Required precision video and using WEZ

[aschuler]

I really enjoyed this video describing how to apply Litz's WEZ to hunting scenarios. The whole series (this is #4) is worth a listen.

I haven't used WEZ but I've read Litz's books, the linked whitepapers and other materials. From that material my understanding is that there are four inputs. Precision for: 1.Wind, 2.Range Estimation, 3.Rifle/Ammo Precision, and 4.Velocity Consistency

My question is about #3 Rifle/Ammo Precision, and that is what the video's discussion centered around. Starting at about 7:00 in the video he's talking about rifle/ammo precision in terms of MOA, which is pretty straight forward. Adding 0.5 MOA of precision only affects the hit probability by 5% or less. Great argument and the examples are from 0.5MOA to 1.5MOA systems.

At about minute 8:15 he goes on to say the largest source of error is the shooter. "We suck at shooting". Things like bad form, improper zero, loss of zero etc. What I'm wondering is, shouldn't that be modeled in the Rifle/Ammo Precision input? it seems like we could include the "we suck" part in that input. I don't think the loss of zero would work of course. Am I missing something here?

Anyway, it's a good listen and thanks for those that are producing these.

 

[Formidilosus]

At about minute 8:15 he goes on to say the largest source of error is the shooter. "We suck at shooting". Things like bad form, improper zero, loss of zero etc. What I'm wondering is, shouldn't that be modeled in the Rifle/Ammo Precision input? it seems like we could include the "we suck" part in that input. I don't think the loss of zero would work of course. Am I missing something here?

Yes, absolutely people should input their error. However, for the base discussion you need to remove all the variables and show what just mechanical precision does to hit rates. That shows that mechanical precision differences don’t affect hit rates anywhere near as much as people believe. Then, you do something like a Kraft drill for 20-30 rounds with a 10 second par time; start standing with rifle in hand and on a buzzer build the position and take a shot. Repeat for the 20-30 rounds.

Take your worst round and that becomes your precision in the WEZ. The issue is that people really don’t believe the results unless they do it on demand in front of you. Most people on this board, and people in general all believe they are legit sub MOA shooters in the field- not the 3-5 MOA they actually are.

 

[ddowning]

Yes, absolutely people should input their error. However, for the base discussion you need to remove all the variables and show what just mechanical precision does to hit rates. That shows that mechanical precision differences don’t affect hit rates anywhere near as much as people believe. Then, you do something like a Kraft drill for 20-30 rounds with a 10 second par time; start standing with rifle in hand and on a buzzer build the position and take a shot. Repeat for the 20-30 rounds.

Take your worst round and that becomes your precision in the WEZ. The issue is that people really don’t believe the results unless they do it on demand in front of you. Most people on this board, and people in general all believe they are legit sub MOA shooters in the field- not the 3-5 MOA they actually are.

In my experience, I have witnessed VERY few 2 moa field shooters. 1.5 MOA field shooters are akin to unicorns. Hitting a 1.5 moa target from a field expedient position in any random location and condition, and doing it 80+% of the time is superhuman level good.

The problem is, people test themselves from a bench with bags, no time limit, at the same range they shoot at all the time. That's a much different scenario than a shot on game in most situations.

 

[Formidilosus]

In my experience, I have witnessed VERY few 2 moa field shooters. 1.5 MOA field shooters are akin to unicorns. Hitting a 1.5 moa target from a field expedient position in any random location and condition, and doing it 80+% of the time is superhuman level good.

The problem is, people test themselves from a bench with bags, no time limit, at the same range they shoot at all the time. That's a much different scenario than a shot on game in most situations.

Correct.

 

[aschuler]

Yes, absolutely people should input their error. However, for the base discussion you need to remove all the variables and show what just mechanical precision does to hit rates. That shows that mechanical precision differences don’t affect hit rates anywhere near as much as people believe. Then, you do something like a Kraft drill for 20-30 rounds with a 10 second par time; start standing with rifle in hand and on a buzzer build the position and take a shot. Repeat for the 20-30 rounds.

