Shot pellets in the wind
Charlie:
Wind does effect shot pellets, and the pattern of the pellets. Mostly you are correct that pellets do not come out of the wad spinning, although some wads are designed to spin the wad mass for better patterning.
That said, the pellets are "rolling" when they exit the wad, and to a small extent the Bernouli effect comes into play, but not to the extent exhibited by rapidly rotating rifled bullets. Most shot gunners do allow for windage, when winds are stiff, mostly for drift L to R, or R to L, or for drop into a head wind, or rise from a tail wind. The impact of the wind is straight forward: pushes the pattern left or right in cross winds. In head and tail winds, the velocity is effectied + or -.
Needless to say, shotgunning (usually) involves a moving target. If shooting clays, the
clay birds are really effected by winds, and most of your attention is focused on figuring out what the wind will do to the bird. In crossing shots and straight away shots, a strong head wind, into the flight of a clay, will cause it to rapidly rise, float, or even stall before a rapid drop. A strong tail wind can cause a clay to initially rapidly drop a bit, and then follow a rapid flat flight line.
In the shot gunning world, as you probably know, patterning the gun is the first order of business, before you can start playing with "Kentucky Windage".
A shot gun creates a 3-D pattern, not a 2 - D pattern, as in rifle shooting. You can find a good discussion on the subject at:
http://www.tacticalshotgun.ca/content_nonsub/shotguns/patterning.html
Hope you enjoy the web content. Best wishes to you for good shooting, Doug Miller
