I am going to make one more comment and then I am probably done. I shoot every day in CO and several times when I am in AZ. I think I am a pretty good wind caller - certainly improved since I have been able to shoot every day. My last five shots look like this:
- 500 yards: held 1/2 MOA for wind to the right; hit my 2" aiming circle
- 784 yards: held dead on (slight wind from right zeroed out spin according to my SIG K10). Hit my 3" aiming circle
- 1183 yards: held 2 MOA left for wind, hit 1 MOA left
- 784 yards: held 1.5 MOA for wind and hit my 3" aiming circle
- 1183 yards: held 3 MOA to right for wind (SIG actually said 3.25 but it "felt like" 3). Hit 1 MOA left.
The 500 and 784 yard shots were "cold bore" - no previous shots that day. The Lapua rounds were shot after the 784 yard shots but at a 45 deg angle from the 784 target (so wind angle was a bit different).
The rifle I used was a 300 RUM, McM stock Brux bbl, 700 action except for the 1183 shots, which was a Lapua on a Stiller action, McM stock, and Blake barrel. RUM shoots 220 ELDXs at 3045 and Lapua shoots 285 ELDMs at 2850; both of these have about as good of wind drift as it gets without going to .416.
Normally I am better at 1183 but the point I am making is that my wind calls were perfect at 800 and closer (and honestly, hitting that circle the last three times is not typical although I am within 5" almost always). But at 1183 I am all over the map. My last shots were on Monday, and just for my own amusement I held my Kestrel up with my iPhone stopwatch and observed over 90% of the time the wind changed within one second. Not much most of the time, but enough to kill a perfect wind call at 1183 (assuming I had been perfect).
I posted earlier this summer that the wind can be howling and I rarely miss (>5" from center) at 623yards. Once you get past 800 yards, weird sheet can happen - the bullet dispersion due to inherent accuracy increases, the wind drift per mile of wind increase exponentially, the effects of MV SD start to rear their ugly heads, and most importantly, the TOF increases to the point where a wind call is nothing more than an educated guess.
Apparently, many of you are either not familiar with Bryan Litz's WEZ analysis, don't understand the math, or just choose to say, "To heck with it, I know I have a good chance at missing or wounding, but I want to bask in the glory of a long range kill post on LRH." Who knows? But I am a believer.