Shooting and the wind, a new experience...

[RifleEnthusiast]

So yesterday I decided to go and shoot some 22 LR. I know last time I shot, I had gotten the gun zero'ed at 50 yards, the ammo was consistent, shots were dead on and life was rosy. Yesterday, I took a few shots on the steel targets @ 50 yards, tin .. tin .. tin, all good. I start shooting at some paper targets a few minutes later and surprise surprise, all shots are about 1.5" at 2 O'clock. I question myself, I can't be that bad, I know the gun is zeroed, I'm not jerking the trigger, what's going on, I double check the shouldering, cheek weld, focus on the trigger, and again ~ 1.5" off. Finally, I notice the little flags that are at the end of the range, and they are flying indicating wind blowing at maybe 60 degrees (0 is tailwind, 90 is left crosswind). Initially, I thought, that just can't be right, 22 LR is reasonably fast, 50 yards is not that far and the wind is not that fast to drift a bullet that much in such a short distance. I adjust my scope to compensate for the 1.5 and all of a sudden, the hits are exactly at the point of aim.
When I got home I plugged some numbers into an online ballistics calculator and sure enough it's saying that the wind drift will be about 1.5" right in the shooting conditions I was in. So my newly learned lesson is, before I pull the trigger, I need to look around me and compensate for the wind, and even at 50 yards, 22 LR is quite susceptible to drift due to wind.

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[tacticalgunner]

It sure is, very light weight projectile. Look at other ballistic reports and its really cool at how the projectile flies. It goes up, down at different times and at different yardage.

 

[RifleEnthusiast]

It was definitely an eye opener for me, a 22lr 40 gr will drift about 1.5" vs. a 223 62 gr will only drift about 0.2" for the same conditions.

 

[bellarum]

I had the same thing happen to me. Now I keep a zero record of my scope before I shoot, then make turret adjustments for the conditions and shoot with those settings. At the end of the day I just re zero the scope.

 

[Misterbill]

Yep. I've shot in winds so fierce that even AIMING was difficult due to the drift of the barrel.

Here in Middle-Washington where we routinely have winds in excess of 30 MPH, even pistol shots at `10-yards need to be Kentucky-Windaged.

 

[Modeler]

What website did you use?

 

[LTRGUY261]

I would also like to see what site(s) people use to look at ballistics.

 

[Mark W.]

welcome to Ballistic's 101

 

[rick benjamin]

Ballistics | Winchester Ammunition Ballistics Calculator & Ammo Ballistics
ShootersCalculator.com
Ballistics Calculator - Hornady Manufacturing, Inc
Ballistic Calculator GunData.org
Remington Ballistics Calculator
JBM - Calculations
G7 Ballistics Long Range Calculator | i-ballistics.com

 

[LTRGUY261]

Thanks Rick, that is a ton of great info.

 

[RifleEnthusiast]

That's the one I used Ballistic Calculator GunData.org

 

[Shooter98]

It has more to do with the velocity than it does the weight of the projectile. While they do both go hand in hand, if you were to push that same 40gr bullet 300 fps faster, you'd of noticed about half that drift. It is also what makes the 416 so much more deadly and accurate at 2K yards than the 50 cal. If you look at the bc of the 416 it's far ahead of the 50. This means about a 3rd of the drift vs. the 50. It's a smaller, lighter projectile traveling at over 3K fps. This is also very noticeable for those of us who sage rat hunt with the 17 hmr. The 17 gr. bullet actually has better drift performance than the 20 gr. So, this is why the 223 has much less drift than the 22lr or 22mag even. Again though, as said earlier, it's not that simple

 

[armedandsafe]

Think of it a how long the bullet is in the air, with the wind blowing it sideways. the faster bullet spends less time getting blown about.

The toughest one I ever ran into was on a range in England. The flags at the firing line were limp. Those at mid range were standing out stiff pointing left. the ones at the targets were standing out about half way, pointing rightish.

Pops