I’m not sure if they are legal for competition? Besides that wind flags are placed in your line of sight and give you instant feedback without taking your eyes off your target.
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Flag recommendation
- Thread starter okieairgunner
- Start date
I finished my transporting box today for my flags. It’s nothing fancy but it offers more protection than the cardboard boxes I was using previously. I carry my stands in a DeWalt tool bag that I found at a yard sale for $3.
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Wow Tim!! Very nice!! I just made some mods to one of those under the bed plastic storage boxes dividing it into two halves. One side for the stands and the other for the flags. Not fancy like yours but should protect them pretty well. Nice work!! I bought the same ones from Ray. J.L.
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I'm glad I found this thread! I went down a rabbit hole when my brother sent me a thread about barrel tuning and ended up here. I've been primarily shooting trap and skeet for the last few years so I know the importance of repeatability, practice, accurately reading the environment and removing variables. When I first started watching some benchrest videos I was kinda surprised at some of the setups on the benches and really wondered where the variables were in benchrest.
As others have pointed out @thomasair offers a wealth of information and the last sentence on @JEFFPPC #40 post really clarifies the variables and challenges of BR. I've probably learned more about BR shooting in this one thread over the last 15 minutes than I learned over multiple days watching videos on YouTube and reading other threads.
Thanks!!
As others have pointed out @thomasair offers a wealth of information and the last sentence on @JEFFPPC #40 post really clarifies the variables and challenges of BR. I've probably learned more about BR shooting in this one thread over the last 15 minutes than I learned over multiple days watching videos on YouTube and reading other threads.
Thanks!!
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That box looks ideal for transport and storage but doesn't look like a lot of fun to move. Do you have a dolly or something that you use?? I've used something like this for my RC hobby so I don't have to make a ton of trips back and forth to the truck when setting up my pit area: Amazon Dolly
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It’s made of 1/4” plywood so it’s not heavy and all four flags weight probably a pound? That’s a nice looking dolly that you linked us to but I dont use one but now that you mentioned it that might save me a lot of trips back and forth to my little Honda.
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You would be amazed at how much you can stack on a dolly with a few bungee cords. It also folds up so it doesn’t take up much space during transport.
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Harbor Freight sells a similar looking hand truck to the one you posted. They are out of them at my local store but when they are back in stock I will check them out.
www.harborfreight.com
150 lb. Capacity Foldable Hand Truck
Amazing deals on this 150Lb Capacity Foldable Hand Truck at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
www.harborfreight.com Upvote 0
We have some weather rolling in, and it was causing high wind as it came in. Since we were supposed to get sustained wind of about 20mph today, I did some experiments to prove Jim's theory that the air is a "chaotic swirling mess", and I believe that I have solid evidence that this is true. Here is a link to the highlights of my footage from today.
For any of you interested in seeing the whole 2+ hours of footage that I acquired, I posted them over in Resources at this link.
I hope that this video solidifies that even though the forecast tells you that you are getting 20mph wind from one direction, and that is a LOT of wind, it is still switching back and forth. It is not consistently coming from one direction. In fact, you can see patterns similar to the waves in the ocean. Right before a "big one" hits, the water is pulled back into the ocean for a second before the big wave comes crashing down.
This has been an interesting experiment. I hope you enjoy!
Cheers!
Jonathan
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Near flags were doing one thing and far were doing something totally different. Soooo, I guess this means send it and hope in some cases. 
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I think wind speeds for weather stations are supposed to be measured at 10m above ground and should be obstruction free for 100m in every direction.
It’s all the obstacles and obstructions to the wind that cause the switches and eddys. Pull a vehicle alongside the range on the upwind side and watch the closest flag switch back and forth while the others don’t. The “wind” is still doing the same thing….but the car has now created the switchy flag. You can have funny ups and downs that were not there before, too.
Mike
It’s all the obstacles and obstructions to the wind that cause the switches and eddys. Pull a vehicle alongside the range on the upwind side and watch the closest flag switch back and forth while the others don’t. The “wind” is still doing the same thing….but the car has now created the switchy flag. You can have funny ups and downs that were not there before, too.
Mike
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You got that right! You can, and should wait for lulls, but you only have 30 minutes to shoot you whole card.Near flags were doing one thing and far were doing something totally different. Soooo, I guess this means send it and hope in some cases.
Thanks for the data-point, Mike. I'm sure that is true when measuring global patterns, but I was actually interested in what was happening at the altitude of the pellet on the range that I shoot at all the time. I wanted to see all of the eddy currents causing havoc along the trajectory. The biggest take-away for me from this experiment is that the air creates a "vacuum" before a gust comes like the ocean waves do. It was enlightening to see this with air, and not just water.
You are 100% correct, as you have been, but I have never seen a better example than at RMAC on the upper range shooting at the last bench. That was right on the berm on the incoming side of the wind, and most of the flags on that first bench were continually pointed straight up.
As @thomasair mentioned, what is happening at the closest wind flags will affect the trajectory more than the later ones, and as @txcomp mentioned, there was a big discrepancy in what you were seeing at the close flags versus the farther ones. The wind flags that I show are more representative of a Field Target match, like at EBR where there are obstructions in the way of the path of the projectile.
Is there a take-away here? Use a higher BC projectile, if possible, when more obstructions to the wind are within the flight path to minimize the eddy currents as @thomasair mentions. Are there more that I am missing?
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I knew what you were after…I was just pointing out why the wind our weather apps tells us is happening is rarely in agreement with what we see on the ground. Wasn’t really a comment about your experiment. I should have mentioned that. Sorry
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Thanks for the clarification, Mike! TBH, I wasn't sure how that was pertinent, so I appreciate the insight.
To your point, another thing that I was blown away by (no pun intended
) was that when the forecast said that we would have "constant" 20MPH wind from the WNW, it was still switching back to the opposite direction for a period before the gusts. This was really interesting...at least to me. This phenomenon should also be able to be observed from the weather stations you mentioned if we could see the data to the detail that we could see the individual gust. This "swelling" appears to be a natural phenomenon. Last edited:
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