First attempt to make wind flags. Prototype pics included.

[Mike Bryant]

One of the biggest things that I've seen with wind flags is that you have to make sure you look at the flags before you pull the trigger instead of after you shoot and the bullet goes out of the group. As long as your tail follows the direction of your vane, your flags will work well. If the tails change direction and the vane stays where it is, then the vane isn't sensitive enough. The vane and the tail have to stay on the same plane at all times.

 

[brickeyee]

You don't need bearings, unless you want to.
Drill and tap the top of the Delrin for a Stainless Grub Screw and make the shaft with a sharp point.
That's all you need

Michael

I used a .223 shell and ground a point o the support rod (3/16 drill rod).

 

[brickeyee]

I like the the plastic pinwheels and hate daisys as they are like flywheels, slow to start and slow to slow down.

You can always very lightly rough up the shaft they are spinning on.
A little 400 grit back and forth will put a few light lines on the surface to make it not respond as easily and slow faster.

 

[mwezell]

You can always very lightly rough up the shaft they are spinning on.
A little 400 grit back and forth will put a few light lines on the surface to make it not respond as easily and slow faster.

It's predominantly a mass issue. Garden daisies are like a flywheel on a Detroit diesel. Slow to start and stop. Get rid of the mass and the friction thing matters little, within reason.

 

[alinwa]

It's predominantly a mass issue. Garden daisies are like a flywheel on a Detroit diesel. Slow to start and stop. Get rid of the mass and the friction thing matters little, within reason.

Y'er gettin' pretty good at this "like" thing ....... ie "like the flywheel on a Detroit"

About 1984 A friend brought me and some product to a gunshow about 100mi from my home. His rig was a Volkswagen loaf, diesel. We fit EVERYTHING in the pig and still had room to use it as a camper but it was unbelievably slow! UN-believably slow..... it literally took miles to work up thru the gears with our load, it felt like before it got up to speed we were slowing down for the next exit! . I told him "driving this thing is like going to the moon. First half of the trip is all under full acceleration, then you flip over and the other half is slowing down....."

 

[Wilbur]

Ed Watson, Benchrest Hall of Famer, used the flags in the following link. In fact, I made about a thousand and he sold them. He set them higher than the rules allowed but they were small enough to go "undetected"....and he was ED WATSON so nobody questioned his methods. Then one day I did....wish I hadn't but that's water long gone under the dam.


http://benchrest.com/flags

 

[Chism G]

Wind Flags

Wind Flags work great, with a great shooting Rifle and a good shooter pulling the trigger. Just saying.

I'm holding out for the new wind Flag technology, the ones that tells you when to pull the trigger.

Jerry Hensler once worked on an interesting electronic flag project. I witnessed them work, on a number of occasions, at registered matches. I believe Jerry said they were too expensive to build.



Glenn

 

[hayscott]

Daisies

It's predominantly a mass issue. Garden daisies are like a flywheel on a Detroit diesel. Slow to start and stop. Get rid of the mass and the friction thing matters little, within reason.

Mike, I use daisies but not so much to use to judge wind velocity, when I got started a few years back I was schooled to use the daisies to judge the wind angle, to watch the tails for velocity changes and to Gene’s wind probes for when “not” to shoot!

On occasions when I have to share a bench and there aren’t any daisies in line, I have a hard time with angle changes... I guess it’s what you get used too when reading flags, most of the folks I shoot with use daisies and I think it’s important that you try to stay with something you’re probably going to be seeing at matches. I want it to be second nature at reading flags not something else that I have to think about and deal with when on the line.

What gets me are the folks that have to be different and swap the colors of their flags... if 90% of the field is showing green and you catch a glimmer of orange to the side you want to stop to check if there is a reverse coming!

 

[mwezell]

Mike, I use daisies but not so much to use to judge wind velocity, when I got started a few years back I was schooled to use the daisies to judge the wind angle, to watch the tails for velocity changes and to Gene’s wind probes for when “not” to shoot!

On occasions when I have to share a bench and there aren’t any daisies in line, I have a hard time with angle changes... I guess it’s what you get used too when reading flags, most of the folks I shoot with use daisies and I think it’s important that you try to stay with something you’re probably going to be seeing at matches. I want it to be second nature at reading flags not something else that I have to think about and deal with when on the line.

What gets me are the folks that have to be different and swap the colors of their flags... if 90% of the field is showing green and you catch a glimmer of orange to the side you want to stop to check if there is a reverse coming!

I agree with all of that! As to the backward colors...that's the worst ever, imo. Most of us have been there at some point but when the wind is switching and going all over the place, you don't wan't to see red out of the corner of your eye in a green condition. I don't think colors have to be precisely "red" and Orange", per se. Much like red and orange tell the same tale, other colors along the same scheme as a green work fine for me. I can instantly look at a field of red and orange flags and know what they are saying...sort of. I guess I'm just saying red or orange tell me the same thing. I make green and orange flags but I also make some highly visible florescent chartreuse with pink that work very well and are more visible than green/orange or red. They fall in the same color spectrum, so to speak, like orange does with red. The rf guys buy a lot of them but the cf guys seem to prefer what they are accustomed to seeing. So, they buy mostly green/orange.
As long as I'm not seeing some kind of greenish color in a red condition, I'm good with just about whatever I can see best.

