Old adage fails the test...

Thanks to all of you.

I don’t know why I’m concerned about something as complicated as wind flags when apparently I’m not capable of following fairly simple directions on bench, bag and other equipment issues anyway… I just returned from the range where I, with great concentration and attention to trigger technique, fired the first 15 of my carefully prepared rounds down range before I remembered to tighten my front rest after the initial elevation adjustment. I have listed those 3 groups as “barrel warmers” in my loading log. And, for those of you who speak with some of our match bullet makers on occasion, please pass along my praise, not only do they make some profoundly accurate bullets; they work pretty well as barrel warmers too…

Sorry for the diversion. Thank you all for making the effort to shed light on the art of reading the wind.

Some of you may have forgotten, but the beginning shooter is faced with countless decisions. Bag management, rifle technique, potential scope and mounting problems, unproven rifle issues, case preparation, too much sand in the front rest, too little sand in the back rest, what front rest, what primer, what powder, how much neck tension, how much into or off the lands, what tools do I really need.… the list seems almost endless. Add reading the wind to that list and, well, things get even more complicated to the beginner; compounding that with the advice that practicing in calm conditions is a waste of time and things get pretty grim.

Maybe it’s fair to say that the beginner has 2 alternatives: Buy some sensitive wind flags and find someone to help you that has a proven rifle/load combination and can watch you shoot to identify your mistakes. Like shooting with Mike’s idea of the “perfect” rail gun, you remove as many other errors as possible, leaving only the wind to contend with. Shooting in all kinds of conditions, perhaps, accelerates the learning. I live a long way from anywhere. Not really that practical on a weekly or day to day basis.

Jackie started his comment identifying my initial impression of reading the wind– just wait until they’re all pointed the same way. But homemade flags that weren’t very sensitive and a rather crude concept of reading the wind left me with more questions than answers. On the other hand, that may be touching on the ideal training for the beginner – just with more sensitive flags. Think about it, when I’ve got that many variables to deal with, why should I go to the range in the middle of the day and shoot in the worst possible conditions? I don’t need to practice for a match yet – I can shoot in the calm evenings in the best conditions possible. I can wait until dark if necessary on my flags to line up exactly as Jackie described… I can shoot in perhaps the “simplest” conditions to read until I remove the other variables and improve my techniques. Once I can remember to tighten my front rest and get a few other variables out of the way, maybe I can move up to shot to shot testing in slightly changing conditions and mentally record the changes. Perhaps once you get some experience under you belt, you can follow that advice to practice in bad conditions…. – but right now there might just be too many other variables to make that meaningful.

And by the way, if you’ve made it through this epistle, please read this last line… Thanks to all of you for your help.
 
Way too long...

Jeffsvice: You have started an excellent thread. A welcome breather from the usual equipment discussions. I think it was German Salazar who earlier stated that threads such as this are less common because it is hard to describe some of the aspects of condition "reading". Anyway here goes...

Jackie made a statement here about being a "complicated subject". He knows of what he speaks - and not just conditions. Benchrest has been described as the most demanding and difficult of the shooting sports. To a layman that would be laughable. Hell, put the rifle on sandbags,line up the crosshairs and pull the trigger. Most times, you will end up with a group better than the best live varmint rifle. Your .394" group, however, looks mighty big next to your neighbor at the next bench with a .183". In between the two are maybe scores of other competitors. As we all know, the difference between a .19" agg and a .29" agg is a chasm.

Before you can read the wind, however, you first must have a good rifle, tune it for all its worth (tuning being most of the discussion in this forum), and master bench technique. The last one being way harder than it looks (particularly if you need to shoot fast). Jeffsvice: at this point it is valuable to practice so that bag set up (i.e., tightening the front rest), body position, hold (if any), et. al. become automatic so that-once you have everything in position and set-you don't have to think about them AT ALL. That stuff should just fade into the background. If you are uncomfortable or fiddling with something, your attention to the conditions will be diminished.

