I got a kestrel meter mostly to help me build a better read on the wind ...

But what I have noticed on ranges that have 600 - 1k yards on them with different flags out there - the frigg'n wind changes a lot...

If you can't shoot during the same wind, your POI moves a good deal at 1000 yards.
that kind of makes me wonder how much of a benefit using a Ballistic calculator is ...

Learn to read the wind boys....

Duh....

For the new guy getting into long range shooting where would you direct him for a reference on reading wind?

Beats me, my wind is broken.

start shooting long range, a lot! you learn from experience and the other shooters. What parta the country are you in?

find Nancy Tompkins' book on prone & long range... wait here... found it:

http://www.rifleshootingbynancy.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xv5tyQ3pKQ

http://www.brownells.com/shooting-a...long-range-rifle-shooting-prod57200.aspx

shoot good!

Poole

Books for reference -

The Wind Book for Rifle Shooters

Reading The Wind, Jim Owens

Then go shoot - often and a lot no matter the weather.

You broke wind?

It's breaking again, as I type this. Yesterday was hell. I was trout fishing. In chest waders.

Reading wind isn't learned by reading books...

A lot of people find this hard to believe, but shooting in the wind really helps with learning to shoot in the wind.




Dave

Yep, and fishing in chest waders helps you learn about making better diet choices.

DOOD... That's deep!

Now I'm going back to pondering where navel fuzz comes from.

This.

I'm a firm believer in 2nd shot kill - as long as my spotter can call my shot effectively I just adjust and connect, normally I can do this in under 2 seconds (good tack shooter - hence my login name)... It does help though when I anchor on the first round though 🙄

That's exactly how I always do it sometimes.

So what is the latest fad?

60% of the time... it works every time...

Grey Goose enemas. Give it a shot.

Sounds good, I will be in Wyoming and plan to get alot of trigger time in.

Only from KA

I can dope wind by paying attention to how the breezes strikes my face and by watching mirage as I look through a 10X scope on my 22 LR's. At times I may point as much as a foot left or right and lob them right in on ground squirrels. It's taken me thousands of rounds each spring though to reach that level. I'd likely wear out barrels trying to attain the same skills with my centerfires.

That is a trend straight from Tejas! Most Californians taste is all in their mouths!!!!

Very possibly second lesson once a guy learns that wind can do some weird [bleep].... Do wind at 200, left wind at 600, type stuff..

If you shoot with a scope that is moving around in the wind, and your shooting far enough to it moves ALOT.... It Really, really pisses you off.

Best lesson to learn about wind (don't piss into it)

The only time I don't shoot in the wind is when I'm working up a load.

Eggs-frickin-zactly! I have guys asking me to take them shooting all the time. When I let 'em know to get their gear together, they reply it's too windy and they don't want to waste their ammo. Get off the bench and shoot in the wind, rain and snow. Use your pack, a rock or tree limb for a rest. Have your spotter buddy talk you onto your "target" rock. Then range and hit it, without standing up, within 5-10 seconds before it walks away.

Bob

I guess all the years at 600-1000 the wife and I did with irons and 223, taught us a bit.

I'm constantly amazed at what amazes folks. Especially with all the data thats out there on the net these days that was not when we started.

Get out and shoot. The windier it was the happier I was. That wind in a match ruined a lot of my competition mentally before the first shot was ever fired.

I was mad when 9/11 shut down Camp Bullis. It had some tough wind, toughest likely, that I've ever shot it.

Satisfaction was wind picking up and dialing a lot of extra moa on and shooting an X at 1000, followed by a visible complete reversal. All I can say is that IIRC there was somewhere around 30 moa correction for my next shot. Which was an X.

You don't do that by being scared to shoot in conditions. You learn to watch everything from firing line to target and look at the lay of the land, where the wind comes from and so on, as to get a good idea of whats possible.

Hell you confuse most folks when you discuss the fact that mirage alone, affects the windage of shot, vs what the wind actually does. Such that if you have mirage and wind, and the mirage goes away, you still have to correct for wind, but even if the wind is perfectly the same, your shot will still land off if you don't correct for that fact that the mirage is missing....

You don't learn without missing.

