This past weekend we had a class at JM Precision in Imperial Nebraska. We love this location not just for the local charm but the terrain we are shooting in. The conditions are tricky at times but they often teach us something about our shooting.
With the small canyon and surrounding hills the wind will often do weird things. As an example we had a large and small plate at 1240 yards. The prevailing wind was 8MPH from the right and the call to hit the small plate was left edge. Yet you’d have no problem hitting the big plate with a right edge hold. The difference was the location of the plates and their proximity to an outcropping and ledge that would swirl the wind. Basically the wind bounces off the hills and pushes the bullet in the opposite direction, no voodoo but you have to know and see it to correct for it.
In my presentation about wind I talk how terrain can have an impact on the bullet. Terrain is responsible for localized changes that may or may not effect the bullets path. It’s cool when it happens and we see it every class here in Nebraska. It can be shadowed, it can also get underneath and cause lift, it does a lot of crazy things when it gets going on this range. Which for everyone on the line is super fun.
I love calling wind for students on this range. It great to see the looks the moment you give one an opposite call of the previous. Heads prairie dog up and echos of, did he just say left filter through my ear pro. The moment they hit it, all doubt falls away, he is seeing something I am not so they go with it.
My point in this, we pay attention to every single shot on this range in regards to windage because you have too. We have Marc on the student watching process and fundamentals, and me on glass analyzing and adjusting to keep the students on steel without wasting too much ammo. This even works in elevation, hey have him come down .3, Marc will reply, No he dove in the bag, have him take another shot and interestingly the student hits center the next shot. They were .3 high at 700 for the first shot but now they are right back on target. The rear bag shifted in recoil, the rifle rocked back and the muzzle went up. Recoil management tells the bullet where the barrel is on release.
This past weekend we had another interesting observation. Now granted I have seen this effect many times before. It’s not new. In fact, I have spoken about it in the past. We have a wide variety of students, different backgrounds, different states, different rifle systems but in the end we create clones.
Most of the guys grew up shooting, have the basic understanding, in short, your typical shooter we see in every class.
So what did I see that was important enough to write about, the human factor. We are the problem, we are the issue when it comes to hitting or missing at long range. Sure we can breakdown a shot into all the magical elements of external ballistics but the reality is, it’s us. We are the thing that needs to be fixed.
So here is the tale of two shooters, one left handed, one righted hand how that impacts my wind calls.
By chance we had two lefty’s in class, and trust me, lefty’s are witches that need to be burned at the stake like Medieval times. They are hard to get straight, they overly cant the rifle by pushing on it, and in general a lefty on the class will mean a bit more effort to get our desired results. But they help highlight things like rifle set up, as that is usually the best fix for them, adjusting their system and them to be more comfortable.
I had Shooter 1 who was left handed, Shooter 2 was right handed, Shooter 3 right handed and Shooter 4 who was left handed, with the remaining students all right handed. Most are shooting 6.5 Creedmoor with one shooting a 6 Creedmoor, my two right handed shooters used .4 for the 6CM and .6 for 6.5 CM. My Lefty’s used .8 and 1.2 Mils to hit the same targets. The time between each shooter was about equal and the conditions we absolutely similar. My wind calls did not really change down the line.
How can this happen, well it’s body position but it highlights an important point. We often have students ask us about things like Spin Drift, as well as other drift effects. They ask because I don’t mention it. When a shot is launched wide and outside by a right handed shooter they immediately ask if that was the spindrift they heard the internet talk about. No sir, that was all you. Sure a Spindrift correction would help fix your trigger control problem but the real problem is your trigger control how about we fix that instead?
Right handed people push right, left handed people push shots left it’s that simple. We do it. Not a phantom drift factor that equates to roughly 1% of your elevation. 1% think about that number when we are considering putting together a shot at 800 yards. Do you think that 1% caused your miss ?
No of course you don’t but it’s a nice line to throw out there. You might even sound smart to someone by mentioning Spindrift and Coriolis.
We use weaponized math in class, it’s gravity so it’s easy to follow. It has no inputs like BC, MV, Weather, etc, it’s just a super simple multiplication factor that tells us the difference between yard-lines as the bullet drops.
Marc doped gravity. We found the value from 300 to 400, 400 to 500, etc and it will absolutely put you on center plate off your last shot if you do your part correctly. Doing your part correctly is a minor caveat with a huge implication. We are managing a lot of moving parts, we are doping the shot and adjusting the scope correctly, we are managing the recoil, using our fundamentals we hopefully do the same thing shot to shot, but that is not always the case.
Focus on the shooter and the hits will come, I guarantee it. The science behind the shot is great to know, but often hard to put into practice. We think we are doing what the science says, or at least our interpretation of the science, but the reality is, we are the issue. When I start hearing guys talk about adding a “Click of Spindrift” at ranges like 400, 600, 800 yards, I just have to roll my eyes. That is their shooter drift nothing more.
All things considered the drifts we have to worry about when stacked up are about 1.25% of the elevation applied to the scope. So if you are taking at shot with 10 Mils on the rifle you would dial .1 for them. At those ranges the plates are usually are much much bigger than that and the wind is a bigger issue.
