What would you expect from a shooting class??

[WildRose]

Wind, Wind, Wind, and when you get through with everything else Wind.

Everything else can be handled with technology, familiarization, reading, and basic riflemanship.

Look at all the discussions we have on the subject right here amongst a great many rather accomplished and experienced long range shooters.

With your video equipment and terrain for example you can show people how to read the wind downrange and explain how terrain affects the wind. How a headwind can also be a rising wind which adds lift to your bullett and a downslope wind can increase your drop. How wind follows draws and coulees so that what is a headwind at the shooters location may be a crossing wind that changes direction two or three times between the shooter and target. How wind direction may remain constant all the way to the target but velocity can be different at different points along the path.

And of course how to use the natural cues downrange to read these conditions and how to correct for them.... .

I've been in some places both here and abroad where the wind can do absolutely crazy things.

Out of everything we deal with, the wind is the toughest of all.

 

[Shane1]

Wind, Wind, Wind, and when you get through with everything else Wind.

Everything else can be handled with technology, familiarization, reading, and basic riflemanship.

Look at all the discussions we have on the subject right here amongst a great many rather accomplished and experienced long range shooters.

With your video equipment and terrain for example you can show people how to read the wind downrange and explain how terrain affects the wind. How a headwind can also be a rising wind which adds lift to your bullett and a downslope wind can increase your drop. How wind follows draws and coulees so that what is a headwind at the shooters location may be a crossing wind that changes direction two or three times between the shooter and target. How wind direction may remain constant all the way to the target but velocity can be different at different points along the path.

And of course how to use the natural cues downrange to read these conditions and how to correct for them.... .

I've been in some places both here and abroad where the wind can do absolutely crazy things.

Out of everything we deal with, the wind is the toughest of all.

Agreed 100% as a long range shooter wind is without doubt the hardest to learn. Everything else one can learn from reading, programs, range finders ect.. wind can be learned alone but somebody by your side that knows teaching you would really speed things up. I've sent countless rounds down range over the years trying to figure out wind calls. Reading mirage, veg, figuring direction ect . Is flat *** hard. Everything takes practice, shooting position, technique, reloading, verifying drops and wind reading so everything needs covered with extra focus on wind.

 

[WildRose]

Agreed 100% as a long range shooter wind is without doubt the hardest to learn. Everything else one can learn from reading, programs, range finders ect.. wind can be learned alone but somebody by your side that knows teaching you would really speed things up. I've sent countless rounds down range over the years trying to figure out wind calls. Reading mirage, veg, figuring direction ect . Is flat *** hard. Everything takes practice, shooting position, technique, reloading, verifying drops and wind reading so everything needs covered with extra focus on wind.

People like us who learned most of what we know by putting thousands upon thousands of range down range are lucky. At the prices of ammo and components today I could not possibly afford to put 10% of the rounds down range in the next 35 years I did in the prior.

It takes only a few hours of instruction from someone who really knows what they are doing and how to communicate it to save a guy literally years and hundreds or thousands of rounds. Even with the best modern tech, scopes, rifles, rangefinders etc a lot of reading the wind has to be done with estimates and "feel". How to adjust for strong up/down slope winds was one of the toughest things I've ever had to try and conquer and there is no calculator or rangefinder than can give you the answers.

 

[Shane1]

Roger that Wildrose. I had great teachers growing up in my family shooting. Safety, marksmanship, hunting but the range was never farther then a sliver of light between the animals back and reticle wouldn't compensate for the bullet drop. Well maybe a hell marry here and there that never connected.
When the time came to stretch the range way out I was on my own. Would be pretty sickening to put a price on the last 30 years of slingin lead. A good teacher by my side or a few classes would have saved me thousands. There are still times I could use that mentor by my side helping with the hard stuff--wind!

 

[WildRose]

Roger that Wildrose. I had great teachers growing up in my family shooting. Safety, marksmanship, hunting but the range was never farther then a sliver of light between the animals back and reticle wouldn't compensate for the bullet drop. Well maybe a hell marry here and there that never connected.
When the time came to stretch the range way out I was on my own. Would be pretty sickening to put a price on the last 30 years of slingin lead. A good teacher by my side or a few classes would have saved me thousands. There are still times I could use that mentor by my side helping with the hard stuff--wind!

My first long range kill was in 1972 and I'm still learning... . Like my grandad said, "The only excuse to quit learning is to wake up and find out you are dead".

 

[406precision]

The wind is the most important and also the hardest area to teach. Thing about the wind is that it literally takes 1000 of rounds down range and keeping detailed records of those rounds to learn enough to matter, and about the time you think you have it down the wind will go ahead and make a fool out of you.

We try to incorporate mirage, vegitation, wind flags, wind meters and anything else we can get our hands on....lol

How about wind gradient??? We like to let a helium ballon go at the shooting position and then watch the results and then explain thats what your bullets flying through on the way there.... !!!!

Just spent 2 and a 1/2 days in a coyote derby where the wind was blowing 30-60 miles an hour even the coyotes stayed home!!!LOL

The best way to get better at shooting in the wind is to shoot in the wind....but if you don't keep an accurate log book of the shots fired and where they ended up your just burning powder to burn powder. We try and give our students as much documentation and tips as we can, but the biggest variable we deal with is the wind for sure.

 

[WildRose]

The wind is the most important and also the hardest area to teach. Thing about the wind is that it literally takes 1000 of rounds down range and keeping detailed records of those rounds to learn enough to matter, and about the time you think you have it down the wind will go ahead and make a fool out of you.

We try to incorporate mirage, vegitation, wind flags, wind meters and anything else we can get our hands on....lol

How about wind gradient??? We like to let a helium ballon go at the shooting position and then watch the results and then explain thats what your bullets flying through on the way there.... !!!!

Just spent 2 and a 1/2 days in a coyote derby where the wind was blowing 30-60 miles an hour even the coyotes stayed home!!!LOL

The best way to get better at shooting in the wind is to shoot in the wind....but if you don't keep an accurate log book of the shots fired and where they ended up your just burning powder to burn powder. We try and give our students as much documentation and tips as we can, but the biggest variable we deal with is the wind for sure.

No doubt. I grew up on the high plains between 4000-5000ft and wind is just a daily part of life. We used to laugh that you could always look out and tell it was a rare, no wind moment, when people were leaning sideways walking down the sidewalk. That was because we were always used to leaning into the wind to stay upright!

If you can even cover the basics of what we've described above as part of your class it will give novice shooters a huge leg up on learning to deal with the wind.

 

[Scrubbit]

The two areas (aside from wind) that I find most challenging are effective use of an all singing, all dancing ballistics calc (and understanding each component), and load development and consistency. An in-depth understanding of all the factors affecting ballistics and the repeated used of a ballistics calc have helped me greatly in reading the wind. My 2 cents...