I began shooting seriously this February. I am working on really nailing down Prone since it is an event in and of itself. I will one day branch out to shooting both Prone and 3-Position. I am shooting at the Nationals in Fort Benning and it will be my first competition (talk about getting my feet wet). I don't expect to win, but I do expect to learn a ton and get better as a result. I consistently shoot 586-590, however, I have only ever shot indoors. The idea of having to read the wind makes me very nervous.
All that being said, does anyone have any advice on how to read the wind using the flags or any other bits of information that would be useful.
Any and all wisdom is GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks.
E
Reading the Wind
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proneshooter
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Thedrifter
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bpscCheney
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What Norton, McPhail, and Parker basically told me is look for a regular wind pattern and sight in for this wind pattern. If the wind changes whilst you are shooting wait for it to return to the regular pattern. If it does not return make a very educated guess and adjust your sights accordingly, i.e. if you're sighted in for no wind and a 5mph cross wind becomes the only wind out there you might want to click your sights to correct this, but in the event that the previous condition returns remember what your sight settings were for an easier change. Another thing they recommended was to 'shade' your sights ,instead of adjusting, for a brief wind condition change. This is done by simply holding a bit off of center with your sights but I caution that this is pretty hard to do right off the bat, a slight shade can throw a shot 1.5-2 points out of the bull.
Basically pick the dominant wind condition, look for it when shooting, and only shoot in this condition.
P.S. Benning has very little wind due to the nice wind blocks they have the entire length of the range and will block out some of the wind but not all. The wind when I was there in March was at worst 10mph gusts with a calm breeze.
Basically pick the dominant wind condition, look for it when shooting, and only shoot in this condition.
P.S. Benning has very little wind due to the nice wind blocks they have the entire length of the range and will block out some of the wind but not all. The wind when I was there in March was at worst 10mph gusts with a calm breeze.
On top of what everyone else has said, remember that if you're not trying to shoot a 10.9 every shot it doesn't matter what the wind is doing because you won't get full value for your efforts. A good friend pointed that out to me one day when I was complaining and it's stuck with me ever since.
The next time it gets windy at your range, don't pack up and go home -- keep shooting to see just how much a little puff of wind can move your shots. You'll be surprised by how much they're affected and what you can get away with, too. Proper ISSF wind flags are a big help for this.
Jason
The next time it gets windy at your range, don't pack up and go home -- keep shooting to see just how much a little puff of wind can move your shots. You'll be surprised by how much they're affected and what you can get away with, too. Proper ISSF wind flags are a big help for this.
Jason
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Metookevin
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You need to learn wind direction & effect on projectile impact, then apply shading to your indoor training. You can practise 5 shot groups at 10 o'clock, then 5 shots at 4 o'clock- 9 ring, 8 ring locations, etc. With current issf time limits there is little future in waiting on the wind in a match, except for rare instances. Shading also maintains consistent cycle times which I think is another important benefit. Shading also teaches you what wind conditions actually do to the point of impact. My experience of mirage suggests it magnifies the effect of wind direction. A spotting scope is invaluable for seeing mirage and note some shooters use scopes on electronic scoring systems.
Cheers
Cheers
Tried to find a few links for you explaining how the wind affects your shot, but couldn’t find any, so here are my thoughts as a 585-590 level shooter at 50m (outdoors).
The wind will blow your shots around. It’s usually not by much. It won’t make you miss the black, for example, but it is typically enough to turn 10s into 9s and 8s (and occasionally 7s if you really get it wrong). All you have on the range to gauge the wind are the two sets of flags, one at 10m from the firing point and one at 30m. These may sound like odd choices of distances, but they are 40m and 20m from the target, respectively.
As others have said, the safest strategy for coping with wind is to study the flags either side of your lane, decide what is the most common wind condition and only shoot on that condition. This guarantees some measure of consistency. However, in my experience, it’s rare to be able to get through a whole match in the allocated time, shooting on just one wind, particularly now that the time is down to 50 minutes. So instead, people use their sighting/prep time to sight in on the most common wind condition and also to work out how far to aim off for a few different wind conditions (aka ‘shading’) and/or how many clicks on the sights to go between a few different wind conditions (aka ‘clicking’). This allows them to shoot on multiple wind conditions through the match. There are pros and cons to aiming off vs adjusting your sights to go between wind conditions. Aiming off can be a bit of an art at times, requiring good judgement. Adjusting your sights, on the other hand, is more consistent, but takes more time to do (physically altering the sights and resettling into position, getting zero point etc.) and if the wind is ‘flicky’ (ie changing direction or strength frequently) it can easily change whilst you are settling back into position, making it hard to adjust and get an accurate shot off.