Take your worst round and that becomes your precision in the WEZ. The issue is that people really don’t believe the results unless they do it on demand in front of you. Most people on this board, and people in general all believe they are legit sub MOA shooters in the field- not the 3-5 MOA they actually are.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and for making the videos and podcast etc. I'm pretty data driven so what you're putting out resonates with me.

That's why I was wondering about the shooter input. Being able to quantify that seems necessary to get good data out of WEZ. For 30 rounds I'm lucky to shoot 1.5MOA with a hunting rifle from the bench.....it's going to be MUCH worse from field position. Will the Kraft drill give us a good input for WEZ?
Would you be willing to run some scenarios through WEZ with realistic precision numbers?

 

[Formidilosus]

it's going to be MUCH worse from field position. Will the Kraft drill give us a good input for WEZ?

It will if done as I stated. Though will say, the diamonds aren’t the best shape to measure, as they are a bit more worse case scenario.

Would you be willing to run some scenarios through WEZ with realistic precision numbers?

Sure. What do you want to see?

 

[aschuler]

It will if done as I stated. Though will say, the diamonds aren’t the best shape to measure, as they are a bit more worse case scenario.



Sure. What do you want to see?

I was just thinking the same scenario you laid out in the video, just with something more like 3-5 MOA precision.

I think you used
12" target @ 600yds
+- 4mph wind
8 fps SD
+- 1m range

I'm also curious how you would go about improving all of these. Wind reading I know is going to be practice. But is velocity SD significant enough to chase? How about ranging errors? You mentioned sight alignment on range finders. Are there known mitigations for this?

Thanks again for your time.

 

[aschuler]

It will if done as I stated. Though will say, the diamonds aren’t the best shape to measure, as they are a bit more worse case scenario.

Also WEZ really assumes a perfect zero and a perfect ballistic solution is that correct? The ballistic solution is not a bad assumption since the solvers are pretty good at this point. You alluded to zero issues in the video. imperfect zero (on the shooter), lose of zero (scope, hence the drop testing etc). Can the Kraft drill help with this? We might not have a good zero, or we might be shifting our zero with positions. We can get a good raw precision number from the drill but what about distance from point of aim? Is quantifying that possible or useful?

 

[TaperPin]

Adding 0.5 MOA of precision only affects the hit probability by 5% or less.

It sounds good to say people just suck and they need to become better shots and better wind readers, and the rifle accuracy is secondary. However, how do people see the effects of small changes in their technique if their rifle shoots like a shotgun? I say it all the time, one of the best teaching aids is an accurate rifle. The tighter a rifle is, the more clear it is that a small change helps or hurts.

The second most valuable teaching aid is an additional very accurate rifle. If a gun isn’t shooting well, how do you know it’s not the shooter or conditions down range that day? Having a spare known good gun will tell you within a few shots.

Talking to a guy about his point of impact shifts using a bipod - it doesn’t take a 30 round group to tell his rifle shoots really good as is - the advice was to experiment with different shoulder pressure, watch what the bipod was resting on, and don’t put a lot of load on it. If his rifle had horrible accuracy, there is so much noise that it would take large numbers of shots to see if anything he was doing helped or hurt. He put 5 into a half MOA, a little less shoulder pressure changed the impact, but it was still a tight group. Another group with even less pressure changed the point of impact more, but it was still a tight group. He learned more in those 15 rounds than he did the previous 100.

Learning to shoot in wind moves shots up and down, in addition to left and right. Again, if a rifle shoots like a shotgun, the shooter’s ability to learn from the wind calls is greatly diminished.

So nope, I’ll never believe an inaccurate rifle helps anyone - it’s like wearing blurry glasses and slows down progress at every level. Stop wasting ammo, stop wasting time, save up and buy an accurate barrel.