Let's assume you have a hot rifle, tuned to the max and your bench technique is good and being handled by your subconscious (which handles most of your driving by the way). Someone said earlier here about "concentration". This is ok as far as it goes. But perhaps a better word would be "awareness". Sure, you could "concentrate" on a single flag and pull the trigger when it was the same for five shots. Might work. Might not. A better way, IMHO, is to be aware of the "EVERYTHING" that Kent spoke of. Look at the field of flags. Look up wind. Compare the various styles of flag types and how they respond. See how they look at different angles. If you have a wind probe in front of you, compare its movement to the flags around it (I advise do NOT just look at probes, especially for angles, head or tail winds, they do help with direct crosswinds).

Let me digress for but a moment. At a large match, such as the Super Shoot or Nationals, you will have time after reloading to stand behind the next bench you will be shooting. I recommend this HIGHLY. Watch the flags during the previous match or two to see what the pattern and timing is of condition changes. A strong red (right to left) condition may have a period (30 - 45 seconds) of light conditions that might be attractive to those that like to run a group quickly (Jeffsvice - that is where your ejector gun is handy). Or there might sneak in an anomalous condition, say some quartering green (left to right) that doesn't hang around for long - probably best to stay away from that. If you had not been watching for 5-15 minutes you would not necessary know this information. At some ranges the loading area might be juxtaposed in proximity to the firing line so that you can see the flags as you reload. If the option presents itself, load facing the firing line, not with your back to it. It is best if you are watching behind "your" bench with a good shooter up so you can see how where his sighters are landing vs. condition and how the record group goes. In any event, use the spotting scope regardless of who is shooting. Soon you will see a change, and if the guy pulls the trigger you will say to yourself, "unless he held that shot went left". More often than not it did. If you watch a guy like Jack Neary who is a renowned wind doper you will never know where he is holding until he tells you after the match.

I just spoke about running groups. My SOP is to find a reasonable (whatever that means) condition and get them off quickly. Know what is the best secret to shooting groups super fast? Knowing when to STOP. When you are "aware" you will sense more than see those changes. I very much remember a 200 yard aggregate a couple of years ago at Camillus. It was one of those days-couldn't do anything wrong. The rifle was driving tacks...on the fourth target I quickly had 3 into a dark hole, as I was ready to let #4 shot go, I stopped and then noticed the 80 yard flag almost straight out. When you are shooting well, your awareness guides your shooting. I plopped it onto the sighter. That shot, on the record, would have made it a .650". I waited for the previous condition to return and ended up with a good group.

If you have to "think" about where hold it is too late. It should become automatic. Only experience and effort will move you from the self-talk of "the flags are showing a pick-up so I should hold into it..." I try to be totally non-verbal. While watching the flags I will visualize the corrections needed to hold - but only as an image in my mind - and not "if the red condition starts to lull hold left and up". I just create the simple sight picture adjustment with NO words. That brings us to the whole idea of "visualization" which is used in almost all sports. Maybe the grist for another thread.

Adding to the complexity of all this: There are plenty of times that you must adjust hold while you run the group. It's the old "use the last shot as a sighter" technique. I should add to that cliche "in comparison to the conditions". If your last shot goes left, only hold to the right IF there was a condition that caused it. Otherwise you may make a poorly developing group even worse.

There is no single path to the summit of Mt. Zero Agg. Many think there is a four-lane expressway to the top. More likely, however, it is the steep, narrow and rocky single-tracks that will ultimately prove successful. In regard to shooting technique you have to be adaptable to the conditions-know when to adapt-and to what...ah, there is the rub.

A little (nay a LOT) long, but as Jackie said, "it's a complicated subject". Ah hell, put the crosshairs in the middle and pull the trigger 5 times! :D As they say in the movies, "it's so crazy it might just work!" :) Truth be told, more often than not, I don't hold or only shade a small bit, IF I chose the right condition window.

