A friend and I took an epic trip to the desert this weekend. We left Friday late afternoon, stayed in a cabin near Truckee that night, then got up early and headed out to the "desert." Why the quotes around desert? See below
Waking up in the morning in Truckee - remember, we're 4 days til May here...
You can't tell from the pic, but it was still snowing.
We drove out to the desert and found this amazing dry lake bed out in the middle of nowhere. What a great place to shoot, right?
We set a 24" circular target at 1860, but...
Rain is coming.
The rain clears and we get the 300 PRC and spotting scope set up.
What's wrong with this picture?
The arrow is pointing at the target. Does that look like a 24" circle to you?
Here's the view through the spotting scope which is a little higher off the ground.
You can clearly see the mirror image with two "targets" shown. You can also see the kaleidoscope pattern through the spotting scope below (not the target area, but close by).
I'd never shot across a dry lake bed before, so this was a learning experience for me. What was amazing was how much mirage there was AND the mirror imaging taking place. The pictures look kind of bright, but in reality, at this point just after the rain, it was still cloudy. Mirage was just nasty. I tried a few shots at 1860, but we couldn't even see the misses. My assumption is that the atmospherics causing the mirror imaging also affected viewing the actual target location, so the POA and POI were significantly different.
We ended up moving the target to a closer (and higher) area to get it higher above the lake bed. Impacts were still about .3 mil under what I would have expected.
There will be a video forthcoming - regardless, it was a fun day.
Waking up in the morning in Truckee - remember, we're 4 days til May here...
You can't tell from the pic, but it was still snowing.
We drove out to the desert and found this amazing dry lake bed out in the middle of nowhere. What a great place to shoot, right?
We set a 24" circular target at 1860, but...
Rain is coming.
The rain clears and we get the 300 PRC and spotting scope set up.
What's wrong with this picture?
The arrow is pointing at the target. Does that look like a 24" circle to you?
Here's the view through the spotting scope which is a little higher off the ground.
You can clearly see the mirror image with two "targets" shown. You can also see the kaleidoscope pattern through the spotting scope below (not the target area, but close by).
I'd never shot across a dry lake bed before, so this was a learning experience for me. What was amazing was how much mirage there was AND the mirror imaging taking place. The pictures look kind of bright, but in reality, at this point just after the rain, it was still cloudy. Mirage was just nasty. I tried a few shots at 1860, but we couldn't even see the misses. My assumption is that the atmospherics causing the mirror imaging also affected viewing the actual target location, so the POA and POI were significantly different.
We ended up moving the target to a closer (and higher) area to get it higher above the lake bed. Impacts were still about .3 mil under what I would have expected.
There will be a video forthcoming - regardless, it was a fun day.
