Seeing a 22lr in flight

[chillywig]

What does it take to see a 22LR bullet in flight? I was shooting today at 200 and 300 yards and do not believe I saw any bullets. I know I've seen them in the past but did not see any today. Do I need better lighting, better scope or better eyes? Today it was overcast with a few quick showers shooting center x. Scope is a razor G3 6X36 on 36 power. The berms are grass and dirt, targets are smallish white steel. The 4 berms are 50, 100, 200 and 300

And much to my surprise. I shot a group at 200 before the rain started in pretty hard. Then shot another group. Same size same position. How is that possible? Rain drops don’t affect the bullets path or the bullets squeezed between every drop for 200 yards?

 

[Aftermath]

What does it take to see a 22LR bullet in flight? I was shooting today at 200 and 300 yards and do not believe I saw any bullets. I know I've seen them in the past but did not see any today. Do I need better lighting, better scope or better eyes? Today it was overcast with a few quick showers shooting center x. Scope is a razor G3 6X36 on 36 power. The berms are grass and dirt, targets are smallish white steel. The 4 berms are 50, 100, 200 and 300

And much to my surprise. I shot a group at 200 before the rain started in pretty hard. Then shot another group. Same size same position. How is that possible? Rain drops don’t affect the bullets path or the bullets squeezed between every drop for 200 yards?View attachment 8686726

There is a very good study about rain drops hitting bullets and such. LOTS of anecdotal evidence. It's damned near impossible to actually shoot a raindrop.
I can verify that it can have dramatic results. We use to shoot from a nice covered area and shot in every sort of weather, partly because we were in the shade, had radiant heaters, swamp coolers, fans...the rain would have to be blowing in some real serious wind in order for the bench to get wet and that did happen some. Mississippi. Once it was raining so hard we damned near needed hearing protection. Targets beyond 200 were extremely hard to see. None of us could shoot a decent group at 100. To be fair, the wind was also gusting, fluctuating wildly and from several directions but I don't know just how much.

 

[diverdon]

When I shoot a shiny copper .22LR and the angle of the sun is correct i see them. Perhaps 2 hours before sunset shooting south is mostly when I see them.

Same thing with most hand gun bullets. If you have the conditions right and still aren't spotting your own stand over a buddy's right shoulder and catch sight of a few of his bullets in flight.

 

[walterg]

I have the best luck with the eley silver bullets found in the Tenex, match and team ammo. Especially during a day with no cloud cover. That silver bullet shines in the sun.

 

[hlee]

Sun behind you. It shines off the base…

 

[Bradu]

When I shoot a shiny copper .22LR and the angle of the sun is correct i see them. Perhaps 2 hours before sunset shooting south is mostly when I see them.

Same thing with most hand gun bullets. If you have the conditions right and still aren't spotting your own stand over a buddy's right shoulder and catch sight of a few of his bullets in flight.

I've had this happen when shooting a 260 and 308 on two different occasions. When the guy told me he could see my bullets through his scope, I thought he was referring to the vapor trail. We switched so he was shooting my rifle and I was observing. You could see it very easily from about 150 yards out to 300 yards.

I had to read up on it when I got home because I still had doubts of what we were watching. One of the coolest experiences shooting that I've had.

 

[kl3309]

What does it take to see a 22LR bullet in flight?

You talkin' about watching the bullet through your scope? What's your reticle? If you've got a vertical stadia line above horizontal, it's obscuring the bullet in flight.
I used to be able to see .22s flying in the upper half of the FOV once the wind grabs it and pushes it out from behind the reticle (that's standard velocity or slower at 24x, between 75 and 200 yds). Lighting didn't seem to make much of a difference.

 

[KnowNothing256]

I’ve practiced seeing them with 22LR, and I find three things help a lot:

- Lighting, both general and on the bullet (direct sun angled from behind seems to be best, dusk and shadow are worst)
- Bullet color (the Eley silver bullet really does make a difference)
- The color of the target (white or other bright background is best)

Your scope is fully capable of seeing it. Try shooting at paper around 80 yds, you should see the bullet easily.

