Long Range Shooting Thread

[Meketrefe]

This is for those interested in shooting at distance when possible.

The other day I saw these guys and the shooting is great but I got really captivated by the spaces and photography of this spot in Norway...

[Meketrefe]

Here a bit about the 1/4 MOA rifle myth. What about learning and specially practice?

[Meketrefe]

The "Sniper Rifle" Gripe...

[usmcveteran]

I would still like to learn spotting from you.

[Meketrefe]

I would still like to learn spotting from you.

Spotting is about shooting too since 1/2 of the work is studying anyway.
The other half is practicing. But one can take any possible opportunity to practice skills w/o necessarily shooting.
For example when we go on a hike we can carry a mil dot monocular and star doing range estimations and wind.
Then as we walk towards that point/object we can actually take measurements and make corrections and look for clues
to make better estimations in the future.
We can verify the aproxÃmate distances using the GPS coordinates. Even w/o a mildot monocular is a good exercise
to estimate ranges and size of objects at distance by simply guessing. This is a skill for everyone and we are actually
hardwired for some of these skills since prehistoric times. We just don't use them anymore.

When shooting a known distances and flat terrain we do not need this skill but by training in practical means we awake
from our long sleep and even acquire new skills. Wind reading is perhaps the most complicated of all, specially wind reading across 2 or more
zones. Then ballistics training is done first theoretically reading and in the computer and then applying the corrections
for mean values in the field once we have decided on a load.

The key is to drive a place where one can start stretching 500 yards and beyond. That is when we really challenge
the eye and conditions get tricky specially with challenging terrain and weather.

I don't know any places in NYS to shoot cross canyon with varios type of wind and maybe an angle but this doesn't
mean one cannot start working in some fundamentals. Subsonic 22LR in a 200-300 yard venue can be a good way
to learn and practice some basic things. Sort of like a simu-long-range.

What are the things that you think you can do to start within your reach?

[usmcveteran]

I know in Marines they said to try and think of things in terms of football fields to keep things easy.

Also spotting is usually the senior persons role since they are really calling the shots.

[Meketrefe]

I know in Marines they said to try and think of things in terms of football fields to keep things easy.

Also spotting is usually the senior persons role since they are really calling the shots.

I like the idea fo football fields it is a good reference and as good as any other.
The spotting I don't agree. Spotting is for everyone and it is a good way to learn and have fun even w/o shooting.
It is also a great human experience for bonding like two best friends or brothers or father and son... etc..
It gets pretty technical but it is way more fun than board games and monopoly! lol

[WARFAB]

A lot of the military marksmanship unit guys seem to rely almost exclusively on mirage to determine the wind value. An AMU guy was scoring for me at one stage, so after I finished my string I asked him what his wind call was. He just looked down into his spotting scope for a few seconds and then told me his value. No idea how much I'm missing out on by not having a nicer spotting scope.

[Meketrefe]

A lot of the military marksmanship unit guys seem to rely almost exclusively on mirage to determine the wind value. An AMU guy was scoring for me at one stage, so after I finished my string I asked him what his wind call was. He just looked down into his spotting scope for a few seconds and then told me his value. No idea how much I'm missing out on by not having a nicer spotting scope.

Mirage is a very good way to read wind very popular but there are other clues. One should practice them all. Reading the wind at distance is far more important than the wind where one stands. If one divides the distance in two or even three wind zones the full value should be extracted from all of them being the zones closer to the target the most critical. everything adds up.

[WARFAB]

Mirage is a very good way to read wind very popular but there are other clues. One should practice them all. Reading the wind at distance is far more important than the wind where one stands. If one divides the distance in two or even three wind zones the full value should be extracted from all of them being the zones closer to the target the most critical. everything adds up.

Everything I've been told and read says the wind closest to the shooter is more critical. A wind deflection at the beginning of the bullet's flight is amplified over the rest of the distance to the target. Deflections closer to the target aren't as much of an angular change.

[Meketrefe]

Everything I've been told and read says the wind closest to the shooter is more critical. A wind deflection at the beginning of the bullet's flight is amplified over the rest of the distance to the target. Deflections closer to the target aren't as much of an angular change.

D,
I am sorry to tell you you got the wrong advice.

Lets take for example a 178gr 308 winchester hornady superformance and 1000 yards with an estimated 20mph wind, etc...

Look at the last slide to see the projected path and then follow the example. I hope this makes sense.

[WARFAB]

I'm not sure I get those charts.

For the last chart it says the bullet is off the path by 1.95 Mils in the first 500 yards. Even with no further wind deflection past that point, the bullet will be off by 4 Mils at 1000 yards due to the angular error created by the change in the flight path. So claiming the next 500 yards adds another 2.84 Mils would be incorrect. The second 500 yards is actually only adding .89 Mils of deflection. The angular error magnified by distance is more important than the longer duration of wind exposure.

