what makes a barrel shoot better in wind?

I understand that nobody realy knows the answer to the question.
I still think that twist rate must be a factor in the sensibility of a bullet to the wind. Any one ever tried it? What about number of grooves? do you think it can make the difference? If I have 2 lots which shoots good from my barrel, I will shoot the slower one on a windy day.
Guy.
 
I think the answer to your original question is "all of the above". I also think twist rate could be a factor. There are several who have tried a 17 twist as compared to the traditional 16 twist, and I'm sure there are those who still use them. I had a shorter barreled 17 twist that shot super in the calm but was nuts in the wind. I need to clarify that the barrel was probably consistent even in the wind, it was just that I could not control it in a windy condition. I have heard others say the same, but also have to point out that some of the great shooting Suhls were/are 18 and even 19 twist. For the most part, barrel length simply affects velocity and little else. I like a longer barrel for that reason, it produces slower velocities and I can control that better in the wind.

Can a barrel that shoots great in calm shoot crappy in the wind? Probably the real answer is no, it will still be consistent. However, many factors including ammo velocities etc. can cause differences. On top of that most of us subscribe to the thinking that "it can't be me, so it must be the barrel (ammo, action, tuner, phase of the moon, whatever).
 
Fast or slow?

You have just given an answer about the velocity, Guy :) Different barrels produce different velocities and different yaws due to the fact of the interior of each barrel.Some think regular twist is the answer yet others think gain twist is the thing. Anschütz produce barrels with a slight gain, and have tried most different twists I think.These days I believe they use 450mm breech to about 430/420mm muzzle twist.They claim their barrels are uniform inside to within 1000's of a mm. I have seen "bore" transcripts of some produced earlier years and the ones they are producing today.It is impressive.But, why do they all shoot different? They also shoot different in the two ranges they have at the factory. One "cold" and one warm temperature wise.This means of course that the "fingerprint" of the barrels change due to temperature impact plus also the flight of the bullet to the target. Does this also have an impact on the yaw? I think so. Good barrels shoot better than bad barrels and beyond that I think it is of little use to us. My Lilja, Border and Anschütz barrels are all shooting fine, but with different ammo and in different temperatures. Try shooting in the wind with a Noptel opto electronic device a check your ammo.
 
barrel or shooter?

Throwing something else into the mix....

Is it the "rifle" (as a system) what is shooting better in the wind, or is it just the shooter, via an external influence (i.e. wind) just working harder on reading conditions & shot execution?
 
Beau said:
...theory............... I'd like to hear how that "corkscrew" works.
Click to expand...

Not sure if it's a theory or what but certainly sure I don't understand it . I have, however, observed behaviour that supports the concept.

Leaving out the physics, the bullet exits the barrel in a corkscrew path that "screws" about and converges to a "line". Once converged, the bullet remains on the line for the remainder of flight. The characteristic is larger to smaller groups as the distance increases.
 
Sometimes I think . . .

One of my thoughts has been: Deep hole drilling can only produce a perfect hole, on center from end to end, in a small percentage of barrels.

From that, I "think" maybe those are the barrels that, if chambered right, with the tight end up front, and bedded right and tuned right, and permitted to recoil the same from shot to shot: Will Hummmmm when you feed them ammo they like.

Joe Haller (Mr. Frosty)
 
I would WAG that the centripedal forces that make for gyroscopic effect might explain the corkscrew. As for the perfectly centered gundrilled holes, I thought the smiths centered the blanks on each end, and turned down the OD based on the bore.

Shots in the dark,

Ben
 
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Seems like a bullet that is corkscrewing or yawing would poke a bigger hole than one that has gone to sleep. If you are wondering where in the bullets trajectory it is going to sleep, perhaps you could place something, something better than paper which tends to tear, at increasing distances and measure the holes until they get smaller.......

Hey Kent, that was funny! Havent blown coffee out my nose in quite a while.
1002.gif
 
Corkscrew and yaw ain't the same. Yaw is wobblin' and corkscrew is....corkscrewin'.

I can say that cause y'all can't see 'em either. Far as I know it's the truth.
 
Let me add curve ball effect and squirrelin'

I believe in the term corkscrewin'. Kinda like squirrelin'. I believe that it is an effect not unlike a curve in baseball caused by the spinning of the bullet through the air. The bullet appears to go up and to the right and then down inscribing a 1/2 circle arch as it approaches the target. Under the right conditions it can be seen with the eye through a scope. The up and down are surely the trajectory but the right direction movement must be the curve ball effect.

Well, maybe my barrel just "squirrels" off to the right.:)

I just wish I had a hummer barrel on my rifle. I don't care what the bore is like, bent or squirrely or whatever.
 
With my current barrel, a 3 groove 18 twist Benchmark, I have seen the corkscrewing on alot of occasions, even at the Barn.

I shot another rifle at the Barn on the same day that was a 16 twist and the bullets appeared to go up and then down into the bull. No noticeable corkscrewing with this rifle.

My scores were ALOT higher with the 16 twist and accuracy was of course, much better.

You would think that the slower twist would develop less of a corkscrew path, but there seems to be more to it. Maybe what we are seeing is actually bullet instability.
 
Bulletts never go up after leaving the crown. Put another way they don't go above the bore sight line. They start dropping right away.
Fred K
 
They begin accelerating towards the ground right away, but that's not the same thing as dropping. They only start dropping right away if the boreline is parallel to the ground. They rise for a certain amount of time before they begin dropping. You would have to be shooting at a very short distance in order to have your bullets start dropping immediately. The majority of targets and distances we'll be shooting at require us to aim the bore upwards so that the bullet will hit where we want it to, otherwise it would hit well below where we'd like. That, and the sightline is higher than the boreline, so the boreline needs to be angled upwards to meet the sightline, too. Gravity's acceleration begins immediately, yes, but we are still giving it some amount of speed in the upward direction, so they're not dropping right away.
 
In regard to the ballistic trajectory the bullet may go up relative to the ground, but as Fred says, they do not go above the bore sight line. This may be generally speaking and assuming a vacuum as there could be some force of air that actually would move it above the bore sight line, but you are correct in that it begins accelerating towards the ground immediately. So it may move up but at the same time begins to drop. Drop is just a matter of semantics. I understand what Fred is saying and I agree with him for what it's worth.
 
Dropping is moving towards the ground.

Accelerating downwards is not the same as dropping. If you throw a rock as hard as you can straight up, it is accelerating downwards the instant it leaves your hand. But it is not *dropping* until after it stops moving upwards at its peak height during its trip. Right after it reaches that peak it will begin moving downward, and that is when it is dropping.

I don't understand why you say it will never be above the sightline, because it most certainly can. All depends on the distance you're shooting.
 
On Acceleration
There is very little bulllet acceleration toward the ground from a perfectly level bore.

Example; Level Bore.
Let say you dropped a bullet at the muzzle of a level bore. The acceleration to the ground would be the same as the bullet fired from the level bore. If you could drop and fire the bullet from the crown at the same time they would both hit the ground at the same time. This of course would have to be over level ground.
Fred K
 
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