To know how to aim off or adjust your sights, you need to know how the wind affects the trajectory of the shot. The wind can blow from any direction. However, it is helpful to think of the wind in terms of the component that blows purely up/down-range and the component that blows purely left-to-right or right-to-left across the range. For example, a wind coming from the front right corner of the range is a little bit up-range and a little bit right-to-left across range. These two components affect the trajectory in different ways, so we’ll look at each in turn.
Think of the target as a clock face. Left-to-right or right-to-left cross range winds blow the bullet to the right or to the left, respectively. However, because the bullet is spinning, the wind will blow the shot on a 10 o’clock - 4 o’clock axis, not a 9 o’clock - 3 o’clock as you might instinctively expect.
The trajectory of a .22 round is such that it is rising as it leaves the barrel, it reaches the top of it’s trajectory at about 35m and it is on it’s way down as it passes through the target at 50m. Introducing a strong wind from behind the shooter makes the bullet travel faster down-range and so it reaches the top of its trajectory a little closer to the target and, when it passes through the target, it hasn’t dropped as far from the top of its trajectory. As a result, the shot goes high. When the wind blows up-range, the bullet travels slower, the top of the trajectory is a little further from the target and the shots drops lower than it would do in the absence of wind.
If you were aiming off to compensate for stronger up range wind than that on which you had sighted in, you’d aim a little high (12 o’clock). If it was a stronger down range wind, you’d aim a little low (6 o’clock). If it was a strong left-to-right wind, you’d aim to 10 o’clock and it it was a strong right-to-left wind, you’d aim to 4 o’clock. It gets more complicated when you have a wind that isn’t coming from purely one of these directions. If the wind was coming from the front right of the range, you have to combine aiming off at 4 o’clock (right-to-left) with aiming off at 12 o’clock (up-range), meaning that you would have to aim off at 1 or 2 o’clock. If you are clicking the sights instead of aiming off, then the same principles apply.
It’s worth getting time on a 50m range to train if you can. All shooters learn by trial-and-error and you’ll be surprised how easy it is, provided you have solid technical skills. There’s a bit of an optical illusion when you are aiming off that works in your favor. Adjusting your aim enough so that you are pointing in the 9 ring looks, through the sights, like you are pointing at the edge of the black. Adjusting your aim for the 8 ring, feels like you are pointing into the white. It's bizarre, but it's true. With that much variation in your sight picture, in time you can learn to finely control your aiming-off.
Two other things worth mentioning. I) The wind flags nearest the shooter have more impact on the shot than those furthest from the shooter. If the wind blows towards the end of the bullet’s trajectory then it will change the direction of the bullet’s travel, but because the bullet is near the target, it won’t have long to travel in the new direction before it hits the target. If the same wind blows at the start of the bullet’s trajectory, it will change the direction in the same way, but the bullet has much longer to travel in the new direction before hitting the target. It therefore lands further from the center. So if you only pay attention to one set of wind flags, make sure is the near ones. II) When the wind gets very strong, the flags go horizontal. NEVER shoot when this happens (unless you’re running out of time and a terrible shot is better than no shot at all). Once the flags reach horizontal you can’t tell whether the wind is continuing to get stronger or staying steady, so you don’t know what adjustments to make. Taking a shot when this happens is pot luck and it can easily end up as a 7 or 6.
Hope that this is of some help.
The wind will blow your shots around. It’s usually not by much. It won’t make you miss the black, for example, but it is typically enough to turn 10s into 9s and 8s (and occasionally 7s if you really get it wrong). All you have on the range to gauge the wind are the two sets of flags, one at 10m from the firing point and one at 30m. These may sound like odd choices of distances, but they are 40m and 20m from the target, respectively.
As others have said, the safest strategy for coping with wind is to study the flags either side of your lane, decide what is the most common wind condition and only shoot on that condition. This guarantees some measure of consistency. However, in my experience, it’s rare to be able to get through a whole match in the allocated time, shooting on just one wind, particularly now that the time is down to 50 minutes. So instead, people use their sighting/prep time to sight in on the most common wind condition and also to work out how far to aim off for a few different wind conditions (aka ‘shading’) and/or how many clicks on the sights to go between a few different wind conditions (aka ‘clicking’). This allows them to shoot on multiple wind conditions through the match. There are pros and cons to aiming off vs adjusting your sights to go between wind conditions. Aiming off can be a bit of an art at times, requiring good judgement. Adjusting your sights, on the other hand, is more consistent, but takes more time to do (physically altering the sights and resettling into position, getting zero point etc.) and if the wind is ‘flicky’ (ie changing direction or strength frequently) it can easily change whilst you are settling back into position, making it hard to adjust and get an accurate shot off.
