Shooting in the wind is part guesswork, part science and totally frustrating for newer shooters. As with any other skill, it takes a lot of practice to become a good shooter in the wind. A quick tour of YouTube and a Google search will yield several ways to get on target, but for this post, we’re going to provide a rule of thumb for a specific cartridge and a way for you to “calibrate” 1 mil of deflection in a 10 mph wind. We hope the 10:1 helps not only the newer shooters but adds another useful tool for experienced shooters. Who is this post for? This post is aimed at new to intermediate shooters. Experienced hands can already rhyme off their wind calls and do quick math to achieve their ballistic solutions, but for newer shooters we wanted to give them some simple tools to help them so they can focus on delivering a great shot. If you're an experienced shot and you are coaching the next generation, perhaps there is something here to pass along. Image 1: How a wind formula appears to new shooters.
Clean lines, quality components and tight groups; what more could you want? We love getting questions from our Facebook followers and one that keeps popping up is what kind of toys do we use to deliver the goods downrange. There are many who seem to think we are solely focused on tactical sniping and running sub-minute DMRs (is there really such a thing?) or .338 and .50 rifles with mega-buck glass. Yes, we like that stuff and working with public service agencies who have the budgets to outfit their teams with that type of gear keeps our lives interesting, but we’ll never give up on having a few good bolt guns in our personal gun locker chambered in an affordable calibre. This rifle was the result of a recent build commissioned by one of our team members who no longer wishes to carry a sniper-weight rifle on hunting trips. It's chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor and runs like a dream.
A complete shooter can employ a variety of techniques to make their shot and make it count. Have you zeroed your periscope rifle? One of my business partners and I had an interesting chat the other day. Somehow the topic of self-awareness arose with regards to determining where one's weakness lies in any given type of activity. I proposed that every activity can be broken down into several sub-activities and that working on the weakest of those will yield an overall net gain in performance. Conversely, the opposite of working on one's weakness is continuing to work on one's strengths, and people do so for a variety of reasons: familiarity, routine and perhaps a lack of honesty about their overall skill levels. It stands to reason that continuing to work on what is considered to be one's strengths results in only a very slight overall gain with the sub-activity skill levels are tallied.
In the right hands, the correct gear properly employed will always yield the best results. During a recent conversation with a prominent North American equipment distributor, I was reminded of the difficulties faced by companies distributing high-quality equipment and ammunition to public service agencies. Chief among those difficulties are organizations spending money on equipment without a significant trial period to ensure the gear solves a known problem. While organizations spending money should be a good problem for distributors to have, there is always a danger down the road with buyer's remorse due to the expense and the equipment not living up to expectations. Not an ideal situation for a distributor seeking to maintain healthy long-term relationships with their clients.
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