I shot the Lone Survivor this past weekend, and while I finished well I was chasing elevation both days and I struggled at 900+. What worked Friday, with good elevation to 1100, had me shooting slightly high on Saturday and slightly low on Sunday. Temps were relatively the same sat and sun, and if anything it was warmer on Sunday so I figured I would've been shooting high that day. It wasn't much, but enough to where I started adding or subtracting a tenth or two here or there from what the calculator was telling me, or just favoring high or low depending on where I saw trace and impacts. The only thing I can think is that we had 10 mph winds from 9 oclock on Friday, 10-20 mph full value winds from 3 oclock on Saturday, and then 0-5 mph winds at 3 that shifted all the way to around 7 or 8 oclock. I can train to make better wind calls or develop better positions from barricades, but I'm pretty much at the mercy of the calculator for elevation. Is this just something I have to live with, or can I tune the kestrel / AB to track elevation better?
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Elevation Problems
- Thread starter lte82
- Start date
I think Frank discussed this in one of the podcasts. Winds at 9:00 will cause a low miss. Winds at 3:00 will cause it to be high. Just a guess
Oh I know winds can definitely shift impact, but AB in the kestrel is trying to correct for it. IE, it shows elevation at 1000 is ~.2 mil different between 3 oclock and 9 oclock winds at 10 mph, so there shouldn't be any need to add numbers to the solution on my own. The Hornady 4dof app on my phone corrects for it too, however the numbers are slightly different than the kestrel. The AB app on my phone doesn't show any correction though, which is strange to me. The solutions from the kestrel and the phone app don't match.
good luck getting a kestrel to true up leaving the cross wind effects in there...i never could, almost everyone else i know had issues with it also...chasing .2 changes in elevation all the time was my experience
i zero ws1 out to get my dope, then work wind calls...its been far more consistent regardless of wind speed/direction for me the last 2-3 yrs
a local range i shoot at monthly has winds from 9/10 to 2/3 depending on the day...in 2016 i shot 130 hybrids at 2850 the whole year in my 6.5...they have a 10" diamond at 1k...and if the DA was 1000-2000 in the kestrel, i hit it with 8.1-8.2 mils whether i was holding 2 mils left or .5 mil right, or anything else
i cant say that wind doesnt affect elevation because i havent actually set up a place/time to check it myself and it may even vary from bullet to bullet so 1 test may not prove anything for all scenarios...all i know is impact % and dope consistency went up, removing whatever it is the kestrel tries to do...and not just for myself
also: just checked with my buddy Ryan, he said he zero'd ws1 for everything both days, no dope issues...think he finished 11th
i zero ws1 out to get my dope, then work wind calls...its been far more consistent regardless of wind speed/direction for me the last 2-3 yrs
a local range i shoot at monthly has winds from 9/10 to 2/3 depending on the day...in 2016 i shot 130 hybrids at 2850 the whole year in my 6.5...they have a 10" diamond at 1k...and if the DA was 1000-2000 in the kestrel, i hit it with 8.1-8.2 mils whether i was holding 2 mils left or .5 mil right, or anything else
i cant say that wind doesnt affect elevation because i havent actually set up a place/time to check it myself and it may even vary from bullet to bullet so 1 test may not prove anything for all scenarios...all i know is impact % and dope consistency went up, removing whatever it is the kestrel tries to do...and not just for myself
also: just checked with my buddy Ryan, he said he zero'd ws1 for everything both days, no dope issues...think he finished 11th
As a regular user of AB, I turn off all effects. I don’t use AJ, SD or Coriolis. I know AJ exists and is about .1 per 10mph per 500 yards. Dial up for 9 o’clock dial down for 3oclock. Works pretty good for me.
I'll try truing with ws1 at 0 and see what that gets me. That could be the problem. What do you use for your ballistic app? And do you use your own gut feel or adjust anything on data from previous experience?
I finished 10th, so it's not like it was terrible , but it is definitely a weak spot for me. It also seems like the better I get at positional shooting the worse my prone shooting feels. I hate the shots past about 700 ha.
i use a kestrel and just always zero out ws1 when truing or getting dope for a stage...i tried using the direction or fire and direction of wind for like 6 months and finally gave up...since then i get elevation first with ws1 zero'd, then get winds based on direction of fire...if the winds were strong enough to change the kestrel elevation calls i would chase it constantly
i had made a thread on the scout hide or previous hide (cant remember) about it and seemed most agreed it was finicky...i went out 1 day and put the same info from my kestrel in JBM, Ballistic AE, and my kestrel...130 hybrid, .287bc, 2.2 scope height, etc...dope from JBM, AE, and kestrel (without wind) hit the 10" diamond @ 1k...if i captured wind (it was 8-12 mph iirc) it changed my dope a couple tenths, and it was wrong...i quit using it after that day
i had made a thread on the scout hide or previous hide (cant remember) about it and seemed most agreed it was finicky...i went out 1 day and put the same info from my kestrel in JBM, Ballistic AE, and my kestrel...130 hybrid, .287bc, 2.2 scope height, etc...dope from JBM, AE, and kestrel (without wind) hit the 10" diamond @ 1k...if i captured wind (it was 8-12 mph iirc) it changed my dope a couple tenths, and it was wrong...i quit using it after that day
Here is what the Kestrel is doing when you have all the "forces" turned on. These are screen shots from AB Analytics which is the same engine as the kestrel but it breaks down the components that make up your hold. I used my data for one of my 6.5's and a worst case scenario of a due east DOF (max coriolis) at 35 degrees N Latitude (Im in Raleigh).
here is the solution at no wind (even in no wind, it says you have to correct for coriolis in the elevation, but no AJ):
Here it is with a 10 mph 3 o'clock wind (notice the change to elevation):
here it is at 20mph:
Now here is the same 3 with a 9 o'clock wind (notice the differences):
Just for giggles, here is a 8 o'clock 20 mph wind
what you were probably seeing is the change in coriolis drop.......i turn this and SD off. Just some thoughts. try turning those off and see if its clser to what you saw.
here is the solution at no wind (even in no wind, it says you have to correct for coriolis in the elevation, but no AJ):
Here it is with a 10 mph 3 o'clock wind (notice the change to elevation):
here it is at 20mph:
Now here is the same 3 with a 9 o'clock wind (notice the differences):
Just for giggles, here is a 8 o'clock 20 mph wind
what you were probably seeing is the change in coriolis drop.......i turn this and SD off. Just some thoughts. try turning those off and see if its clser to what you saw.
The only reason the wind in the kestrel ever even caught my attention one day was because it called my correction for 1k like 7.9 mil at a known location, and I knew I had never, ever held less than 8 mil even in the highest DA conditions (in my local area) with that load...that’s when I started paying attention to it in my kestrel
Lone Survivor is a tough match to gauge elevation errors unless you're quite good at calling left side/right side and high/low impacts or misses. A range with berms is infinitely easier to call misses. My suggestion is to try another range and see what you get. A lot of people called a shot missing "low" but were actually missing right or left and were spotting their impacts behind the target.
I know this is an old thread but I was experiencing the same thing two nights ago. From a 3:00 wind and a 9:00 wind my elevation was changing .2 mils causing me to miss. I knew I couldn’t have been the only one to see this so I used the search and bingo. I’ll try turning off the wind1 and see if that’ll fix it for me.
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