Painful as it is, I did say I would post results today. I should have known when I crossed over Lake Jordan and saw white caps on the left side of the bridge, it would be windy at Woody's, my local range. I am an avid boater and fresh and saltwater fisherman, so I was wondering if I should have brought my bass and crappie rods and headed out on the boat today to try my luck. I love the boat as much as the air guns, and both hobbies are huge sink holes of $$$ to spend on.
I knew it would be windy, but I wanted to shoot in some heavier wind for practice and should have reset my expectations beforehand. I was hoping for a 215 or 220 today. Ha ha, fat chance!!
I shot a total of 'six' EBR cards, but will only show four here. I ran out of the NSA 33g slugs that I liked, so I gave the FX Hybrid 25grains another try today, along with the MK2 33g and 25g Kings. Wind was NNE blowing 10-15 mph pretty steady with the Krestel wind device, from the guy shooting next to me. It was blowing right to left from around 2 o'clock at the bench, and since I did not have a flag near the target, I was lost at times to see what it was doing there. Also, I was at the long range today (different than my usual 100 yard sight-in range) as the Sight-In 50 and 100 yards range was full and occupiedat 9:30am.
I lazer'd the target at 95.1 yards, so these don't count, but I thought I would show the journey anyway. I think I counted '14' outright misses on 20 targets. In one case I shot 4 shots and thought I shot 5. In another, I shot six shots when it should have been five. The guy next to me was very nice and never stopped talking to me about the air gun. He had a 'cannon' shooting next to me and about blew my ear protection off my ears. One time I accidentally took my 'ears' off and I nearly jumped a mile when he shot at his target. Won't make that mistake again!
The few good 5-shot targets I shot, I learned from the wind on the prior target and my sighters. My wood stakes were wobbling in the wind, even though they were behind the BIRM. The Hybrids did OK, but not as good as the NSA 33g did last week. The MK2s did better today with the wind, than the 25gs. I also used my new DS magazines for the first time today, and I always shoot SST. It was a pleasure and they cycled very well. I like the notion of shooting a couple of quick shots if the wind cooperates. I had two magazines and was blasting away having a ball.
All in all, I learned a lot about the wind today and slowly I am getting a bit better at reading. Once in a while, I get in sort of a zone where I actually think I know what I am doing??
I always zero at 100 yards, and I have a mil dot scope on the Sightron and was adjusting one and a half Mils for windage to try and compensate for the wind. Sometimes I held for elevation up / down also. The MIL Dots are pretty big at 40X mag, and although I like the scope, I miss the Athlon MOA reticles, which are much easier for me to read.
It was a great but humbling day at the range, and I am destined to buy a much more solid target stand in the next week or two hopefully. Also, a couple of wind flags at the target are desperately needed.
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