Holding off or dialing windage

Jason

Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2001
Messages
18
Location
Timaru New Zealand
Hello, Do you guys prefer to dial in your windage corrections or use hold off? I have been trying both and having good success with dialing in windage. Never tried it until recently but seems to be working well on my .223 with a Leupold Mark 2 6-18. I use that rifle to practice with a lot.
My long range deer gun is a 7mm mag with a Leupold 4.5-14 LR with a M1 turret on the elevation and standard on windage, I'm starting to think a turret on windage would be good too.
What to most other longrangers prefer to use? Thanks
 
If you have a good MOA or MIL reticle you can do either, depending on the circumstances. That is why I like a good MOA reticle.
This is personal preference.
 
When the wind is gusting I like to hold off according to the wind as I am reading to shoot. I can't crank the dials and stay on target fast enough as the wind changes.
 
I use an MOA reticle with good results. Never tried dialing because it seems slow for hunting and I'm no good with which way to dial for left and right under pressure.
 
i always dial for wind. I find that if the wind is gusting I will determine what the most constant wind is and dial for it and then wait on the shot for the those wind conditions. After all adjusting for wind at long range is only your best possible guess anyway, with all the different winds and effects that take place along the bullet path. Just my 2 cents though.
 
For me it depends on the situation. Time and circumstances permitted, I will dial it every time. No time or have to shoot from the hip for other reasons, I will hold off.

I will cite one example. In 2007 on kodiak island on the last moring of our deer hunt the wind was pretty harsh. We were on a knob glassing accross a fairly large gorge It was very steep and deep. I spotted a couple of bucks and had plenty of time to dial the knobs for elevation and windage. The range was between 500 and 510 yards (I dont remember exactly). After getting a reading on my wind guage, I dialed accordingly. My gut told me that the wind was going to be twice the speed in the middle of the valley versus where I was, but I dialed for the speed where we were and let her fly. It was obviously a miss. My buddies couldnt see the bullet's trail nor where it impacted. I fired once more. Same results. My gut told me that I was most likely shooting behind the buck from the wind and not enough windage. I wasnt sure how much more to dial it so I let instincts do the work. I set the windage back to zero, held off to where it looked right, about 10-12" behind his rump and let her fly again. The bullet went perfectly into the boiler.

After he dropped and matching the math to the actual event my gut was right. It was twice as fast accross the middle of the gorge. It was nearly 20 MPH. This marked one of my best shots to date, not because of the range but the wind in conjunction with the range made it special to me, even if it wasnt a first round hit.
 
i always dial for wind. I find that if the wind is gusting I will determine what the most constant wind is and dial for it and then wait on the shot for the those wind conditions. After all adjusting for wind at long range is only your best possible guess anyway, with all the different winds and effects that take place along the bullet path. Just my 2 cents though.


What ever works best for each individual. Dialing for an average wind in gusty conditions is how I started. The more I shot the more it became apparent that I did much better holding off using my gut feeling as to where the bullet would hit
 
I always hold off as accurately as i possibly can depending on the subtension of the reticle i'm using. That's why i like the tree reticle designs. U can calculate a very precise system of reference if using something like the Rapid-Z's, Rapid Reticle or some of Holland's reticles. Now whether i've read (guessed) the wind right or not is a different story.
 
I hold off for wind- Use the turrets for elevation ( since distance is known thanks to the rangefinder), but hold off for wind becasue I can make a correction faster if I guessed wrong.Using a mil. based scope, FFP.
 
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