That range, about 70-120 yds, also seems to be the sweet spot for me with regards to how high above LOS the bullet climbs. As targets get farther, the bullet carries too far above my eye’s focus to track well.

 

[obx22]

If I could see them consistently I’d be a happy man.
With setting sun behind me, I’ve watched many from 50-100yds while shooting paper.
On very rare occasions I’ve seen the “trace”, which distorted the light like the water probes in the movie “The Abyss”. A friend was shooting his 223 and when standing at a certain angle behind him a tube of distortion about 5” arched to the target time and again. We switched to rimfires and I was blown away watching this same effect (although smaller in diameter).
Through a scope it’s easier to see the slug if you are focused slightly closer than the target and bear in mind it will arch in from above. My favorite experience was firing low velocity shorts through a Contender with a 10X scope at 50y. The little pills were definitely flying in a helix to the target! With today’s higher speed cameras I’m sure we will start seeing captures of this phenomenon.

 

[Hoser]

Zoom out a little to get a bigger field of view. If the bullet climbs out of your field of view you might not catch it until it is pretty close to the target.

When shooting past 200-300 yards, I am rarely above 20X if I want to see the bullet.

 

[MVOsteen]

If you use a ballistic solver you should be able to get the max ordinate. That’s the apex the bullet reaches With my .22 it’s between 5 and 6 mills above my crosshair shooting at 250 if I recall correctly.

With that information you should be able to look above the crosshairs and see it. It worked very well for me on a misty afternoon in South Carolina last week.

That was with a Kahles 525i on 18x.

 

[DFOOSKING]

Max ord is halfway plus 10%.

If your app doesn't supply it.....just subtract your target dope from the max ord's dope.

Another way is edit your ballistic solvers profile and set your zero range to the target range distance. Call out for the solution and look at the graph. Should show the physical path.

 

[Sniff]

I see mine often with my Bergara B14R. The higher the magnication of the scope, the more likely I am to see the bullets.
Seeing the actual bullets in flight, not just the glint.

 

[slodsm]

I’m in east Texas, most of my shooting is in that general area with some matches further west now and then.

We have a ton of humidity, seeing a 22 in flight is pretty much every shot at 100 yards and further and honestly you can see them at 50 if the sun is right and the background is white.

 

[Emerson0311]

I’m in east Texas, most of my shooting is in that general area with some matches further west now and then.

We have a ton of humidity, seeing a 22 in flight is pretty much every shot at 100 yards and further and honestly you can see them at 50 if the sun is right and the background is white.

I see my Eley all the time. Yesterday at 6X shooting 80yds watched the wind push it around. I see CF a lot too.

 

[chevy_man]

My local range faces East. I can see them pretty much all the time after noon.

Much easier to see at 300-500 yards when they're really slowing down though.

We have very low humidity, so trace is usually impossible. Only time it's visible is generally right after it rains and the sun comes out. But it will still only be 50-70% humidity. We average 20-30%.

 

[Jack_L]

This is a place where glass quality will show. I picked up a ZCO for my competition rimfire rig specifically for this purpose, as it's not at all uncommon for rimfire targets to not have a background that will be reactive enough to see splash on every shot. I am trying to see the final 1/2-1/4 of the projectile path, watching the upper portion of the field of view toward the wind. I will see 100% of my projectiles out to 150 or so, and down to maybe 75% out to 200-ish, heavily dependent on lighting and background, and not counting when I'm shooting out of parallax for some reason.

Rain:
I don't worry about it at all with centerfire, but I have hit a large raindrop with .22, and it threw my impact off by about 0.4 MRAD. Ruined a really nice 100-yard group when I was lot-testing ammo last year. Saw the rain drop pop at about 40-60 yards. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't personally experienced it.

 

[kyotekiller25]

I've noticed it's usually when the sun is at your back, shooting paper at 50-100 yards. Pretty cool stuff.