I was shooting my .22 Condor this morning at ranges out to 65 yards on what I considered a calm morning. 16 grain AA pellets at just over 1000 fps. Very accurate and very consistent. Shots at 65 yards started intermittently missing my 2" plate which I can usually hit every shot at that range on a calm day. Conditions were so calm that I thought it had to be either my error or something shifted with the gun so I moved back to a 35 yard target and shot through the same bughole I had been hitting. I was shooting off a very stable rest. I could see NO wind movement in the trees or grass. So I put out a paper target at 65 yards. Vertical dispersion of 10 shots was .75". Good enough to hit every shot. But horizontal dispersion was 2.75" total, centered on the target. Just enough to cause a miss to either side with some shots. It could have been cant error but wasn't because I had a vertical reference on the 65 yard target-no canting. So I sat at my shooting point and focused on the INDIVIDUAL LEAVES in the trees at 65 yards. They would be still for a few seconds, then hanging just a bit left for a few seconds, then hanging just a bit right for a few seconds. No "waving" that could be seen with the naked eye, just a slight shift from side to side visible through the scope. Almost undetectable to my skin, even when I walked out and stood by the target. And nothing was moving from where I was sitting out to 35 yards, which is a bit more sheltered. Beyond my 35 yard target is a gas pipeline that is 30 yards wide, thus my 65 yard total. The wind was apparently moving just enough along that open area to cause a miss but as noted it wasn't a consistent direction, it was an almost undetectable "swirl" of air and I believe it must have been a very light breeze moving perpendicular to that pipeline and dropping down thus causing a swirl. When I watched the leaves while ready to shoot and waited until they just hung limply, every shot hit. Just an illustration of how much effect such conditions can have on shooting an air gun at what is seemingly becoming a much more common distance these days. And the most "subtle" example of such that I've ever identified in 50 years of shooting. Enjoy your shooting.
Shooting and windage
- Thread starter bandg
- Start date
My backyard range is fairly wide open with a large barn to the east. I shoot from my backporch that is 8' above ground. You would not believe the wind swirls I get from the house and barn that is 40 yds away. Yesterday my wind flag was barely twitching to the right yet my shots were hitting left! Close shots were right on but at 40 yds they were an inch opposite the wind flag direction. I figure it must be global warming as that is the cause of all our other problems.....
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I'm with you all the way, let's blame it on that. I was really surprised that it could shift the amount it did without me being at least able to notice it visibly (naked eye) or feel it on my skin.
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Welcome to my neck of the woods. I almost never have a completely calm day here and more often than not you no sooner hold 1/2” left and the shot ends up 1” right! Lol
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At least you get plenty of practice reading the wind. I try to practice it just enough to stay relatively aware but it isn't something I prefer to do. Hoping you have some calm days to shoot.
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What you described in your opening statement is the reason why I can’t take a guys picture of his group seriously when, because it’s not a tiny cluster, has to add that it was shot in a 5-7mph crosswind. You described what a slight almost unnoticeable breeze does, a 5-10mph wind is hell on groups.
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Agreed. But it isn't just shooting for groups that is problematic. Trying to precisely zero a gun in conditions such as you mention is basically hopeless. Even the almost unnoticeable swirl I experienced would have produced a zero (if one were even possible) that probably would have caused misses on any later still shooting. Wait for a still day or find a REALLY sheltered area to know what is really happening for setup.
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I get a lot of practice shooting in the wind on my property. Rarely is it a calm day, sometimes the wind indicators at the target are blowing left. While at the bench they're blowing right. When the wind is consistent from one direction I can get consistent hits using hold off. And get consistent hits out to 68 yards on very small objects repeatedly. I used to avoid shooting in the wind, now I just shoot and let the wind teach me a thing or two. I've seen over and over again how so little wind can/will affect a pellet and shoot accordingly. Recently we had some ludicrous for shooting 18-20 mph winds here in NYS. The wind was blowing so hard it was silly, but I had to send some JSB Exact Jumbo 18s at my 40 yard target. Groups 1-3. Did not hold for wind as I wanted to see how far the POI was from POA. I also sent 5 Monster Redesign 25.39.
The pencil shows first shot for second group with the 18s. I forgot to dial down elevation after shooting the 25.39s.
Sequence ten 18s at center, then dialed up and sent five 25.39s at top target. The back to the 18s for the final two groups of five.
The pencil shows first shot for second group with the 18s. I forgot to dial down elevation after shooting the 25.39s.
