Shooting into sun

[Apollo]

Went out to the range that I shoot at tonight around 6:15 (central) Conditions were very good. Daisy Wheel was not moving and streamers were barely moving. Set up my first target - everything was going good until I moved over to target #3. I couldn't make out the dot(X). This was at about 6:50. The sun had come down enough to mess things up. The range is set up so you shoot to the west.

I was wondering - are there any techniques that you guys/gals use when in this situation? I thought about putting up an umbrella on my bench, but didn't know if that would work. I realize that I need to practice shooting in the wind, so I can shoot at any time of day. However, I also can't let nights like this go by. Thanks in advance.

Stanley

 

[alinwa]

Apollo,

For 8yrs my home range pointed west. About August ( A GREAT time for shooting here in the PNW) it was oriented directly into the setting sun.

I tried sunshields on my scope tube....plastic,steel and paper as much as 12" long.

I tried the short honeycombed filter caps.

I tried various ball-caps, paper cutouts taped on my shooting glasses, draped handkerchiefs and several "eye-seals" of corrugated rubber which mount on the near end of the scope.

I tried shooting through a box.


What worked best for me was a 4X8 sheet of plywood mounted vertically about 6" in front of the muzzle. Of course this distance varied with different length barrels but the idea is to get it close enough that the muzzle blast exits beneath it. I made this sheet adjustable vertically so that I could fine-tune it to JUUSST see under it with my scope. In my case the sun disappeared behind the treeline just an inch or two above the plane of my scope. This setup actually worked well.


Until I touched off a .338 Browning BOSS behind it


It don't work so very well for braked rifles. But I ended up getting away from brakes about that time so no harm to ME

hth



al