To know how to aim off or adjust your sights, you need to know how the wind affects the trajectory of the shot. The wind can blow from any direction. However, it is helpful to think of the wind in terms of the component that blows purely up/down-range and the component that blows purely left-to-right or right-to-left across the range. For example, a wind coming from the front right corner of the range is a little bit up-range and a little bit right-to-left across range. These two components affect the trajectory in different ways, so we’ll look at each in turn.
Think of the target as a clock face. Left-to-right or right-to-left cross range winds blow the bullet to the right or to the left, respectively. However, because the bullet is spinning, the wind will blow the shot on a 10 o’clock - 4 o’clock axis, not a 9 o’clock - 3 o’clock as you might instinctively expect.
The trajectory of a .22 round is such that it is rising as it leaves the barrel, it reaches the top of it’s trajectory at about 35m and it is on it’s way down as it passes through the target at 50m. Introducing a strong wind from behind the shooter makes the bullet travel faster down-range and so it reaches the top of its trajectory a little closer to the target and, when it passes through the target, it hasn’t dropped as far from the top of its trajectory. As a result, the shot goes high. When the wind blows up-range, the bullet travels slower, the top of the trajectory is a little further from the target and the shots drops lower than it would do in the absence of wind.
If you were aiming off to compensate for stronger up range wind than that on which you had sighted in, you’d aim a little high (12 o’clock). If it was a stronger down range wind, you’d aim a little low (6 o’clock). If it was a strong left-to-right wind, you’d aim to 10 o’clock and it it was a strong right-to-left wind, you’d aim to 4 o’clock. It gets more complicated when you have a wind that isn’t coming from purely one of these directions. If the wind was coming from the front right of the range, you have to combine aiming off at 4 o’clock (right-to-left) with aiming off at 12 o’clock (up-range), meaning that you would have to aim off at 1 or 2 o’clock. If you are clicking the sights instead of aiming off, then the same principles apply.
It’s worth getting time on a 50m range to train if you can. All shooters learn by trial-and-error and you’ll be surprised how easy it is, provided you have solid technical skills. There’s a bit of an optical illusion when you are aiming off that works in your favor. Adjusting your aim enough so that you are pointing in the 9 ring looks, through the sights, like you are pointing at the edge of the black. Adjusting your aim for the 8 ring, feels like you are pointing into the white. It's bizarre, but it's true. With that much variation in your sight picture, in time you can learn to finely control your aiming-off.
Two other things worth mentioning. I) The wind flags nearest the shooter have more impact on the shot than those furthest from the shooter. If the wind blows towards the end of the bullet’s trajectory then it will change the direction of the bullet’s travel, but because the bullet is near the target, it won’t have long to travel in the new direction before it hits the target. If the same wind blows at the start of the bullet’s trajectory, it will change the direction in the same way, but the bullet has much longer to travel in the new direction before hitting the target. It therefore lands further from the center. So if you only pay attention to one set of wind flags, make sure is the near ones. II) When the wind gets very strong, the flags go horizontal. NEVER shoot when this happens (unless you’re running out of time and a terrible shot is better than no shot at all). Once the flags reach horizontal you can’t tell whether the wind is continuing to get stronger or staying steady, so you don’t know what adjustments to make. Taking a shot when this happens is pot luck and it can easily end up as a 7 or 6.
Hope that this is of some help.
There is a lot of disagreement about what effect wind has, so I will disagree with the poster above about head wind and tail winds. In a head wind the bullet is lifted up by the wind since as he rightly points out, most of the time the bullet is rising. So a bit like an aeroplane wing, it will be pushed up. POI is therefore higher. In a tail wind the reverse applies and the shot will fall lower.
All that said - I tend to mostly ignore wind, with two exceptions. I will obviously sight in under the prevailingwind conditions and note the overall pattern. I will try not to shoot in very strong gusts or big changes from the norm. I will shade if I have to but I personally find I can introduce more errors than if I just aimed for the middle (but I'm more of a casusal shooter than an elite one, 581 max). I also think you still have time to pick when you shoot even under the new rules. I think in my last match under the new rules I still finished in 35 minutes, had a rest mid match and sat out a couple of more gusty spells) - so I still had 15 mins to spare.
Rob.
All that said - I tend to mostly ignore wind, with two exceptions. I will obviously sight in under the prevailingwind conditions and note the overall pattern. I will try not to shoot in very strong gusts or big changes from the norm. I will shade if I have to but I personally find I can introduce more errors than if I just aimed for the middle (but I'm more of a casusal shooter than an elite one, 581 max). I also think you still have time to pick when you shoot even under the new rules. I think in my last match under the new rules I still finished in 35 minutes, had a rest mid match and sat out a couple of more gusty spells) - so I still had 15 mins to spare.