With the Wind work I am doing with Chris Way, were we score students based on their hits as measured from center of plate, we find many to to be 3 to 6 MPH wind callers. If your wind calling abilities are limited to say 4 MPH you are never gonna see those drifts appear in your shots. Some may say, well if you know it’s there, why not add it, my answer is, why because it distracts them from the reality. They don’t’ need to worry about spindrift and Coriolis they need to fix their fundamentals and work on their wind calls. It’s a priorities thing, they will read every Bryan Litz book and come away thinking about Aerodynamic Jump, Spindrift and Coriolis as way to becoming a better shooter. It’s as if this was all they were missing the knowledge to add that tenth in there to complete the process and get the hit.
All our students get hits, on my range to 1 Mile and in this case to 1240, and none of them dialed on a drift. We focus on the wind call.
We build shooters into marksman, because we focus on the shooter and not the noise. In the case of the lefty’s in the class the issue was they were heavy headed. Meaning they were pushing the rifle over and because they are often crooked behind the rifle they don’t’ see it. If you look at my fundamental evaluation I have a section that asks, is their head straight or rolled, as rolled heads will push a loose bipod. We fix them by loaning them a bipod like an Atlas CAL, TBAC or Elite Iron. One that will lock up tight with a pod lock. We will set the bipod slightly inboard so when they push, they push the rifle straight. Why we switch bipods for them, to demonstrate to the entire class that a bipod fixes cant in the prone, not a level. However in this case I recommended both lefty’s invest in a level as they need to learn what level looks like. I am not opposed to the idiot light mounted on the rifle, there just needs to be a reason. A level is a training tool and not a shooting aid, if you are using the level to correct your position you are not correcting the problem. Each time that level says you are wrong, that is a clue saying you have a problem in the prone.
Many lefty’s will have a right handed rifle, one of ours did, but consider the right handed shooter with the same problem. They are not just pushing the rifle over with their head, but pulling it over with the bolt. The wrong bipod or one that is not correctly adjusted will let them. With most people being right handed, we see it a lot, hence the call it to fix it with the scope.
Fix the shooter, don’t adjust the scope. You can mechanically fix these problems through adjustments in body position, changing adjustments on the rifle, like LOP, Scope placement, cheek piece, etc. It takes the right eye to recognize the problems, which is why the short cut is to call it a drift. Sure we will do with a problem student, dial in windage to keep them on target rather than chase them shot after shot. But in the end we don’t’ let them get away with it, we just know we’ll need time to fix them. We have a limited amount of time so the fix is not always immediate, it takes reps.
There is no Voodoo, and it takes effort, but focus on the Fundamentals and I promise the rest will fall into place.
With the small canyon and surrounding hills the wind will often do weird things. As an example we had a large and small plate at 1240 yards. The prevailing wind was 8MPH from the right and the call to hit the small plate was left edge. Yet you’d have no problem hitting the big plate with a right edge hold. The difference was the location of the plates and their proximity to an outcropping and ledge that would swirl the wind. Basically the wind bounces off the hills and pushes the bullet in the opposite direction, no voodoo but you have to know and see it to correct for it.
In my presentation about wind I talk how terrain can have an impact on the bullet. Terrain is responsible for localized changes that may or may not effect the bullets path. It’s cool when it happens and we see it every class here in Nebraska. It can be shadowed, it can also get underneath and cause lift, it does a lot of crazy things when it gets going on this range. Which for everyone on the line is super fun.
I love calling wind for students on this range. It great to see the looks the moment you give one an opposite call of the previous. Heads prairie dog up and echos of, did he just say left filter through my ear pro. The moment they hit it, all doubt falls away, he is seeing something I am not so they go with it.
My point in this, we pay attention to every single shot on this range in regards to windage because you have too. We have Marc on the student watching process and fundamentals, and me on glass analyzing and adjusting to keep the students on steel without wasting too much ammo. This even works in elevation, hey have him come down .3, Marc will reply, No he dove in the bag, have him take another shot and interestingly the student hits center the next shot. They were .3 high at 700 for the first shot but now they are right back on target. The rear bag shifted in recoil, the rifle rocked back and the muzzle went up. Recoil management tells the bullet where the barrel is on release.
This past weekend we had another interesting observation. Now granted I have seen this effect many times before. It’s not new. In fact, I have spoken about it in the past. We have a wide variety of students, different backgrounds, different states, different rifle systems but in the end we create clones.
Most of the guys grew up shooting, have the basic understanding, in short, your typical shooter we see in every class.
So what did I see that was important enough to write about, the human factor. We are the problem, we are the issue when it comes to hitting or missing at long range. Sure we can breakdown a shot into all the magical elements of external ballistics but the reality is, it’s us. We are the thing that needs to be fixed.
So here is the tale of two shooters, one left handed, one righted hand how that impacts my wind calls.
By chance we had two lefty’s in class, and trust me, lefty’s are witches that need to be burned at the stake like Medieval times. They are hard to get straight, they overly cant the rifle by pushing on it, and in general a lefty on the class will mean a bit more effort to get our desired results. But they help highlight things like rifle set up, as that is usually the best fix for them, adjusting their system and them to be more comfortable.