Regardless, being good at reading the mirage should allow you to determine a total wind value for the whole distance rather than worrying about zones. Unfortunately I'm not that good at reading mirage unless it's boiling. Even if I'm wrong I still manage to find the X ring at 600, so I'll just continue working on my mirage reading skills.

[WARFAB]

A bullet deflected by a steady wind will show a curved path (l.). If wind directly blew a bullet off course, it's path would be straight (c.). With wind deflection, the bullet is constantly taking a new line of flight. In a constant crosswind, the bullets new line of flight is being constantly updated resulting in the curved path we know as deflection. (r.).

Read more: http://www.shootingtimes.com/ammo/do...#ixzz45ev5jxBT

[Meketrefe]

I'm not sure I get those charts.

For the last chart it says the bullet is off the path by 1.95 Mils in the first 500 yards. Even with no further wind deflection past that point, the bullet will be off by 4 Mils at 1000 yards due to the angular error created by the change in the flight path. So claiming the next 500 yards adds another 2.84 Mils would be incorrect. The second 500 yards is actually only adding .89 Mils of deflection. The angular error magnified by distance is more important than the longer duration of wind exposure.

Regardless, being good at reading the mirage should allow you to determine a total wind value for the whole distance rather than worrying about zones. Unfortunately I'm not that good at reading mirage unless it's boiling. Even if I'm wrong I still manage to find the X ring at 600, so I'll just continue working on my mirage reading skills.

Don't think about this in terms of angles from a stationary position like many shooters do and it leads to confusion. A mil like the MOA or any other angle tranlated to inches is larger with distance but also remember here we divided the range in two zones like if they were two different 500yards shots and we only use the angle diferencial. It is better if you think of it like if you were the bullet. Lets say you have to swim and river that is 200 yards wide with a substantial current. You are trying to estimate how do you start going across and also into the current so you can reach the desired destination just in front of your location. The starting might not be the correct angle but then you have lots of energy lets say to 100 yards so you get quickly there. Once you get to the middle you do not have the same speed and will take you almost twice to cover that distance. If you didn't account for that in the beginning you will have to correct your path into the current and we know this is something that we actually do and might end up swimming almost vertically into the current. If one has done this it becomes a natural instinct. The problem with rifle ballistics is that we do not have a way to correct the aim after the bullet is fired so if you do not take into account the time needed for the distance then you will find out that the bullet is exposed to the external conditions longer as we shoot further. And this is exponential so for every extra yards it takes longer than the previous 100 yards due to deceleration.

The time a bullet is exposed to the external factors is key here and that increases with the loss in velocity to cover the same distance. If you look a the chart the bullet takes 0.64 seconds to cover the first 500 yards but then it takes .93 seconds to cover the next 500 yards that is almost 45% increase in time.

If you want give it a try with the Hornday ballistics calculator. It is slightly different than mine because of the retardation coefficient I have that is something to be adjusted but it essentially gives you the same picture. Here the wind drift between 500 and 100 yards

Your Input Variables Ballistic Coefficient 0.53 Velocity (ft/s) 2775 Weight (grains) 178 Maximum Range (yds) 1000 Interval (yds) 100 Drag Function G1 Sight Height (inches) 1.5 Shooting Angle (degrees) 0 Zero Range (yds) 100 Wind Speed (mph) 20 Wind Angle (degrees) 90 Altitude (ft) 555 Pressure (hg) 29.53 Temperature (F) 59 Humidity (%) 0.78 Ballistics Results RANGE(YARDS) VELOCITY(FPS) ENERGY(FT.-LB.) TRAJECTORY(IN) COME UP IN MOA COME UP IN MILS WIND DRIFT(IN) WIND DRIFT IN MOA WIND DRIFT IN MILS Muzzle 2775 3043 -1.5 0 0 0 0 0 100 2608 2688 0 0 0 1.3 1.2 0.4 200 2447 2366 -3.6 1.7 0.5 5 2.4 0.7 300 2292 2075 -13.1 4.2 1.2 11.6 3.7 1.1 400 2142 1813 -29.1 7 2 21.2 5.1 1.5 500 1998 1577 -52.8 10.1 2.9 34.2 6.5 1.9 600 1860 1367 -85.2 13.6 3.9 50.9 8.1 2.4 700 1728 1181 -127.7 17.4 5.1 71.8 9.8 2.8 800 1604 1017 -181.8 21.7 6.3 97.2 11.6 3.4 900 1489 876 -249.4 26.5 7.7 127.5 13.5 3.9 1000 1382 755 -332.8 31.8 9.2 163.1 15.6 4.5

Now Segregated zones (simulation only).
First 500 yards zone....

