Tommy, it would be best to avoid a direct head or tail depending on the speed. If you are shooting under an open structure with a roof…the effects of tail or head wind can often be exaggerated by the way the wind goes over the roof. Even so….if you shoot two guns at the same time the test will still be valid.
A friend of mine who’s a great shooter came over with his gun and we did this a bunch at 50 and 100. He typically had about 80 percent of his shots on the money and the remainder high or low misses. He had always questioned those high/lows but reasoned they were wind he was missing. We did trade guns back and forth and the high/lows were consistently present no matter who was shooting. The shooter cannot fix the vertical because it’s a gun problem that cannot be predicted. The only solution is to fix the gun.
When you can limit your vertical to 1/2” or so at 50y…you will be able to shoot high scores because all you have to do is read the left/right. The tighter the vertical, the more room you will have for windage error.
It’s the exact same for field target. The closer you shoot to the center in the vertical plane e….the wider the kill zone is.
As Joe pointed out….vertical is the biggest killer of scores.
Mike
The light bulb has gone on!
I do shoot in an open structure with an aluminum roof over the shooting benches. I will try an avoid doing this testing with the strong head or tail winds if possible, and this is good to know. This also might explain some of the unpredictable POI’s I have had with these types of winds.
Re. vertical shifts - I can relate to your friend’s observation about vertical shifts. I always figured it was all wind, or me making a technique error while shooting. Forgot about my gun that just can’t get to shooting 1/2” vertical spreads.
I have three guns that will consistently ( not every time) obtain 1/2” average group sizes at 50 yards in LIGHT wind conditions. This assumes that I have a clean barrel, pellets visually look good, and I am confident with my optimum velocity based on many prior range outings and Chrony results. The Safari .22 HP, RAW HM1000x .22 HP and the FX Boss .25 and .30 cal barrels. When I say they average 1/2”, I mean shooting 8-10 Five shot groups and no cherry picking. I want 40-50 shots to determine my average. Btw - These same three guns have also had their 1/2” to 3/4 or 1 inch CTC group sizes too. Generally speaking, they can shoot 1/2” groups at 50Y a majority of the time.
That said, I believe my biggest challenge might be not holding enough for the left or right wind holds. And/or, not judging the right amount of vertical with these same holds. Just to illustrate, and using the clock as an example, It might take me a couple of errant bulls to figure out if I was holding far enough right or left and/ or up or down using the hours on the clock.
Like others have said, there is a lot of good information and shared experiences in this thread.
P.S. If I really want to stroke my ego, I leave all my airguns home and bring my two Anschutz .22 Rimfires and pick a light wind day, and shoot a few N50 cards with premium ammo. Those are the scores I like to remember.
