasty of a day to shoot" rethink that.. grab your gear and a note book and go educate yourself.
Hope this helped...
Thanks for the help, I think I will order a copy of "the ultimate sniper" I use a kestrel, it is an excellent tool but my problem is estimating down range winds. Usually I will shoot a group or two and then head downrange with the kestrel to check the actual velocities against my estimations. I have a problem reading mirage, I cant distinguish anything but r-l or l-r movement. I never can distinguish actual direction. Just one of those things that can only be cured by sending several thousand rounds down range I guess. Jon A- I want to cheat very badly but I will feel I have shorted myself until I get a little better understanding of the 308!
Ian M
Well-Known Member
I am far from being an expert but here is something to consider. You should make an effort to look at the big picture regarding wind - vegetation movement, sound of wind in your ears and feel on your face, where other shooter's bullets have just hit if you are on a range or practicing on steel with some buddies - don't just look at the target and a few feet around it, scan the whole field of view and look for uniformity and gusts. You need to know what wind effects the bullet will encounter between you and the target, both from speed and angle of contact.
First thing we do when we get to a location where we will be setup in a blind is tie some yarn or ribbon to a twig, to give wind direction. When we are practicing I have some steel rods with little brackets that fold outward 90 degrees so that I can step on them to insert the end of the rod into the ground. I have about 4-5 feet of blaze orange ribbon on the end of the rod. This gives us wind direction at our firing point. If I remember I also put a similar rod down at the targets, or tie some ribbon onto the target holder - this gives me a relative indicator of wind speed by the angle it is flying at and direction to a less degree since it is very small out at longer ranges.
By far I use mirage more than other factors. Again, try to learn to see the mirage as a moving mass of air, not just what is happening off the target frame. Focus your spotting scope an 1/8th of a turn or slightly more back towards your position so that you are focusing on the mirage, your target should be just a touch out of perfect focus. Mirage will give us wind direction and changes very quickly, it will also give us wind velocity to a point, about 12 mph they say in the text books. Challenge is to see apparent layers in the mirage, more speed the closer the layers appear to each other. With experience you can see the wind speed effect the mirage, but you have to be patient and learn to understand what you are seeing through the spotter.
Big consideration is "the boil" - do you shoot in a boil on not. The boil is when the wind has diminished to nothing or next to nothing or the wind is moving at 12 or 6 o'clock to your sight line. Many target shooters instructors teach not to shoot in a boil, we do it all the time on our steel targets and get good hits. The boil also occurs during fish-tail winds, that is a wind that switches back and forth across the line of sight, maybe from ten o'clock over to 2 o'clock and back and forth continuously. Personally I like the challenge of shooting fishtails, makes the spotter really get involved in the shooting decisions.
To learn this stuff do as RIc suggested, go out and do the dreaded thing that most hunters cannot buy into - keep good notes. I hate numbers and trying to remember stuff, got to keep notes or it is gone. Notes help you learn from your misses, if you make an effort to analyze what happened with a particular shot. What you did for windage compared to what you should have done for windage for a particular shot - that kind of detail is where you start to learn this stuff. Unfortunately the conditions are not static, so just because you missed by a foot to the left on the last shot, moving over one foot may or may not be an appropriate adjustment.
Here is what a lot of guys do - look through the spotter for a while and get a mental feel for what the mirage is doing, veg is doing. Look for an average mirage effect, plus the wind-waves occuring in the grass if there is any etc. Try to learn to see a particular average effect or appearance through the scope that can be called the "condition" that you want to shoot at - sort of an average wind velocity and angle thing. What this does is give you some confidence that when you see the condition, three minutes or whatever of windage will be about right. When you see that condition, you will already have the three minutes windage on so send the shot. This is a good bottom line method, but it takes experience that only comes with shooting in a wide variety of wind and making a real effort to understand how come your bullets flew where they did. After a while your brain will get comfortable with the ability to see a condition, when the winds drop or increase above it you will know that is happening. Then you either wait for your wind-condition to come back or take-off or apply some wind and let her fly. The optimum is to be able to look through the spotting scope and "see" a four minute condition or six or whatever.
Hope that this makes a bit of sense, it is not easy to learn and not easy to describe, but it is pretty doable if you work at it. I was fortunate to obtain tutoring from some incredible instructors over the years, particularly Bobby and Steve at the Badlands and watching guys like that read wind proves that it can be done. I am also fortunate to have shot thousands of rounds with a guy who is a freeking machine at doing this stuff, he makes me work my butt off to keep up with him and that helps me learn this stuff.
Dave King from this site also walks the walk, have enjoyed shooting with him under some interesting weather challenges - from plus 112 to freeze-your-gonies below zero cold. You have to shoot in the bad weather because that could be what you hunt in.
First thing we do when we get to a location where we will be setup in a blind is tie some yarn or ribbon to a twig, to give wind direction. When we are practicing I have some steel rods with little brackets that fold outward 90 degrees so that I can step on them to insert the end of the rod into the ground. I have about 4-5 feet of blaze orange ribbon on the end of the rod. This gives us wind direction at our firing point. If I remember I also put a similar rod down at the targets, or tie some ribbon onto the target holder - this gives me a relative indicator of wind speed by the angle it is flying at and direction to a less degree since it is very small out at longer ranges.
