Its all about the wind!
(From my old class I use to teach at gunwerks)
its even better now, at Barbour Creek!
"I've met a few shooters who could glance downrange through a spotting scope and quickly observe the angle of the mirage, movement of the vegetation, and other visual cues and instantly tell you the wind speed and direction with the same ease as reciting their home address. While I'm NOT one of those guys, luckily Instructor James Eagleman is.
The biggest value from the whole experience may have been sitting behind a spotting scope for a couple days beside a guy who not only could read the wind, but could explain exactly how he was doing that. James shared ton of practical tips, including things like what magnification setting your spotting scope should be on to make it easiest to read, where you should set the focus relative to your target, what you should look at to see mirage the best, how to rotate your view to find the exact wind direction, among other things. Most of these tips were subtle improvements, but when you put them together … it makes a huge difference.
James Teaching How To Read The Wind
But, the most valuable thing was just the interactive conversation with James while we all sat behind spotting scopes looking down range. A student might say, "Hey, I'm seeing ____, does that mean …?" James might answer "Yeah, you see how it is …" or "No, if you're seeing that you're focus may be set beyond the target and you're seeing an optical illusion. You should …" We were fortunate to have some strong, switching winds during our few days in Wyoming. Often the wind would pick up or change direction, and students would eventually say "See that?! It looks like the wind just picked up closer to 12 mph" or "It looks like the wind switched from 4 o'clock around to 7 o'clock."
During all this we were in an enclosed shooting area with big garage doors flipped up, which forced us to make calls based on what we were seeing downrange and not what you felt at your location. Studies have shown when people lose one of their senses (e.g. sight, hearing) other senses often become heightened. For example, if you're blind, you might hear things others may not notice. Because the facility setup didn't allow us to fall back on feeling the wind change, it forced us to sharpen and calibrate our ability to sense what the wind was doing purely based on what we were seeing downrange. In the past, I was always quick to pull out my handy Kestrel and get a wind measurement at my location, and my wind call was primarily based off that reading. We all know the wind may be MUCH different downrange than it is at your location, but my wind meter had become a crutch I used to avoid honing my ability to visually estimate the wind downrange. This class forced me to isolate and develop a muscle I'd previously neglected. Now when I add back in the ability to measure a baseline wind measurement with my Kestrel and combine that with what I'm seeing downrange, I can make much more informed wind calls.
L2, we paired up and had one student behind a rifle and the other behind a spotting scope. The shooter dialed the elevation adjustment for a 1000 yard steel plate, and was instructed to simply hold whatever wind adjustment the spotter called for. Bob was my partner, and he's an outstanding marksman. So I knew any left to right spread on the target would solely be a result of my wind calls. No pressure!
While I was on the spotting scope, Bob fired a string of 10 shots and during that time I remember calling for corrections ranging from 3 MOA left to 1 MOA right (that's about 0.8 mils left to 0.3 mils right for metric guys). The winds were shifty! At the end of 10 shots, ALL of our impacts were stacked within 2" of the bullseye on that 1000 yard target! After repainting the targets, we swapped positions, and Bob was able to replicate the results with me behind the rifle.
I told James my experience felt similar to The Matrix when Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) was finally able to look at all the 1's and 0's and make sense out of it! It was like my eyes had been opened to a whole new world of information! Am I now a wind expert? Nope. But, I've come a long way, and feel like I now have a foundation on which I can build on with experience. I'm not sure there is a more effective way to learn to read the wind"
Carl Zant
his write up is on precision rifle blog
(From my old class I use to teach at gunwerks)
its even better now, at Barbour Creek!
"I've met a few shooters who could glance downrange through a spotting scope and quickly observe the angle of the mirage, movement of the vegetation, and other visual cues and instantly tell you the wind speed and direction with the same ease as reciting their home address. While I'm NOT one of those guys, luckily Instructor James Eagleman is.
The biggest value from the whole experience may have been sitting behind a spotting scope for a couple days beside a guy who not only could read the wind, but could explain exactly how he was doing that. James shared ton of practical tips, including things like what magnification setting your spotting scope should be on to make it easiest to read, where you should set the focus relative to your target, what you should look at to see mirage the best, how to rotate your view to find the exact wind direction, among other things. Most of these tips were subtle improvements, but when you put them together … it makes a huge difference.
James Teaching How To Read The Wind
But, the most valuable thing was just the interactive conversation with James while we all sat behind spotting scopes looking down range. A student might say, "Hey, I'm seeing ____, does that mean …?" James might answer "Yeah, you see how it is …" or "No, if you're seeing that you're focus may be set beyond the target and you're seeing an optical illusion. You should …" We were fortunate to have some strong, switching winds during our few days in Wyoming. Often the wind would pick up or change direction, and students would eventually say "See that?! It looks like the wind just picked up closer to 12 mph" or "It looks like the wind switched from 4 o'clock around to 7 o'clock."
During all this we were in an enclosed shooting area with big garage doors flipped up, which forced us to make calls based on what we were seeing downrange and not what you felt at your location. Studies have shown when people lose one of their senses (e.g. sight, hearing) other senses often become heightened. For example, if you're blind, you might hear things others may not notice. Because the facility setup didn't allow us to fall back on feeling the wind change, it forced us to sharpen and calibrate our ability to sense what the wind was doing purely based on what we were seeing downrange. In the past, I was always quick to pull out my handy Kestrel and get a wind measurement at my location, and my wind call was primarily based off that reading. We all know the wind may be MUCH different downrange than it is at your location, but my wind meter had become a crutch I used to avoid honing my ability to visually estimate the wind downrange. This class forced me to isolate and develop a muscle I'd previously neglected. Now when I add back in the ability to measure a baseline wind measurement with my Kestrel and combine that with what I'm seeing downrange, I can make much more informed wind calls.
L2, we paired up and had one student behind a rifle and the other behind a spotting scope. The shooter dialed the elevation adjustment for a 1000 yard steel plate, and was instructed to simply hold whatever wind adjustment the spotter called for. Bob was my partner, and he's an outstanding marksman. So I knew any left to right spread on the target would solely be a result of my wind calls. No pressure!
I told James my experience felt similar to The Matrix when Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) was finally able to look at all the 1's and 0's and make sense out of it! It was like my eyes had been opened to a whole new world of information! Am I now a wind expert? Nope. But, I've come a long way, and feel like I now have a foundation on which I can build on with experience. I'm not sure there is a more effective way to learn to read the wind"
Carl Zant
his write up is on precision rifle blog