I'd post a pic of them but the chartreuse shows up as more yellow every time I've take pics of them. They are about the color of the yellow safety vest you'd see on a street worker. These things are "loud" and they work. But, some will never, under any circumstances, shoot over a bright pink and yellow florescent flags. Lol! I'm putting vinyl on flags today and the stuff is blinding on big sheets...and the sun isn't shining today. I see spots!

 

[Butch Lambert]

Only in the USA they have the red and green reversed. What colors are port and starboard?

 

[FBecigneul]

Port wine Red
Left four letters Port

 

[mwezell]

Only in the USA they have the red and green reversed. What colors are port and starboard?

So far, only in the USA, do I shoot.
I truly consider mine and the brt's to be at the top of the heap.

Now everyone go ahead and pile on, with your favorites and why, but that's how I see it and I don't think third place is even close. The brt's have their colors opposite to mine. Otherwise, you can't go wrong with either one. JMHO.

If I ever travel overseas to shoot, I do have some that I mistakenly put the colors on the wrong sides of. I might take those with me.

(Actually, I put the vinyl on in big sheets. They were placed on the laser upside down when cut out. Of course that made them backwards....for here)

I'd be all for a "cruise ship match". Who's in?

 

[bbrawand]

The best

The best is the orignal ask the man who has most hall of fame pts and i orignaqted them bill brawand

 

[mwezell]

The best is the orignal ask the man who has most hall of fame pts and i orignaqted them bill brawand

Well...you were first. If you bought my flags, just box them up and send them back. I'll give your money back if you're not satisfied. That should solve that.
If you don't have them...well, you should try them.

 

[Saigashooter]

Sorry for not responding lately, I had to get my tax information together for my first year as a small business. Whoo I survived. My flags seem to work quite well at telling the switch. I think that they will function just fine for our small local matches as long as I can learn to use them.

Mike Bryant I will keep that advice in mind while I attempt to learn to read the wind. I've been doing a good bit of reading on the subject and so far the best advice I can find is get out and shoot as often as you can when the wind is blowing. I just ordered 6000 rounds of lower end RWS to practice with and to start teaching my 9 year old with. I just hope it flies good out of my suhl that I'm going to get familiar with when it warms up.

Mike Ezell, I absolutely agree that hanging out with my dad is better than anything else. Since my Dad just recently closed his shop in downstate Illinois due to Chicago politics he has been a little stir crazy. I just helped him set up a grizzly mill to go with his little lathe but I need projects to keep him busy. Hence the wind flags. But now he almost has them finished I need something else to keep the best dad ever occupied. I don't want him to slow down anymore or I'll be wheeling his butt out to the range tied down with some ratchet straps in the back of the Yoda. Also you were asking about my equipment so while I was out at dads I took some pics.

What I have here in no particular order or direction unless i can figure out how to turn these pics.
WALTHER KKM this is the rifle i bought but dad stole.$450
REMINGTON 37 custom rifle. No name on that particular barrel. I had the shilen on it. I'm selling this one. The canjar trigger is awesome but not for benchrest. If only the light pull...$600
REMINGTON 37 original. I love this rifle. It's my safe queen. Someone molested the action by d&t scope bases and leaving her in a case long enough to get minor freckling. Other than that she is beautiful and I got it a year ago for $500
SHILEN 4 grove ratchet that was on the 37 but might get fit to the suhl. $150
CUSTOM REST not sure of the maker. I got this heavy hunk of steel from a retired shooter in Michigan. He said an engineer from Chrysler built it. Its rock solid with no wobble. I'm making a delrin top to hold the suhl stock solidly.
SUHL 150. This is my newest one to replace the custom 37. Itll be two or three more weeks before it's ready to shoot. It came with 2 original stocks so I modified one with a three inch delrin ride plate, and a ton of sanding to make the stock wedged to ride the bags.

Well scratch that, I'll post pics when I get better phone signal. It runs a little slow out here in the sticks but I wouldn't have it any other way. And to anyone who is talking any sort of crap on Mike Ezells flags, that was whose flags I would have gotten had I not decided to build my own. And I'm still considering getting one to make sure my flags are flying true because I believe that he makes one of the best flags out there after hours of my own research.

 

[mwezell]

Thank you and I wish you and your dad the very best.--Mike

 

[Saigashooter]

I got signal.

 

[Al Nyhus]

Neat stuff...enjoy! -Al

 

[mwezell]

I got signal.

Very nice!

 

[Saigashooter]

Very nice!

I have realized as I've gotten a little older how much I enjoy collecting and shooting old target rifles. The saying that they dont make them like they used to seems readily apparent when handling the old guns compared to newer offerings. I have a Steven's 416 coming my way in a week or so. And I've been getting a twitch for a BSA martini. The newer guns just seem to be lacking class.