How did I get there (my story)

Thank you Frankr and Williwaw.

Shooters vs wind, or how wind classifies shooters...

I can classify shooters on wind in 4 great groups:
  1. Non believers
  2. Faith followers
  3. Chasers
  4. Wait(ers)
The non believers are the ones that don't use any flags, or use some that are useless. These shooters practice a lot, spend a lot of ammo and sometimes, somewhere, do great results. When this happens, they tend to tell "I don't need flags." Needless to say, unfortunately, these shooters are just wasting money and time. They are not easily "converted", but we should try, because normally they are skilled shooters, that just didn't realise yet the wind influence on benchrest rimfire. They usually came from other disciplines where the wind impact is not so critical, so they did developed this non-needed sense. I have found one that said to me, "The flags? They are just there so others won't bother saying I'm not using them...".

The faith followers are a different bread of shooters that have a real wind shooting instinct. They use flags, not to show any condition, but to let them know where (around somewhere) they should point. I'm saying point, because they do not aim, they throw bullets downrange hopping they will hit the target, hopefully the center. They don't practice much because they do have that wind instinct, being able to deliver some respectful result if the day favours a more or less condition. Very hard to teach to shoot better in the wind, because they don't understand why they should not use that natural instinct. They normally are great shooters in certain disciplines, namely those who don't have wind indicators.

The chasers, as the name implies, run after the wind, always shooting whatever the wind blows. They normally do a card in half the allowed time. They achieve fantastic scores when they succeed to have a good chased condition, and this could develop on them, a sense of immunity against better wind shooting technique. When they practice they are even faster doing a card. They are fun, and intriguing to watch. We all have been there, but to excel we have to open our attitude. If we succeed to show them how waiting a little more might be helpful, they are easily converted to a better technique, but relapses are frequent.

The wait(ters) are terrible to watch, as no one has the patience to see them. They wait, wait, wait, and eventually they shoot. They are respectful shooters with great success, however they get lost when conditions are changing all the time. They practice a lot and developed a waiting relaxed atitude. They are mentally strong, and normally they finished the card just before the final whistle...

I did have fun describing these shooters, and I can see me in the last two groups.
Yes, I'm mainly a wait(er), but I do practice a lot chasing the wind, so I can speed up things if needed. Also, the both open and seeing eyes technique is paramount here.

I do pick the main wind condition, but always know where to aim in a second condition. As I have wrote somewhere else, my two eye technique allows me to fine tune the aiming point as condition do small changes. I call this technique "waiting the chase". This is only possible, at least within the time, with a joystick. A joystick front rest is needed, but it has to be fine-tuned to be able to deliver with consistency.

To be continued...
 
I recall that you had posted previously that your available ammo was marginal. If that was the case the hurricane winds you were shooting in were a blessing. Nothing like strong winds to level the ammo influence across the field.

I'm a waiter-chaser. I'm waiting for conditions that I have an answer for and then chase it/run it. The first lesson I learned about chasing is that the flags are history and if they look like my condition is fading it has probably already left. The next lesson was to be patient on the other end of my condition returning ... give it time to establish.

Regards being a waiter I'm not as boring to watch as some. Shooting F Class I'm shooting 40 rounds in 20 minutes, moving between 8 bulls, single feeding, and manipulating a rear bag for POA with a bipod. I watch a timer and try to stay on schedule (one per 30 sec) and if I get ahead I'll slowdown if I can find better windows and if I get behind I'll look for chances to run a few quickly but it usually goes best if I stay close to the required level pace.
 
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