Sequence ten 18s at center, then dialed up and sent five 25.39s at top target. The back to the 18s for the final two groups of five.
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@bandg, you might try sending those pellets at a slower velocity. It's counterintuitive but might prove fruitful.
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I don't buy the "slower is better" view for all cases, and specifically with heavy pellets at the velocities I'm shooting with this gun. I could be wrong but I have shot them slower with no improvement in accuracy for this rifle. Would slower be better IN THE WIND for this combination? Certainly possible but I'm not convinced of that. If accuracy were better at lower velocity I'd shoot slower there but it hasn't been in this case. I usually start all my setups a bit slower and increase velocity until accuracy starts to fall off and then pull back a bit. For this gun with this pellet, groups never opened to this point. And even if they did, I'd blame it on the wind
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^^^^^that!!!!
not sure why some people try to push to the limit of a pellet but as you already know driving 90mph on a very flat road will take a lot more gas/power compare to 65mph and you feel the crosswind more. Most pellets have a sweet spot of mid 800FPS and all the BC is calculated at mid 800FPS. At 1000fps the BC will change and could become extremely wind sensitive because the BC deteriorates.
keep in mind pellets are DRAG stabilized so faster it goes more drag and turbulence it has and more easily it gets pushed by the wind, the skirt by design is a sail! Another possibility is the barrel has too fast of twist rate which could cause pellets to over stabilized and not track the path of trajectory which cause It to be affected by wind more but there is not easy to way to fix that if it is the case. Pellets needs zero spin to be stable, most pellet barrels will have barely enough twist to ensure pellet stability from the turbulence when existing the muzzle.
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Not selling "slower is better", just a suggestion. 16s grain pellets wouldn't be considered heavy for .22... Maybe a heavier pellets, unless you've already gone that route to no avail. Anyhow, good post...
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Amazing eh?
Spending a lot of time using a .177 at 12-20fpe (naturally 12 is better) is THE thing for learning to read wind.
Also your most accurate pellet may well differ from the one that is JUST less accurate as soon as wind is added. Knew a fellow who use d an RWS75 in FT and used 8.4g pellets, naturally he would have used the 7.9's or such except at 50+ yards the 8.4 won the wind drift contest. And (this one is just me/mine) I had one LW barrel that had a VERY tight choke heavily engraving rifling into the pellet, dead on always with no wind but nearly the worst rig in winds. Can these DEEP marks effect drift? -fairly sure as I spent a lot of time with it.
Wind, the last legal doping in sports.
John
Spending a lot of time using a .177 at 12-20fpe (naturally 12 is better) is THE thing for learning to read wind.
Also your most accurate pellet may well differ from the one that is JUST less accurate as soon as wind is added. Knew a fellow who use d an RWS75 in FT and used 8.4g pellets, naturally he would have used the 7.9's or such except at 50+ yards the 8.4 won the wind drift contest. And (this one is just me/mine) I had one LW barrel that had a VERY tight choke heavily engraving rifling into the pellet, dead on always with no wind but nearly the worst rig in winds. Can these DEEP marks effect drift? -fairly sure as I spent a lot of time with it.
Wind, the last legal doping in sports.
John
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And thanks for the good response. I agree on the weight range for caliber and have a bit of hands on experiece. I have 2 Condors-.177 and .22 calibers. My .177 is set up for JSB Beast pellets, though I also "play around with " NSA slugs. My .22 Condor is set up for Air Arms Diablo Field pellets. No slugs shot with the .22 yet.
As to qballs viewpoint of "not sure why some people try to push the limit of a pellet", why do anything? At least he did say "most" where it was important in regards to pellets. qball's limit with his gun and any given pellet may well be "his" limit. Another shooter with a different gun and different pellet (or even "his" same pellet in that different gun) may have better (or worse) results.
spysir
"Also your most accurate pellet may well differ from the one that is JUST less accurate as soon as wind is added. Knew a fellow who use d an RWS75 in FT and used 8.4g pellets, naturally he would have used the 7.9's or such except at 50+ yards the 8.4 won the wind drift contest."
I agree. Particularly relevant for those FT shooters. Possibly irrelevant (possibly opposite result) for those who don't shoot FT. Most everything is relative.
The JSB Beasts and the AA DF pellets are both 16 gr.
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2" = 1" from center to either side of the target and a hair more to miss outside that 2". Then consider that 16gr doesn't have a very good BC, pretty much the same as a 10.3gr 17 cal pellet which is around .030. This vs .053-ish for the 25.4 RDM. At 1000fps it's possible that 16gr pellet's BC is reduced vs at 880 fps or so.
