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

I do believe that I suffer from numb 'n' twitchy finger syndrome whenever one of my rifles makes its way to a benchrest...

Just let your sister shoot it and we'll see how it really groups....

-1

It's not always the same in forward and reverse but there is always a forward and reverse...

Aic

Think improved choke...

KITB...

Well, no there's not. But in this case there is

And in this case, the reverse includes the rain drop pushing back on the air molecules, which are already behind the bullet as new molecules fill the pressure wave ahead....

Not affecting accuracy by much does not mean it does not affect� Ito has a lemma on it�

Aic

I know. I owe tanner a public apology....Sorry tanner buddy....

Here's another way of looking at it. Could be totally off of the mark, so take it for what it may or may not be.

Both the raindrop and bullet are both being acted upon by the exact downward vector (gravity), so could a raindrop really fall onto a bullet in the first place? They are dropping at the same rate. So in my eyes a raindrop couldn't effect the bullet on the vertical plane.

Now if the bullet were to potentially hit the raindrop on the horizontal plane I guess you could think of it as an arm swinging towards a feather. A direct hit would have some type of an effect but the time interval and force of such hit would be minimal (obviously the longer the bullet travels in such case the more off course it could become, but between all the factors stated previously you shouldn't see much change.)

I'm going to shoot a raindrop and see.

Kinetic energy, momentum, rain displacement, chromatic aberration..... Does anyone just shoot anymore?




To the OP- fret not, bust caps.

ha ha good point formidilosus

Ought to move this thread to the Humor, Jokes and Riddles section.

Yup.

My biggest New England whitetail came at 300 yards on a miserable day,just sopping,flat rock raining....despite its' considerable ballistic challenges,the crummy 130 gr 270 bullet hit and did considerable damage.He did a mid air 180 and landed with a huge splash in the swamp.... I was never so glad to get out of a stand....

Last year I watched my pal stick 4 175 TBBC's from a 7mm Mashburn into a 6" orange dot at 600 yards.....pouring rain that day,too. I stayed dry while he did it.

If rain changes POI or otherwise causes a problem,it's beyond my ability to observe it.

I do like to see the spurt of water off wet hides though....I watched a guy in New Brunswick shoot a buck at about 200 yards with a 270 and 130 gr bullet in the rain.At impact the water radiated out from his body in a halo as he collapsed.

I thought this was pretty good, given the cartridge and bullet's reputation on here for being the terminal equivilent of a ping pong ball...

OK. Here's the deal for you non believers.

I will set up a garden hose to produce good size "rain drops" and shoot .224 bullets through it at somewhere around or just above 3000 FPS. I will use 35 grain VMaxs and Nosler 35 grain lead free bullets.

I will take any and all bets that not only will they deflect, but that some of them will never make it to the target.

This won't be a fair test as some of your "rain drops" will likely weigh 400 pounds!

If you can explain how to make a 50 gallon rain drop hold together out of a garden hose we might entertain your objection. Otherwise, we have enough mindless drivel in this thread.

Even shooting through a small stream of water proves the concept that the shockwave is not capable of preventing alteration in bullet path until the "rain drops" become very small.

Rain drops would be a poor and humorous excuse for missing.

Anyway, I'm sure some of the competition shooters have shot tournaments in the rain while they themselves have been roofed over. Has overall or average group size increased? Has normal winning group size increased? Of course rain is often accompained with wind which would change things.

I doubt it and even if the groups have increased I'm thinking that it would be insignificantly small.

For the testers out there, remember also that you don't see the target as we'll in a good downpour and therefor you will not shoot as well.

Shooting targets out to 300yards in the rain my rifles showed no change in grouping capability.

strange topic for an optics forum
cross wind and water do not vector against the bullet, they change the drag on the other side causing the direction change. there exists a probability that the drag change could "correct" a slightly bad shot in both cases. Humidity,(clouds and such) are less dense than air and rise, (one of the reasons they are included when running ballistic programs.) The actual volume of air used by the bullet path contains both rain drops and rising air. The total volume is far greater than the volume of the actual water in the form of drops. Next the concept which includes the time of flight, mass of the bullet,bc of the bullet, and can change with each of the inputs. The probability the bullet even contacts a drop. Add to this -- its very hard to shoot long distances in the rain. Previous posts assume a collision, when the question just asks what happens when you shoot in the rain. There is a still shot on the internet of a bullet being shot thru and apple, which I enjoy. It illustrates a good point. The flight path of the bullet is barely affected. Because the apple is very homogeneous and the drag forces are equal at every point on the bullet. therefore no deflection. (except slower velocity) The same happens with a rain drop. Unless the density of the rain drop is enough to start bullet expansion, (and change the drag on one side) no effect will be made on the bullet .
Please no post about skipping bullets off rain drops.

edit to take out math