Jeff
 
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I'm pretty new to this game, but have gotten a lot better at reading flags than I was a few years back. A lot of it is difficult to put into words, but I think I've got three tips that apply MOST of the time(almost nothing in this game applies all the time), that are simple enough for a new shooter to grasp and are helpful to a new shooter.

1. The flags closest to you are most important.
This is usually the case because the force closest to the barrel acts on the bullet for the longest period of time before the bullet hits the target. A gust of wind that hits a bullet at 80yds doesn't have much time to move bullet that is about to hit a 100yd target. You will find that this rule does not always apply, and one notable exception seems to be a headwind.

2. For a new shooter don't try shooting if the flags change quadrants. This isn't always easy to do, but when you're just getting into this it keeps things a little simpler.

3. When the wind is perpendicular to you(a direct crosswind) SMALL velocity changes make a BIG difference. Early on it's easy to focus on direction only and forget about velocity, especially if velocity seems fairly steady,but in a direct crosswind velocity is often the more important component.


Past that all I can say is that if you haven't shot on too many nice days, you won't learn as much from wind. This doesn't mean you shouldn't shoot if it's windy. Any day is an opportunity to get better, but you won't start learning as much as you could from flags until you can shoot when it's calm. By the same token, once you get the hang of things you'll find sometimes calm can be deceiving in it's own right.
 
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Shooting in calm conditions is not a waste of time, but at some point when the load and rests are tuned and obviously working, and you have your bench technique well in hand, there is little more to learn in perfect or near perfect conditions.

It is at this point that one can take the trust that one has developed in the instrument and begin to learn to "play" in the wind.

Because you know that the rifle is accurate, you can be reasonably sure that variations in bullet impact, beyond those seen in near perfect conditions, are due to something that happened between muzzle and target. Then, the task becomes correlating what was seen before the shot was fired with where the bullet went.

I would suggest that you start this part of your training when conditions are not perfect, but still relatively "easy".
 
Good points Boyd. A shooter needs to build confidence in your equipment and shooting. Practicing just in difficult conditions can wreak havoc with your confidence.
 
Im pretty new to this as well but I try really hard for what thats worth. I have a range at my house and shoot every weekend and many weekdays before work. I've recently started testing loads and bench technique at night when the conditions are very calm and there are no distractions to be seen, Its just me, the rifle and the target. Then in the day time I watch what effects the wind is having on proven loads and equipment.

One thing I have found is that where you practice can often hurt you instead of help. At my range a direct headwind will ALWAYS cause the bullet to impact high at 12 o'clock on the target, but if you look at the wind charts for right hand twist barrels it says the headwind causes a low 6 o'clock impact.

It took a while for me to understand why the charts were all wrong. They were not wrong, my range shoots somewhat down hill, so a headwind comes up the hill like a ramp and pushes my bullet up at the 40 yard line.

So before I figured out what was going on I would go to a flat range for a match and hold all wrong for the headwind, tailwind, and quartering winds. Crosswind holds were good.

It sounds silly but with it being the 4th of July, go to the fireworks stand and get some of those BIG smoke bombs that really put out the smoke (not the little colored round balls). They were able to tell me just what the wind does as it blows across my range that the flags could'nt and why it was driving my bullets high. Keep your flags out while you do it and watch how the terrain effects the smoke. Do it a few times so you get to watch it from several wind directions.

It sounds foolish, but for me it was a cheap price to pay for a little wind 101.
 
If you would like to have a little fun when out practicing, hold dead on for all of your shots and see if you can forecast where the shot will go by looking at your wind flags. This will give you a real good idea how much a change on the flags is worth. A rail gun works well for this as you then take gun handling out of the equation.
Oh yeah, don't let ANYBODY see your "groups" when finished or you will hear
"You spent all that money on a gun that shoots like THAT!"
Gene
 
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