Without flags on the course you are unsure what exactly the wind is doing, even then a condition can go unnoticed while you are looking through the scope to fire a shot off. Calm can seem to be 1-2-3 mph and if it's a full value wind that could cause a miss off to the side. Having shot N50BR, it doesn't take but a puff of wind to blow those 25's off out into the 8 and 9 ring at 50Y but you are shooting even farther at 65Y.
How about the shape of the steel target, if it's a circle or a diamond and if the pellet hits low or high by a small amount as well as considering the windage needed, then expect even more misses.
Without flags on the course you are unsure what exactly the wind is doing, even then a condition can go unnoticed while you are looking through the scope to fire a shot off. Calm can seem to be 1-2-3 mph and if it's a full value wind that could cause a miss off to the side. Having shot N50BR, it doesn't take but a puff of wind to blow those 25's off out into the 8 and 9 ring at 50Y but you are shooting even farther at 65Y.
How about the shape of the steel target, if it's a circle or a diamond and if the pellet hits low or high by a small amount as well as considering the windage needed, then expect even more misses.
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Wind drift for a .22 JSB 15.89 gr pellet shot at 900 fps
Same pellet at 1000 fps
More wind drift at a higher velocity? Suggests there is more at play here than just velocity.
Not much more wind drift though and if you slow down enough it gets worse again. So there seems to be some "optimal" velocity at which wind drift is minimized. This may not actually be true however because the drag models are not perfect. What we are seeing here may well be (probably is actually) an artifact of the drag model we use itself.
What can be shown WRT muzzle velocity and the diabolo shape is that there IS an optimal velocity for the pellet. It will shoot better (more accurately) at certain velocities. As the velocity increases the group size will change. There will be some optimum velocity with flat nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between 400 and 600 fps. With round nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between about 700 and 900 fps.
Another thing often noticed is the phenomenon of the "stable range". By that I mean a pellet might shoot a tight group at ranges between ten and thrity fife yards and then the groups completely fall apart after that and at a lower velocity they might be stable between muzzle and sixty yards. Push the same pellet too fast and the "stable zone" might be between forty and sixty yards. We've all seen video of a pellet going down range straight and true only to start spiraling half way to the target.
Someone mentioned that a barrel that heavily engraves rifling will be more sensitive to wind and that is absolutely correct. The same barrel in a smooth twist would probably shoot the same pellets more accurately at the same velocity and range. Not only that but the one which heavily engraves the rifling will be more sensitive to a wind from the left than from the right depending upon twist direction. This is called gyroscopic drift or "spin drift".
Anyway.. Looks like Wikipedia has a pretty good page on the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ballistics
Same pellet at 1000 fps
More wind drift at a higher velocity? Suggests there is more at play here than just velocity.
Not much more wind drift though and if you slow down enough it gets worse again. So there seems to be some "optimal" velocity at which wind drift is minimized. This may not actually be true however because the drag models are not perfect. What we are seeing here may well be (probably is actually) an artifact of the drag model we use itself.
What can be shown WRT muzzle velocity and the diabolo shape is that there IS an optimal velocity for the pellet. It will shoot better (more accurately) at certain velocities. As the velocity increases the group size will change. There will be some optimum velocity with flat nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between 400 and 600 fps. With round nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between about 700 and 900 fps.
Another thing often noticed is the phenomenon of the "stable range". By that I mean a pellet might shoot a tight group at ranges between ten and thrity fife yards and then the groups completely fall apart after that and at a lower velocity they might be stable between muzzle and sixty yards. Push the same pellet too fast and the "stable zone" might be between forty and sixty yards. We've all seen video of a pellet going down range straight and true only to start spiraling half way to the target.
Someone mentioned that a barrel that heavily engraves rifling will be more sensitive to wind and that is absolutely correct. The same barrel in a smooth twist would probably shoot the same pellets more accurately at the same velocity and range. Not only that but the one which heavily engraves the rifling will be more sensitive to a wind from the left than from the right depending upon twist direction. This is called gyroscopic drift or "spin drift".
Anyway.. Looks like Wikipedia has a pretty good page on the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ballistics
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Wind drift for a .22 JSB 15.89 gr pellet shot at 900 fps
Same pellet at 1000 fps
More wind drift at a higher velocity? Suggests there is more at play here than just velocity.
Not much more wind drift though and if you slow down enough it gets worse again. So there seems to be some "optimal" velocity at which wind drift is minimized. This may not actually be true however because the drag models are not perfect. What we are seeing here may well be (probably is actually) an artifact of the drag model we use itself.
