I shot in some pretty tricky wind yesterday. I thought I would break it down here. I am shooting a 308 with 175 grain Nosler Custom Competitions. BC is pretty much the same as a 175 SMK so, G7 .243 & G1 .500ish. I am shooting an old gas gun load of 39.5g of IMR4895 @ 2484fps. Slow, but extremely accurate and consistent.
The bullet based on BC would be a "5", the initial assumption is that 5mph would move it 1 mil at 1000 yards.
I'm only shooting it just under 2500 fps, so we change that assumption down to at least a "4", this is our "base wind".
The range is 753 yards
The wind is 3-6mph from North, switching to NW.
We take the actual wind, and divide it by our base wind. We do it once for the low and once for the high, this is our wind bracket.
3 / 4 = .75, 6 / 4 = 1.5
Our standard full value hold for our base wind at 753 yards would be .753 mils, it's the range expressed as a decimal (753 / 1000)
.753 mils x .75 = .56 mils, This is our low side (3mph)
.753 mils x 1.5 = 1.12 mils, This our high side (6mph)
So our full value wind bracket at this range is .56 mils (.6) to 1.12 mils (1.1)
Now for the tricky part. The wind was swithching N to NW. So, it was coming right up my back then swithching a bit to my right.
I'm on the side of a mountain, shooting across a small canyon that opens up a bit to my left, creating a small bowl that I'm shooting across the mouth of. When the wind is 3mph, and coming up my back, there is no cross wind to deal with. Center hold.
When the wind kicks up to 6 mph, the wind following the mountain wants to fill in the bowl to my left creating a crosswind right to left.
This cross wind is right at 22-25 degrees, so half value. Let's do the math:
6mph = 1.1 mils x .5 (half value) = .55 mils (.6)
When the wind switches to my right, the wind comes at about 45 degrees, so .7 value.
3mph = .6 mils x .7 = .42 mils (.4)
6mph = 1.1 mils x .7 = .77 mils (.8)
So, this is the wind I was dealing with for about 3 hours yesterday. I wish I could say I hammered the target every time, but it didn't happen. The wind was extremely subtle, and the target I was shooting at was just larger than minute of angle. I shot 100 rounds in three hours, and I managed about a 40-50% hit rate, with most of the others being a tenth or two off the edge...a couple of handfuls I blew out of my ass and missed by a half mil or more. Shooter fatigue was definitely a factor toward the end.
So, hope this helps someone.