100 Yards - in strong wind - with pellets
I'm documenting this for my reference - I thought I'd share this with you guys - in case you are interested...
I was shooting at 100 yards on Friday at my brother's house. He lives in the middle of the woods and is an avid hunter/fisherman. We mapped out a 100 yard range outside his back door - named it the "Pete Gillis Memorial Range" - in honor of our Dad, an avid outdoorsman.
I was supposed to get to my brother's at 8:30am, knowing that the wind would get bad by noon. I overslept due to bourbon consumption and showed up at 10:30am. The wind was already kicking up. My brother informed that it was very calm at 8am - serves me right for drinking.
It was so windy (weather app reported gusts to 30mph - and that could have been understated) but I wanted to play with the new-to-me .30 Wildcat Mk 2. It has some history as a consistent 1.25" 5-shot group performer at 100 yards.
The rifle shoots insane sub-Moa (.5") 5-shot groups at 50 yards at my house. I had made some hammer spring adjustments at home and it chronoed a perfect 900fps when I got to my brother's - so at least I got that right.
The wind was switching, as all high wind does, but it was mostly L to R. I used just two wind flags at 25 and 75 yards - this was just a casual shoot to sight-in/dial-in the rifle at 100, not to shoot for score. I had to keep chasing my hat and my large cardboard targets - the wind kept blowing them away, lol.
Anyways, I thought the rifle did fantastic in the conditions. I've shot in 100-yard benchrest competitions and they never had wind this bad. Note that the vertical spreads were very reasonable (I thought) in windy conditions. A few shots jumped high or low - likely because the wind was slightly headwind or tailwind as well as L to R on those shots.
I'm showing you my two "10-shot" targets (one is 11 and one is 8 after some sight-in shots). I'm showing you the targets as I saw them and then marked up versions that give you the details of what was happening.
One interesting thing is that I fell off the reg on the paper plate target while shooting the 4 sight-in shots (walking them towards target - 3" splatter). Note the 1.5" drop of the off-reg shot of 865fps. At 30 yards, a 30fps drop in velocity might show as 1/4" at most. It was great to have an air tank with me. TommyB inspired my to get a tank - it makes filling when at the range very convenient.
Despite the bad shooting conditions, I hung in there and waited for lulls in the wind when the flags were not moving real fast - and both flags were pointing Right. Still, it was really tough to judge.
Note also on the cardboard target that I made "reference marks". I knew I'd have to hold left quite a bit and my Sightron 45X scope is just a simple thin crosshair. Without target rings to hold off on, I thought to make myself a couple marks on the target - so I don't appear to be that hung over, lol.
For you guys that shoot almost always inside 50 yards, shooting 100 yards is a different ball game and 100 yards in heavy wind is all about patience. I sometimes would have 5 minutes between shots. If you just ignore the wind, pellets - even .30 cal 44g - will just blow all over the place. The flat part of the paper plate is about 5.5" diameter. Put one out at 100 yards sometimes and note how small it looks, lol.
Anyways, I plan to do a bunch of 100 yard shoots at my brother's this year. It gives me a chance to see him as well as play with some of my bigger caliber air rifles - really stretch them out.
If any of our shooter's here have any questions about shooting at 100, feel free to reach out. I'm no expert, but I can offer what I've experienced to date. Most accurate PCPs shooting 25+ grain pellets can do well out to 75 yards in decent wind conditions. Beyond 75-80 yards things get a lot different.
-Ed
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