By far I use mirage more than other factors. Again, try to learn to see the mirage as a moving mass of air, not just what is happening off the target frame. Focus your spotting scope an 1/8th of a turn or slightly more back towards your position so that you are focusing on the mirage, your target should be just a touch out of perfect focus. Mirage will give us wind direction and changes very quickly, it will also give us wind velocity to a point, about 12 mph they say in the text books. Challenge is to see apparent layers in the mirage, more speed the closer the layers appear to each other. With experience you can see the wind speed effect the mirage, but you have to be patient and learn to understand what you are seeing through the spotter.
Big consideration is "the boil" - do you shoot in a boil on not. The boil is when the wind has diminished to nothing or next to nothing or the wind is moving at 12 or 6 o'clock to your sight line. Many target shooters instructors teach not to shoot in a boil, we do it all the time on our steel targets and get good hits. The boil also occurs during fish-tail winds, that is a wind that switches back and forth across the line of sight, maybe from ten o'clock over to 2 o'clock and back and forth continuously. Personally I like the challenge of shooting fishtails, makes the spotter really get involved in the shooting decisions.
To learn this stuff do as RIc suggested, go out and do the dreaded thing that most hunters cannot buy into - keep good notes. I hate numbers and trying to remember stuff, got to keep notes or it is gone. Notes help you learn from your misses, if you make an effort to analyze what happened with a particular shot. What you did for windage compared to what you should have done for windage for a particular shot - that kind of detail is where you start to learn this stuff. Unfortunately the conditions are not static, so just because you missed by a foot to the left on the last shot, moving over one foot may or may not be an appropriate adjustment.
Here is what a lot of guys do - look through the spotter for a while and get a mental feel for what the mirage is doing, veg is doing. Look for an average mirage effect, plus the wind-waves occuring in the grass if there is any etc. Try to learn to see a particular average effect or appearance through the scope that can be called the "condition" that you want to shoot at - sort of an average wind velocity and angle thing. What this does is give you some confidence that when you see the condition, three minutes or whatever of windage will be about right. When you see that condition, you will already have the three minutes windage on so send the shot. This is a good bottom line method, but it takes experience that only comes with shooting in a wide variety of wind and making a real effort to understand how come your bullets flew where they did. After a while your brain will get comfortable with the ability to see a condition, when the winds drop or increase above it you will know that is happening. Then you either wait for your wind-condition to come back or take-off or apply some wind and let her fly. The optimum is to be able to look through the spotting scope and "see" a four minute condition or six or whatever.
Hope that this makes a bit of sense, it is not easy to learn and not easy to describe, but it is pretty doable if you work at it. I was fortunate to obtain tutoring from some incredible instructors over the years, particularly Bobby and Steve at the Badlands and watching guys like that read wind proves that it can be done. I am also fortunate to have shot thousands of rounds with a guy who is a freeking machine at doing this stuff, he makes me work my butt off to keep up with him and that helps me learn this stuff.
Dave King from this site also walks the walk, have enjoyed shooting with him under some interesting weather challenges - from plus 112 to freeze-your-gonies below zero cold. You have to shoot in the bad weather because that could be what you hunt in.
Michael Eichele
Well-Known Member
Another good read is "Dead on" There are some good tips on utilizing mirage and vegatation. In sheep country where I like to hunt often times one can use patches of fog as they frequently roll in and out of the mountains. They will clue a shooter in on direction and speed. Mirage is very usefull beacuse it is almost always present, esspecially in winter as heat (although very little heat) reflects off the snow. You can actually see the wind direction and to a point guage its speed. There are also a number of wind guages out there such as the Kestral and Brunton units.
Hope that will help you get started.
Hope that will help you get started.
Ian M
Well-Known Member
Something that is significant in understanding the movement of wind over undulating terrain is to imagine what water would do - that is what wind would do. As wind moves downslope it is picking up speed and slowing down as it goes upslope - stuff like this is difficult to quanitify but it is happening. Might be a reason a bullet does not fly where you expect it to.
G
Guest
Guest
Another thing to remember.. in the mornings a breeze will move heavy cold air down hill.. as the air heats up near late morning or mid-day the breeze will begin to go up hill...
chris matthews
Well-Known Member
All these guys have givin' some good advice and I'll add to it in a little different way.....the best way to learn to read the wind is shoot.... ALOT!!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Not just wild shooting, but call your shot, and make a detailed log of what happened and what the conditions were when you broke the shot. Make it fun by doing it in a prairie dog town and explode some varmints!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Not just wild shooting, but call your shot, and make a detailed log of what happened and what the conditions were when you broke the shot. Make it fun by doing it in a prairie dog town and explode some varmints!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Ian M
Well-Known Member
I would suggest that you get a copy of the marine and army sniper manuals, both are on the net if you do a search. I think David Tubb also has some very good books on this stuff.
