Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting Shooting Mirage?

Was trying to shoot my STW the other day and the mirage was making me crazy. The bullseye looked like a ball floating on the sea. Was using a fixed 36 power scope so I couldn't lower the power to make it less visible. So what's the best way to shoot mirage?

Last summer, I was working with a 600 yd. rifle, shooting off a bench over a bean field. I had no breeze, but a terrible, boiling mirage. I managed to shoot around 10"-12" with a gun that will do 4 1/2". Most of what I've read about mirage discusses how to read the wind, using mirage. I had NO wind. One would think that the true target would be slightly below the mirage target, but I've never seen much written about that.

I guess the answer is to wait until it clears to do your best shooting. Very early and late seemed to work where I was shooting.

DF

There are two kinds of mirage... one is heat radiating from the ground, and can actually be fairly useful in terms of 'seeing' what the wind is doing down range. The other kind comes from a warm barrel, especially with higher magnification scopes like yours. This kind of mirage is more annoying, makes the target appear like you're looking thru a fish tank

If its just the last few shots when the mirage gets bad, one trick is to lean slightly to the side and simply blow down the length of the barrel steadily for 4-5 seconds - and then get back on the gun and shoot before the mirage builds back up again. You don't actually 'cool' the barrel so much as you disrupt the air currents from the heat off the barrel for a few seconds. Trust me, it works in a pinch. A better solution is to buy or make some sort of mirage band to the barrel.

If the mirage is not from the barrel, but truly is down range, you can use it to get a feel for how the wind is shifting closer to the target. Try to pick one condition (left or right) and stick with it. Try to avoid shooting in a boil (straight up) as when it changes to left or right, you may find your shot not only going left or right, but also getting some vertical due to the optical displacement of the target by the mirage.

Some days it just gets so hideously 'muddy' looking that picking out a precise aiming point is almost impossible. If you don't have to (just a range day) I'd say save your time and ammo, as its not going to be conducive to anything like load testing, etc. If you have to shoot any way (like a match), or just want to practice... try finding an average point between the oscillations of the target image and hold there. Works some of the time...

Monte you covered that very well.

For those that want to know the why of... its the pencil stuck in the glass of water effect. The target is NOT where you think it is, and htats why it looks like its movign.

If you want to verify this, and if you by chance are having clouds at the same time off and on... set your gun up and center the target the best you can when its cloudy and let it sit on the bags withotu touching... wait till the mirage comes back... look again without touching... you'll be amazed at how far off the crosshairs look... leave it alone until the mirage goes away again... look again, without moving... it'll be dead center.

As to not shooting in boils, all I have to say is thats what everyone alwasy told us in highpower, until a BR shooter joined our groups and taught me if its boiling shoot as fast as you can with zero wind and you'll be amazed. Granted our 10 ring for iron sights is 2 MOA at 600, but you could easily stay inside that with lots of Xs...

For ammo testing in summer when its bad, I wait until about 10 pm, go put the truck headlights ont he target and shoot all my test loads in teh dark with no mirage.... usually little or no wind too!!!

rost, thanks for that tip. My question is how much, if any, adjustment up or down for a boiling mirage?

DF

I typically ended up about .5 moa down in a boiling mirage BUT its really all dependant on how "thick" that boil is.

The big thing in boils though that could kill you with irons... if you get ANY direction, its going to push you horizontally.

And remember how big our target was.... vs targets you normally shoot at with a scoped rifle... With scope I always ended up happier with less power in bad mirage... it was mental though, because your brain is happier seeing less uncontrollable movement than seeing more....

I've found that if you watch the mirage long enough you may see a point where the target will snap to it's true position and then the boil will start up again. Trick is to pick your POA when the mirage is down, don't move the crosshairs when the boil starts back up again. You have to trick your brain into not moving your crosshairs to compensate for the target shift. Little easier when shooting benchrest or witha bipod and sandbag, not so much when you're shooting sling and jacket...

I don't believe you can put a numerical value on how much to hold off, there's a reason why conventional wisdom says don't shoot in a boil. You WILL get burned!

One reason why I like a Variable when I am shooting my Fclass guns - I can turn the power down when stuff is getting weird out there- what I dpon't see doesn't bother me!!LOL!
I have a hard time telling a new shooter just how much to
hold over, I pretty much just do from memory!

Cat

Have done the boil shooting a lot on our keller highpower targets.. have yet to get burned elevation wise in a boil and its led to a number of match winning 200s on the prone slow line... I still don't like doing it due to all the old rumors about it...