Shooting in the wind - Playing with Strelok

[FishNChips]

We have been having storm after storm come through, rain and 20-40 mph winds. I have been struggling shooting my pellet gun in the wind and have been really wanting to practice and test Chairgun and Strelok for judging hold over and wind drift. I took some time today and made some small metal targets and hung them on the fences and trees from 20-50 yards, put up some flags and streamers to judge wind direction, and set up a shooting bag in my upstairs window which is much nicer to shoot from than sitting out in the weather.

I pulled up Strelok and put in the wind velocity (off NOAA.gov), and then the wind direction. You know what, it works! Well shooting in the sustained winds between the 35 mph gusts anyways. It is a bit slow for hunting but works great for targets. I was hitting the targets out to 50 yards in the wind and found it great practice and very interesting, and very satisfying!

I know it is not ground breaking, but I found it to be a lot of fun. It is amazing how much wind will drift a pellet. We are supposed to hit 40 mph gusts tonight, that may be pushing what I can do but I will give it a try

 

[T3PRanch]

What caliber, fps and pellet weight were you using?

Thurmond

 

[FishNChips]

I am shooting a Weihrach HW95 .22 caliber, about 752 fps. H&N FTT 14.66 grains. No scale or cronograph yet so speed is based on pellet drop in chairgun using different yardages to confirm the results, and pellet weight off the tin. Using these variables seems to have my results very close.

I tried shooting in the 40 mph winds this evening but it was gusting so bad I found it much harder to judge. If I shot between gusts it worked out well, but the gusts were so variable I had to shoot rather quickly.

I went into the shop and made a few more targets to hang. I have a pretty good range setup, but admit shooting small targets hanging around the field was pretty fun and challenging. I printed out some house sparrow targets to glue onto some of the targets.

 

[Guest]

I think that's a great way to learn your gun! It's windy pretty well all the time here on the Gulf of St Lawrence ... your approach has worked for me, too.

And - FWIF - YES! ... it is very satisfying!

 

[FishNChips]

I was impressed enough I just downloaded Strelok Pro. It definitely has more variables to input, but did not change my results that much. I do like how it downloads the weather, adjusts for temperature and barometric pressure, and used the camera to determine angle. I plan on inputting all my center fire rifles as well and comparing my results with those. I work with physics a lot and can really geek out on this stuff, lol

I hung up some more targets out to 60 yards. Just a slight breeze today but raining. I have been shooting and having a great time, I have targets hung from every tree I shoot invasive birds out of. There is no safe place for them now.

 

[immortl]

I know this is an older thread, but thought I'd toss in my vote for Strelok as well, as I don't see it mentioned all that often on the airgun forums. My buddies and I have used it for years for 17HMR and 17WSM when out shooting gophers (ground squirrels to those outside of MT). It's been spot on for us. We tend to be overly geeky about it and calibrate pressure and altitude at a small air strip along the way and have a weather station mounted on the roof of the truck for wind speed and direction. Neither Strelok nor Strelok pro have ever let us down.

 

[LDP]

I use strelok pro and its miles ahead of chairgun. I didnt know strelok pro had a setting for pellets so I used chairgun for years and always hated that chairgun is only hawke reticles and standard mil dot. Strelok pro has a large selection of reticles from all the major manufacturers so if you dont use a hawke specific reticle or plain mil dot Strelok pro has you covered.