BuckeyeRifleman
WKR
Went to the range the other day to shoot at distance. After zeroing I shot a cold bore shot at 585 yards and nailed about a 6in steel twice in a row. Messed around a bit in different shooting positions, felt pretty good about stuff, then as the afternoon progressed I backed up to 700-1000 yards.
I started noticing I was missing about .3-.4 mils high, fairly consistently. First shot might be close or on, but then I would be high.
I had my labradar with me so I was tracking and accounting for increased velocity as my powder temp increased. Furthermore I was using my Fury 5000AB binos which was accounting for changing environmental data. Even with that accounted for (increased DA, increased MV.) I was still missing high. I even debated that I had somehow lost my zero.
What I deducted was occurring after the fact that I was dealing with mirage, both barrel and environmental. I was using a suppressor but even with a cover there was still a significant amount of mirage after more than a handful of shots. Also with a cool night before and a bright sunny day there was a fairly high environmental mirage as the afternoon progressed, with relatively light wind (a boil.)
Doing some research, this explains why my shots were high in the afternoon, and this got more pronounced as my barrel heated. I’ve long known that mirage can be used to aid in wind calls, but never really understood or appreciated how much it can displace your target image, causing you to miss.
There are quite a few YouTube videos and articles out there on this but it was never something I had really learned about prior, despite being around long range shooting for a minute. I always figured it was either me or my rifle previously, or there was enough wind the mirage effect was more lateral and could be dismissed as wind effect on the bullet. It also explains why I always seemed to shoot best late in the evening when mirage (and wind) was less.
Anyway, though it was a somewhat frustrating range day, I learned something so I figured I’d share. Might be something that needs to be accounted for in a hunting situation as well!
I started noticing I was missing about .3-.4 mils high, fairly consistently. First shot might be close or on, but then I would be high.
I had my labradar with me so I was tracking and accounting for increased velocity as my powder temp increased. Furthermore I was using my Fury 5000AB binos which was accounting for changing environmental data. Even with that accounted for (increased DA, increased MV.) I was still missing high. I even debated that I had somehow lost my zero.
What I deducted was occurring after the fact that I was dealing with mirage, both barrel and environmental. I was using a suppressor but even with a cover there was still a significant amount of mirage after more than a handful of shots. Also with a cool night before and a bright sunny day there was a fairly high environmental mirage as the afternoon progressed, with relatively light wind (a boil.)
Doing some research, this explains why my shots were high in the afternoon, and this got more pronounced as my barrel heated. I’ve long known that mirage can be used to aid in wind calls, but never really understood or appreciated how much it can displace your target image, causing you to miss.
There are quite a few YouTube videos and articles out there on this but it was never something I had really learned about prior, despite being around long range shooting for a minute. I always figured it was either me or my rifle previously, or there was enough wind the mirage effect was more lateral and could be dismissed as wind effect on the bullet. It also explains why I always seemed to shoot best late in the evening when mirage (and wind) was less.
Anyway, though it was a somewhat frustrating range day, I learned something so I figured I’d share. Might be something that needs to be accounted for in a hunting situation as well!
