Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics How does rain affect point of impact and accuracy

MILES58: Take my advice and DON'T bet a lot of your dollars on your contention!
For DECADES I shot at the Seattle (Duwamish) SPAA Range on the tide flats on the south edge of that city.
I sometimes shot 3 or 4 times per week - often, VERY OFTEN, it would be raining!
Sometimes raining hard.
I shot a plethora of high speed centerfire Rifles/cartridges including 220 Swift, 17 Remington, 6mm Remington Ackley Improved, 22-250 Remington etc etc etc.
Never once did I have a projectile fail to reach the target - nor could I ever once attribute a loss of accuracy (blown group) to any watery climatic condition - usually I caught myself flinching or jerking the trigger when a shot placed outside the normal grouping.
I am about 99% certain that rain drops do not affect a speedy bullets flight - at least out to 100 and 200 yards as I have shot many thousands of them in such conditions.
This contention of mine is based entirely on my own personal experience as I don't recall ever reading any scientific studies done on this bullets in the rain situation.
I could be wrong but I don't think so - I will only bet you $1.00 (U.S.) on the outcome of your hose making rain vs. bullet flight testing.
I say the bullets will not be affected by droplets - they of course would be affected by flying through a stream or a flow of water.
Interesting question - if perhaps unanswerable?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

for those that do not believe it is possible for a fast 6 mm bullet to hit a rain drop.

i know of a video taken at a very large shoot that clearly shows a great group ruined on the last shot when the bullet hit a drop of water. you can see it hit and the result was a low shot [ that did hit paper ]

my guess is the results are random. i feel fairly certain i have hit raindrops when shooting in the rain, but without proof i usually chalk it up to sticky bags and the like causing the vertical. i do not remember any that did not reach the target.

a sticky bag can cause at least a bullet hole of vertical and make it hard to detect if the bullet hit something or not. if you get a couple inches at 200 yd that's different from bad form or bag set up.

I too have never found any detriment to accuracy shooting in the rain. I know that shooting through even 1/4" of water will fragment a Hornady 50 grain SPSX bullet at 3500+ fps. I have shot in a lot of rain and never lost a bullet in flight. I do like being able to see the wind when shooting in rain and snow.