Mirage changing impact.

[Jellymon1]

So the other day I was hitting dead on at 300, 400 and 500 yds with my rifle getting my new dial settled in. It was about 75/80 degrees out and no mirage. I went out to verify my zero yesterday and it was 95 degrees with a very bad mirage out past 300yds and I was impacting 4-6” high at 400+ yards. Could the mirage/heat have caused this?
Rifle is a tikka t3x 06 with a leupold vx3hd 3-10x40. Berger vld hunters 168g. 56g IMR4350.

 

[Lawnboi]

Yes it can. Never zero or tune a calculator in bad mirage.

 

[Oldirtdog]

Agreed. I live in AZ and have experienced this happening with the mirage/refraction phenomenon. Last outing I was grouping ~8" high at 585 yds with my 6.5 CM shooting Hornady 140 ELDs. I found that it does help if you turn your scope mag down. Lots of good info in the advanced marksmanship forum on snipershide on the subject.

 

[MidGAHunter]

Yes, mirage can do that. So can shooting a Leupy scope. You've got a double whammy.

 

[rayporter]

back in the early 70's my bud and i would go ground hog hunting a lot.
he would stop at my house and we would sight in our rifles at 100yd and check them at 200yd and head out.

one particular valley was about 250yd across and most of the varmints on the other side were safe. it took us a couple years to grasp the wind and mirage was causing so much havoc because when we got through and went to my house in the evening the rifles were still shooting dead on.

and so was the beginning of chasing accuracy.

now days i shoot benchrest and over the course of seven minutes you might see a bullet move an inch sideways or up and down at 200yd.