JRS, thanks for the kind words.

I will warn you though, do be careful. Once bitten by the long range bug, you are facing increased swelling of your credit card bill, rapid involvement in expensive purchases and countless lonely miles of driving to ranges and various events.

Welcome home, NikonUser. I saw some of your posts earlier in the week but forced myself not to start until I had the time to read them all and absorb what I knew was going to be a great story. Glad I did.

While I can’t do the things you and your team can do, I have enough hands-on experience with shooting and other professional competitions to understand and appreciate the skill and artistry of what you and the team accomplished. Well done!

Congratulations on the podium finish! The medal is like a report card but doesn’t begin to describe the preparation, dedication and commitment on so many different levels I know you all put into this effort.

Your story telling, as always, is very engaging and draws the reader into the experience. You should give some thought to what you might do with that talent!

As others have done, I want to add my laudation to honor your achievement and say thank you for an interesting and exciting recounting of the events.

I knew y'all were going to do great. I just knew it.

Henryrifle

Henryrifle, first off let me say that I am honored by your very nice message. I read it a few times and at first didn't know quite how to respond to it. What you wrote was very thoughtful and I know that you truly meant it, and I very much appreciate it. I was going to write some more, but it's a little hectic here in south Texas. So, I'll come back later. I hope.

Thank you sir,you and your team have talent I can only dream of.

I apologize for the delay in responding here. Things are a little hectic in the area.

45 Cal, thank you for your comments.

Let me set the record straight here by saying that whatever talent I may possess, it's nothing to do with shooting. I've competed with talented shooters and I have to work hard for every shoot, whereas they make it look easy. Over the years, I seem to have developed some skill in reading shooting conditions and communicating that to the shooters. On the other hand, I still have difficulty calling wind for myself when I'm shooting and my scores show it.

The guys have asked me several times how come I can call the wind pretty well for them and can't seem to do nearly as well for myself. I have figured it out and it's not going to get much better. It's called age. I'll explain that in separate thread I'm considering starting about reading conditions.

But the big thing for this kind of match is to be organized and do the training, however stupid it may seem. The team has worked hard to get to where it is and there's really nothing magical; it's all hard work, practice and organization.

Like just about any other endeavor in life. If you want to achieve a goal, you have to work for it. (Boy, how trite is that?) If I can do it, anyone can do it. (Even more trite.)

Henryrifle, I wanted to thank you for the nice comments on my prose. I love reading and I love writing. I've written countless technical articles that have been published in specialized magazines and journals over the decades.

I branched out writing gun-related articles for magazines such as Gun Digest and Rifle Shooter over the years. I only write about stuff I really know well and I think that shows in the ramblings I generate. Writing a book on the other hand, is a lot of work. And that could take away from my shooting.

Here is a video that I took through my Kowa spotter at Connaught showing the mirage.

The firing line was very low to the ground and the pits at Connaught are also low to the ground, not elevated like at many other ranges I have visited. This makes the mirage even more pronounced.

https://nis.nikonimagespace.co...-RC3SyxXJg3ghQInGbZQ

Here are some pictures from the FCWC, many of them are from the Team Matches.

https://nis.nikonimagespace.co...-RC3SyxXJg3ghQInGbZQ

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
Here is a video that I took through my Kowa spotter at Connaught showing the mirage.

The firing line was very low to the ground and the pits at Connaught are also low to the ground, not elevated like at many other ranges I have visited. This makes the mirage even more pronounced.

https://nis.nikonimagespace.co...-RC3SyxXJg3ghQInGbZQ

O.K. Now with the questions: What was the distance on the video and what was your wind call? I can tell left to right (That's the easy part!). I'm guessing that the wind speed was 7-10 mph.

Tell me how wrong I am.

Thanks for the pix and video.

RMD

Excellent analysis. The wind seemed to be right at 10-11 MPH at that time. The big problem with that range is that the wind direction is not constant; it has a habit of fluctuating from coming in at 9 o'clock to all to the way to 11 o'clock.

Now, if all you're looking at is the mirage, you will get screwed and you can see show shots going to the left, into the wind, which doesn't make sense. Until you realize that the flags are now at 11 o'clock and you were holding for a full value.

This is where having two wind coaches helped us a great deal, I would watch the mirage for fluctuations or consistency and the other coach would watch the flags and relay to me to push more or pull back some in real time.

In that steady condition, I would have about 1.5MOA left on the gun and holding anywhere between 0 to 4 lines left.

I don't remember the distance on that video, it was either 700 meters or 800 meters. I just tried to get some record of what we were playing with that day. Also, because it's taken through my Kowa, all the adjustments are manual and I got the exposure wrong, it's much too dark. On the other hand, it shows the mirage quite well.

At other matches, I have called wind totally by flag, such as at Lodi, and other places it was all mirage. Connaught is one of those ranges where you use both.

We should also remember that we were shooting very high BC bullets out of long barrels. With a regular .308 the hold would have been double or more; even with a 185 Berger, the hold would have been at least one to two ring more hold. The 200/210s are really great at long range, but they still move more than the 7mm.

Thanks for the answer. Every bit of knowledge helps.

RMD

I have truly loved reading this thread - a lot of it has gone over my head in technical speak, but I caught on to a lot as your story went on, too. That video of the mirage is amazing! Thank you for sharing this insight into an entirely different world of shooting that I hadn't ever heard of - especially the pressures of the world championships! Outstanding teamwork, it sounds like - a lot of skill, knowledge, great communication, and a fair amount of trust ! Thanks again!

PorterN, thanks for the kind words.

If there are things you did not understand, please ask for clarification. I was writing much of the stuff extemporaneously, from my recollections, so the terminology permeated into my writing, perhaps with little or no explanation. I think I tried to explain some, but perhaps I missed some so don't be afraid to ask.

Now rduckwor, I should explain one of the things we try to do during a match is look for similar conditions in which we think we know where the bullet will go with a specific hold.

In the kind of wind depicted by the video, we had the 1.5 MOA left in there, which would get us a 5 or a V, if we held center. When the wind would pick up, going from 11 o'clock to 9 o'clock, we would increase the hold on the left by a set number of lines. When the wind was 9 o'clock, we were almost a 5 lines out, edge of black. The trick was to guage the value of the wind. The value between say 11 to 10:30 or so, is not much of an increase but the further it gets towards full value, the much further you need to hold out. It's much more than just incremental, it's almost logarithmic.

The fun part is when you're holding out all the way to the 4th or 5th ring and the wind drops and you don't see that. That's when you get the hit right where you aimed it, and I think there is one of those at the beginning of the video; a 2 way to the left and high, almost out of the black.

The other thing is that you have to know that your shooters can hold the waterline pushing out on the target. We practiced those shots many times during the year, where I would get the guys to shoot in the white and make sure they held the waterline. When the wind blows, you have to account for it on the elevation side. You have to figure out how these winds affect your bullet's elevation and compensate.

There's nothing worse than actually making a great wind call in a bad wind and having the shot go at 12 o'clock or 6 o'clock. That's very disheartening. Also, the rings are round, so a hit high at 2 o'clock in the 4 ring, would have been a 5 if the elevation had been correct. We lost a lot of points to non-square rings.

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