I had Shooter 1 who was left handed, Shooter 2 was right handed, Shooter 3 right handed and Shooter 4 who was left handed, with the remaining students all right handed. Most are shooting 6.5 Creedmoor with one shooting a 6 Creedmoor, my two right handed shooters used .4 for the 6CM and .6 for 6.5 CM. My Lefty’s used .8 and 1.2 Mils to hit the same targets. The time between each shooter was about equal and the conditions we absolutely similar. My wind calls did not really change down the line.
How can this happen, well it’s body position but it highlights an important point. We often have students ask us about things like Spin Drift, as well as other drift effects. They ask because I don’t mention it. When a shot is launched wide and outside by a right handed shooter they immediately ask if that was the spindrift they heard the internet talk about. No sir, that was all you. Sure a Spindrift correction would help fix your trigger control problem but the real problem is your trigger control how about we fix that instead?
Right handed people push right, left handed people push shots left it’s that simple. We do it. Not a phantom drift factor that equates to roughly 1% of your elevation. 1% think about that number when we are considering putting together a shot at 800 yards. Do you think that 1% caused your miss ?
No of course you don’t but it’s a nice line to throw out there. You might even sound smart to someone by mentioning Spindrift and Coriolis.
We use weaponized math in class, it’s gravity so it’s easy to follow. It has no inputs like BC, MV, Weather, etc, it’s just a super simple multiplication factor that tells us the difference between yard-lines as the bullet drops.
Marc doped gravity. We found the value from 300 to 400, 400 to 500, etc and it will absolutely put you on center plate off your last shot if you do your part correctly. Doing your part correctly is a minor caveat with a huge implication. We are managing a lot of moving parts, we are doping the shot and adjusting the scope correctly, we are managing the recoil, using our fundamentals we hopefully do the same thing shot to shot, but that is not always the case.
Focus on the shooter and the hits will come, I guarantee it. The science behind the shot is great to know, but often hard to put into practice. We think we are doing what the science says, or at least our interpretation of the science, but the reality is, we are the issue. When I start hearing guys talk about adding a “Click of Spindrift” at ranges like 400, 600, 800 yards, I just have to roll my eyes. That is their shooter drift nothing more.
All things considered the drifts we have to worry about when stacked up are about 1.25% of the elevation applied to the scope. So if you are taking at shot with 10 Mils on the rifle you would dial .1 for them. At those ranges the plates are usually are much much bigger than that and the wind is a bigger issue.
With the Wind work I am doing with Chris Way, were we score students based on their hits as measured from center of plate, we find many to to be 3 to 6 MPH wind callers. If your wind calling abilities are limited to say 4 MPH you are never gonna see those drifts appear in your shots. Some may say, well if you know it’s there, why not add it, my answer is, why because it distracts them from the reality. They don’t’ need to worry about spindrift and Coriolis they need to fix their fundamentals and work on their wind calls. It’s a priorities thing, they will read every Bryan Litz book and come away thinking about Aerodynamic Jump, Spindrift and Coriolis as way to becoming a better shooter. It’s as if this was all they were missing the knowledge to add that tenth in there to complete the process and get the hit.
All our students get hits, on my range to 1 Mile and in this case to 1240, and none of them dialed on a drift. We focus on the wind call.
We build shooters into marksman, because we focus on the shooter and not the noise. In the case of the lefty’s in the class the issue was they were heavy headed. Meaning they were pushing the rifle over and because they are often crooked behind the rifle they don’t’ see it. If you look at my fundamental evaluation I have a section that asks, is their head straight or rolled, as rolled heads will push a loose bipod. We fix them by loaning them a bipod like an Atlas CAL, TBAC or Elite Iron. One that will lock up tight with a pod lock. We will set the bipod slightly inboard so when they push, they push the rifle straight. Why we switch bipods for them, to demonstrate to the entire class that a bipod fixes cant in the prone, not a level. However in this case I recommended both lefty’s invest in a level as they need to learn what level looks like. I am not opposed to the idiot light mounted on the rifle, there just needs to be a reason. A level is a training tool and not a shooting aid, if you are using the level to correct your position you are not correcting the problem. Each time that level says you are wrong, that is a clue saying you have a problem in the prone.
Many lefty’s will have a right handed rifle, one of ours did, but consider the right handed shooter with the same problem. They are not just pushing the rifle over with their head, but pulling it over with the bolt. The wrong bipod or one that is not correctly adjusted will let them. With most people being right handed, we see it a lot, hence the call it to fix it with the scope.
Fix the shooter, don’t adjust the scope. You can mechanically fix these problems through adjustments in body position, changing adjustments on the rifle, like LOP, Scope placement, cheek piece, etc. It takes the right eye to recognize the problems, which is why the short cut is to call it a drift. Sure we will do with a problem student, dial in windage to keep them on target rather than chase them shot after shot. But in the end we don’t’ let them get away with it, we just know we’ll need time to fix them. We have a limited amount of time so the fix is not always immediate, it takes reps.
There is no Voodoo, and it takes effort, but focus on the Fundamentals and I promise the rest will fall into place.