What can be shown WRT muzzle velocity and the diabolo shape is that there IS an optimal velocity for the pellet. It will shoot better (more accurately) at certain velocities. As the velocity increases the group size will change. There will be some optimum velocity with flat nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between 400 and 600 fps. With round nosed pellets that velocity is usually somewhere between about 700 and 900 fps.
Another thing often noticed is the phenomenon of the "stable range". By that I mean a pellet might shoot a tight group at ranges between ten and thrity fife yards and then the groups completely fall apart after that and at a lower velocity they might be stable between muzzle and sixty yards. Push the same pellet too fast and the "stable zone" might be between forty and sixty yards. We've all seen video of a pellet going down range straight and true only to start spiraling half way to the target.
Someone mentioned that a barrel that heavily engraves rifling will be more sensitive to wind and that is absolutely correct. The same barrel in a smooth twist would probably shoot the same pellets more accurately at the same velocity and range. Not only that but the one which heavily engraves the rifling will be more sensitive to a wind from the left than from the right depending upon twist direction. This is called gyroscopic drift or "spin drift".
Anyway.. Looks like Wikipedia has a pretty good page on the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ballistics
Exactly. IMO, too much focus on this unless one is shooting at extreme ranges. I assume the above charts are accurate. If so, and to the ability of my eyes to resolve that chart, slowing from 1000 to 900 at 65 yards caused a wind drift difference of about 1/4". And IMO that would APPEAR as just NOISE in shooting at that distance, due to variation in the wind, pellet inconsistencies, shooter error, etc. And I assume that drop amount would have probably been a bit more with the velocity drop, which isn't particularly helpful. Is the effect present? Yes. Is it noticeable functionally. I'd say "minimally". Is it possible it would cause an additional miss out of a given number of shots? Yes. Is it likely to significantly affect the number of misses seen? Probably not, IMO.
Dropping further to 850 might well influence the wind drift a bit more, but I bet it would be a very slight impact. Drop would also increase a very slight amount as well, however. No free lunch and as with many things, often a balance to be struck, as you note.
As I stated before (in this thread, I believe) I usually increase velocity until accuracy is impacted then back off just a bit. My method. Maximum ACCURATE velocity is better, IMO. Others can certainly take different approaches, but just different doesn't mean necessarily FUNCTIONALLY better. I don't want to sit around calculating all the time, though such can be an advantage in many situations. I enjoy shooting more.
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From what I can see on your chart, the bc is the same at 880 and 1000. BC is not fixed and the comparison would be fairly worthless in this manner. It's been shown by a good number of trials that pellets BC over 900 fps begins to go down. I did a good number of tests in the ART project and documented the BC's of each barrel at different velocities with the pellets we were wanting to be the preferred. Can't recall a single instance of them being better at higher than 900. The decay may not have been rapid, but it was there.
@bandg .... your method is just fine but testing and setup in calm conditions will likely not show the bc changes well. As previously suggested, maybe try the lower velocity when the wind is significant and see if there is an advantage either way.
A LOT of us have struggled with barrels giving the same accuracy in calm conditions but WAY different when the wind is kicking. There are MANY reasons why one is better besides velocity, but it's also a factor.
Just food for thought. Not trying to dictate what you should do. I've been shooting and tinkering a long time but still am learning new stuff nearly every day.
Interesting subject, regardless.
Bob
@bandg .... your method is just fine but testing and setup in calm conditions will likely not show the bc changes well. As previously suggested, maybe try the lower velocity when the wind is significant and see if there is an advantage either way.
A LOT of us have struggled with barrels giving the same accuracy in calm conditions but WAY different when the wind is kicking. There are MANY reasons why one is better besides velocity, but it's also a factor.
Just food for thought. Not trying to dictate what you should do. I've been shooting and tinkering a long time but still am learning new stuff nearly every day.
Interesting subject, regardless.
Bob
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As have I, for over 50 years now. And this old dog still learns something new on a VERY regular basis. But I agree, it's a very interesting topic. Unless required for hunting or pesting, I shoot my airguns in calm conditions by choice. I don't enjoy shooting them in the wind as much and do so only enough to try to maintain some feel for it. There may well be an advantage to slower velocity in the wind. Certainly possible, but absolutely not certain, considering all the variables. Not particularly relevant to me because I choose not to shoot in the more windy conditions with my airguns. But it may well be relevant for others who do shoot under those conditions.
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