Rob.
One problem with waiting out the wind is that you don't know what is going to happen later in the match. Maybe after 43 shots a storm starts and if you have waited for every shift earlier then there can be some problems with the time and maybe you get forced to shade extreme amounts.
Last match that I shot the flags was pointing straight out and the wind switched from 9 O'clock to 3 O'clock wind and sometimes it came from 1 O'clock. I did shade more than half of my shots, finished in 38 minutes. At one shot I did shade to about 8,0-8,5 at 10 O'clock and the hit was a 9,7 at 4 O'clock so the wind was pretty strong.
I did won the match with my 609,5(581).
Last match that I shot the flags was pointing straight out and the wind switched from 9 O'clock to 3 O'clock wind and sometimes it came from 1 O'clock. I did shade more than half of my shots, finished in 38 minutes. At one shot I did shade to about 8,0-8,5 at 10 O'clock and the hit was a 9,7 at 4 O'clock so the wind was pretty strong.
I did won the match with my 609,5(581).
I think both Swat and Rob have good points. Observe the wind before the match, use your sighting time well. Try and pick one condition that gives reliable 10's. Bear in mind the condition may not last throughout the match so be prepared to click to the new condition.
Be observant, probably why Rob and Swat disagree about head/tailwinds is because of different ranges have different obstacles which influence the bullet flight differently. For instance, if there is a range with an upward slope into the shooter then a headwind will push the bullet high as the incoming wind has an upward vector. Yet on other ranges I have seen tailwinds lifting the bullet. So ranges do vary, observe carefully.
You need to be able to see the flags easily, use a cut down blinder to help see the flags more easily.
Sides winds shift the poi the most, beware of gusts where the wind strength lifts just as you fire. However a quartering wind only has 50-70% of the sideways vector so a full side wind of the same wind strength so quartering winds are more forgiving. Use this to your advantage if it is a windy day.
Most importantly fire good shots, more shots are lost due to shooting technique error than to the wind. Good shots make it easier to read the conditions. Take care on firing good shots, wait until the wind is approx OK then fire a really good shot. Don’t dither or the condition will change but ensure you fire good shots.
Hope this helps.
Martin
Be observant, probably why Rob and Swat disagree about head/tailwinds is because of different ranges have different obstacles which influence the bullet flight differently. For instance, if there is a range with an upward slope into the shooter then a headwind will push the bullet high as the incoming wind has an upward vector. Yet on other ranges I have seen tailwinds lifting the bullet. So ranges do vary, observe carefully.
You need to be able to see the flags easily, use a cut down blinder to help see the flags more easily.
Sides winds shift the poi the most, beware of gusts where the wind strength lifts just as you fire. However a quartering wind only has 50-70% of the sideways vector so a full side wind of the same wind strength so quartering winds are more forgiving. Use this to your advantage if it is a windy day.
Most importantly fire good shots, more shots are lost due to shooting technique error than to the wind. Good shots make it easier to read the conditions. Take care on firing good shots, wait until the wind is approx OK then fire a really good shot. Don’t dither or the condition will change but ensure you fire good shots.
Hope this helps.
Martin
Good to see Swat has found my article.
Heh. I have to discuss Rob's comments on head wind tail wind on the bullet. I have searched high and low for evidence of perfect head wind or tail wind to have the effect he suggests. That is, head wind raising the shot.
I have seen an instance where it appeared this might be so but the range had a big hole in the middle and I am of the opinion the head wind was actually rising into the bullet and yes, it did lift it but up to 11 oclock. The wind was from about 1-30.
But simple physics says that a head wind will slow it down and drop it further. A tail wind will not slow it down as much and thus it does not fall as much. It appears to rise...but it doesn't really....
Other than that as someone pointed out: Grab time on the range and have some fun NOT changing the sights once you have them zeroed in calm conditions. That way you can see where the wind takes your piece of lead.
PS: The article is posted on the same subject here:
http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=38665
Heh. I have to discuss Rob's comments on head wind tail wind on the bullet. I have searched high and low for evidence of perfect head wind or tail wind to have the effect he suggests. That is, head wind raising the shot.
I have seen an instance where it appeared this might be so but the range had a big hole in the middle and I am of the opinion the head wind was actually rising into the bullet and yes, it did lift it but up to 11 oclock. The wind was from about 1-30.
But simple physics says that a head wind will slow it down and drop it further. A tail wind will not slow it down as much and thus it does not fall as much. It appears to rise...but it doesn't really....
Other than that as someone pointed out: Grab time on the range and have some fun NOT changing the sights once you have them zeroed in calm conditions. That way you can see where the wind takes your piece of lead.
PS: The article is posted on the same subject here:
http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=38665