Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Wow, windflags are not cheap

~50-65 bucks a piece...

Yowch.

the ones made of wooden stakes and neon surveyor's ribbon are quite affordable

ditto.....

that's what I use. If you want to get high tech, get some of the plastic sticks for propping up garden plants.

If you REALLY want to be extravagant, you can use a $4.00 metal fence pole with your orange surveyor's tape, but be warned, you might have to replace the tape every 6 months or so. I think the little birdies use it for making nests.

Even more expensive when you consider you need tri-pods to put them on.

Spotshooter: Back when I had to work for a living and could not choose my times/days to shoot I had a variety of portable wind indicators.
I made them all myself in a variety of styles, shapes, sizes and they were all made of salvaged (free!) materials like sheet aluminum, tubular metal, ribbons and yarn and a few garden type wind wheels.
I have been retired for 16 years now and never shoot for group and load testing on a "moving air" day anymore!
On the rare occassion when I have an immediate need for a range test, and there is moving air, I just drive to my friends 107 yard long "tunnel" range - no moving air in there.
I would not even consider paying the current prices I have seen for a moving air indicator (wind flag).
I do have a wind gauge for use afield when Hunting Varmints and Big Game - these aren't cheap either.
I would rather spend my money on rimfire ammo and components for my centerfires (when I can find any!).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VG - me too.

There is certainly some merit to a more elaborate wind flag that can give you a better indication of actual wind speed, since bullet drift differs between a 5mph wind and a 12 mph wind.

I used the surveyor�s tape on wooden dowels stuck in the ground. If one has a benchmark of wind speed to gauge their variation from hanging straight down (vertical) one could calibrate that to actual wind speed.

For reference, I use 2� long tape and my calibrations came out:
30-40 degrees from vertical � Hey, it�s almost dead calm today.
45-60 degrees from vertical � It�s pretty windy today.
60-90 degrees from vertical - Holy sh*t, that damn wind is blowing today.
90 degrees and snapping � Well, do I waste my ammo today or not?
Wind flag blows away into the next county � Screw it, time to go home.

That sounds about right for Idaho wind!

I received wind speed gauging training ( although I didn't pay much attention to it) on range flags in the military, I did pay attention the second time when I was learning High Power competition.

But I was referring to what bench rest commercial flags cost...

PM Sent.

Don't laugh, but the shooter who used this rig won at least one BPCR silhouette national championship. I took this pic positioned next to him and his partner at the smallbore version of that game.

Paul

thought this was interesting:

It's always fun to see a fellow with a sense of humour take a swipe at the people that take themselves too serious. And it's not a bad thing that those same folks are usually the ones that think you can buy your way into the winner's circle.

I might be out of my pay grade, but if you're referring to 16bore's wind value chart, I don't think it's a joke. I know I've seen such things, but never bothered to study them enough to get a good grasp on how they work. My deficiency.

Maybe somebody with a better understanding of how they work could clarify.

Paul

I remember a project in Boys' Life where you made a cut-out of the Boy Scout Burro, then applied a tail made of string or some such to be used as a weather indicator. If the tail was wet, it was raining. If it was dry, it wasn't. If it was moving, it was windy. If it blew away, it was stormy.

If you want to learn to read wind flags or a windicator you should find an IBS shoot and go, they are some pretty good flag readers there. I like the windicator better than the flags.
they sure do work, when you are trying to shoot a 1/16 dot at 100yrds.

No, I was referring to the wind flags made from a can and plastic bag.