Long term shooting goals=to shoot in a place where the wind only blows in one direction at a time

I try to be upwind or downwind when I shoot prairie dogs.. When it's really windy

I tried to shoot some prairie dogs at 150-250 yds in a 40 mph crosswind with my unbraked 7mm-08 XP 100 and no spotter. I learned where not to aim, not much else.

Use your best SWAG...shoot....and holler SCHITT!!

I used to carry my wind gauge as a way to learn what wind caused different motion of the vegetation preferably lower vegetation like bushes. That way I could start to understand what wind caused the motion I would see at range.

I worked a project where we had 100's of wind profiles from 0 to 1000 yards and I don't think I ever saw one that was what I would call uniform enough that a measurement of the wind at my muzzle did much good.

Wind meters are good because the can also help with direction. Proportionally the wind has the greatest effect at the muzzle, so differences in drag at this time have longer to work on the bullet than distances down range. So a 10 mph wind at the muzzle blowing in one direction out to 50 yards will have more effect on poi than the same wind blowing in the opposite direction 50 yards from the target.
The bigger problem is that most ballistic programs cannot be input for various changes in wind. The have to be made by the shooter usually based on experience If using drops done on a program or iPhone.
Lack of time of flight is everything. One reason really fast 22s such as the 22-250 appear to have intrinsic accuracy.

Simply walk in very big circles around the target until you have a headwind or tailwind then you have no need to hold for wind

Pieter

SUPERMAN....has to make wind corrections!!

And sometimes the squirrels get tired of waiting.

They work every time. Sighter shots that is. lol

You might be on to something.

Uh huh.

First two sighters centerpunch a 3" "X" ring @ 600 yards, go for record and shot #1 is a "9"... or worse.

it is not time of flight, it is how much velocity the bullet sheds, or 'lag time', that dictates drift.

Nope. Longer the the bullet is in flight the longer all drag forces can have an effect on its ballistic profile. A projectile with zero time of flight between two coordinates will be a straight line. Drift is a function of drag on some part of the bullet and is not more molecules (denser air ) on one side affecting the projectile. Obviously this changes as the projectile passes the sound barrier on either side.

Lag time can be thought of as how long the bullet is on the target which is dependent on velocity and is the third derivative. Depending on the construction of the bullet will dictate to a large extent how much momentum is transferred

no. don't think about it, learn about it.

"Actual wind deflection is directly proportional to lag time and wind speed." page 68, 'Applied Ballistics for Long Range Shooting', by Bryan Litz.

here's the math:

deflection (in feet)=crosswind speed in FPS x lag time

and this produces the same results as ballistics programs.

If it's easier for you to visualize think of time of flight in terms of length/time be my guest..
Using time of flight puts the entire event in time units and there is no need to break it into length sectors.
What the ballistic programs return from there inputs is based on there programming. Some on the internet simply use polynomial fitting curves and some others use algorhythms using stepped difference equations. Hopefully they will use one out of the NAG library that is generally accepted.if they are using fitting curves hopefully they have tested it against these to test for errors that are inherent in large calculations.
Fortunately the degree of precision needed dealing with guns and bullets isn't inherently high in the machine its self

It would be nice if the programs would allow multiple inputs at varying distances to reflect actual shooting conditions.

again, read my post above slowly so you can understand.

LAG time, not TOF is the key.

or maybe you'd like to point out where the drift formula above is incorrect?

Lag time is simply the difference between the actual and vacuum velocities.
It represents the differential change under these conditions.
TOF is not liked in the long range shooting community because drift is not drop, and TOF represents drop.
Which just means light wt. lower bc bullets need to be pushed faster,
So we end up with a rule of thumb that works because of the physical limitations of the device being used.

lag time is the difference between 'vacuum TOF' and actual TOF, not velocities.

we are talking drift here, right, given the title of the thread?

Lag time is not a new concept. The British used it with SMLEs it came around again during rifle silhouette in the 80s, reintroduced in the 90s and again in the middle2000. MDT chassis people have a good read on their web, and Benchrest people have stuff around 2007.
If it were that great everybody would be usuing it and no body would miss. (That Nobody too)
It's just another tool like TOF.
Off topic but the current limitation to the whole party is flame front velocities of propellants.