Your Input Variables Ballistic Coefficient 0.53 Velocity (ft/s) 2775 Weight (grains) 178 Maximum Range (yds) 500 Interval (yds) 100 Drag Function G1 Sight Height (inches) 1.5 Shooting Angle (degrees) 0 Zero Range (yds) 100 Wind Speed (mph) 20 Wind Angle (degrees) 90 Altitude (ft) 555 Pressure (hg) 29.53 Temperature (F) 59 Humidity (%) 0.78 Ballistics Results RANGE(YARDS) VELOCITY(FPS) ENERGY(FT.-LB.) TRAJECTORY(IN) COME UP IN MOA COME UP IN MILS WIND DRIFT(IN) WIND DRIFT IN MOA WIND DRIFT IN MILS Muzzle 2775 3043 -1.5 0 0 0 0 0 100 2608 2688 0 0 0 1.3 1.2 0.4 200 2447 2366 -3.6 1.7 0.5 5 2.4 0.7 300 2292 2075 -13.1 4.2 1.2 11.6 3.7 1.1 400 2142 1813 -29.1 7 2 21.2 5.1 1.5 500 1998 1577 -52.8 10.1 2.9 34.2 6.5 1.9

2nd 500 yards zone.

Your Input Variables Ballistic Coefficient 0.53 Velocity (ft/s) 1998 Weight (grains) 178 Maximum Range (yds) 500 Interval (yds) 100 Drag Function G1 Sight Height (inches) 1.5 Shooting Angle (degrees) 0 Zero Range (yds) 100 Wind Speed (mph) 20 Wind Angle (degrees) 90 Altitude (ft) 555 Pressure (hg) 29.53 Temperature (F) 59 Humidity (%) 0.78 Ballistics Results RANGE(YARDS) VELOCITY(FPS) ENERGY(FT.-LB.) TRAJECTORY(IN) COME UP IN MOA COME UP IN MILS WIND DRIFT(IN) WIND DRIFT IN MOA WIND DRIFT IN MILS Muzzle 1998 1578 -1.5 0 0 0 0 0 100 1860 1367 0 0 0 2 1.9 0.6 200 1728 1181 -8.6 4.1 1.2 8.1 3.9 1.1 300 1604 1017 -28.8 9.2 2.7 18.7 5.9 1.7 400 1488 876 -62.6 14.9 4.3 34.2 8.2 2.4 500 1382 754 -112.1 21.4 6.2 55 10.5 3.1

You see 55 inches vs. 34.2 inches above. That is why the estimations further away from the target are far more critical than the ones at the shooting position.
Actually the wind and other variables at the shooting position might have almost no effect on the bullet if those variables change a few hundred yards from there and we fail to estimate that.

Everything counts but if we are going to miss lets miss with less error and that is why doing good estimations at 500 and beyond is more important than
the estimations from your shooting position.

[WARFAB]

http://www.nkhome.com/pdfs/NVDOC1403-Wind.pdf

Figure 2 shows how the wind influence looks when shooting at 200m, 400m, 600m, 800m, and 1000m. A few items to note: first, the area under these curves, if added up, would equal the values found in Figure 1; second, the early portion of the trajectory has the biggest effect on the round, although as range increases, the middle portion of the range starts to contribute more; lastly, the contribution of the first segment increases with range, which can mostly be attributed to the increased flight time to the target at the longer ranges.

If we break each range into thirds, how much do those segments contribute to the overall effect of the wind? Figure 3 shows that breakdown: at 200m, the first third accounts for 56% of the influence, the middle contributes 33%, with the third closest to the target roughly 12%. As the distance increases to 1000m, the influence of the first third drops to 44%, the middle third increases to 39%, and the last third grows to 17%. The front portion of the trajectory obviously plays the most significant role in determining the bullet’s deflection, but with increasing range, the middle section needs to be considered as well.

I’ve heard a few times that the wind at the target affects the bullet more than the wind at the shooter, because the bullet has slowed down so the wind can push it more. From the analysis above, we can see that this is incorrect, and here’s why: if the bullet is nudged by two identical winds, W1 and W2, as shown in Figure 4, the resulting change in direction from W1 has much more time to act on the bullet, and results in a larger deflection. In order to achieve the same deflection, W2 would have to be much larger than W1, even accounting for the slowing of the bullet.

Conclusion The above analysis examined a few equations that can be used to determine how a bullet will be affected by crosswind as it travels downrange. As expected, the wind’s influence on a bullet increases dramatically as the range to target grows. Perhaps more interesting for many readers is the description of how the position of wind downrange can influence the flight of a bullet. The first third of the range is the most critical portion to get a good wind call on, although the middle third can’t be discounted, especially as range increases.

I think you're confusing the cumulative effect of angular change with wind deflection. The wind doesn't just push the bullet to one side, it actually changes the angle of the flight path.

I sent a message to an expert to see if he can settle this. No idea if he'll actually respond or not.