 

[TaperPin]

As a way of teaching a shooter, I definitely don’t agree with lumping together the rifle accuracy, ability of the shooter to hold the rifle and shooters ability to read wind. Brian often gets stuck in improperly applying statistics to situations in ways that aren’t useful. The shooter should know what the whole system is capable of, but also what a rifle can do under ideal conditions, what he can do in various positions, and how close his wind reading are.

Brian isn’t a not smart person, but he makes a good part of his money from guys who may not be shooting the best rifles, and it shows. Going from a 1-1/2 MOA rifle to a 1 MOA isn’t that hard - hell, you can buy one off the rack from a number of gunsmiths. For $1,200 one of the top gunsmiths in the nation will chamber a barrel identical to what’s on their winning F class rifles, which are well under 1/2 MOA at 1000 yards in calm conditions.

 

[aschuler]

So nope, I’ll never believe an inaccurate rifle helps anyone - it’s like wearing blurry glasses and slows down progress at every level. Stop wasting ammo, stop wasting time, save up and buy an accurate barrel.

Totally agree, if your rifle shoots more like a shotgun you should address that first before moving on. However, that's not really what we're talking about. This application of WEZ is attempting to quantify changes in hit probability based on small changes to precision. Something like going from 1.5 MOA to 1.0 MOA. Which is something people might spend a ton of time on with load development for example. Maybe that juice isn't worth the squeeze?

When I mentioned 3-5 MOA I was wondering about introducing shooter error (field position shooting) into the precision input. For example, you might have 1.5MOA due to rifle and 3.5 MOA due to shooter for a total of 5 MOA in precision. In that case you're probably better off working on the shooter. I was wondering if this makes sense to use WEZ to demonstrate this. Maybe using it combined with a shooter drill like Kraft does.

 

[Tom-D]

Great podcast! Im going to have to listen to it 3-4 times like i have the terminal performance one.

Im curious to know but does the accuracy dispersion start to matter more when you shrink the target size down? Say your trying to hit a 4-6 inch target at 500 would the accuracy matter more because the general dispersion starts to get larger than the target or do the other factors increase so much it still doesn't matter.
I know its not really relevant to big game hunting but long range rabbit/fox shooting possibly

 

[Formidilosus]

I was just thinking the same scenario you laid out in the video, just with something more like 3-5 MOA precision.

I think you used
12" target @ 600yds
+- 4mph wind
8 fps SD
+- 1m range

Will do later.

I'm also curious how you would go about improving all of these. Wind reading I know is going to be practice. But is velocity SD significant enough to chase? How about ranging errors? You mentioned sight alignment on range finders. Are there known mitigations for this?

Thanks again for your time.

Velocity ES also isn’t that big of a deal. Ranging errors is real- the way to correct is to find out where the center of the laser beam is in relation to your reticle. In animals, take multiple readings on the animal, at the ground at its feet, and beside it.

 

[Formidilosus]

Also WEZ really assumes a perfect zero and a perfect ballistic solution is that correct? The ballistic solution is not a bad assumption since the solvers are pretty good at this point. You alluded to zero issues in the video. imperfect zero (on the shooter), lose of zero (scope, hence the drop testing etc). Can the Kraft drill help with this? We might not have a good zero, or we might be shifting our zero with positions. We can get a good raw precision number from the drill but what about distance from point of aim? Is quantifying that possible or useful?

Yes that’s what the Kraft can help show. It’s not perfect, but it is a much closer approximation than just taking a couple few 10 round groups and doing the WEZ.

 

[Formidilosus]

It sounds good to say people just suck and they need to become better shots and better wind readers, and the rifle accuracy is secondary. However, how do people see the effects of small changes in their technique if their rifle shoots like a shotgun? I say it all the time, one of the best teaching aids is an accurate rifle. The tighter a rifle is, the more clear it is that a small change helps or hurts.

The second most valuable teaching aid is an additional very accurate rifle. If a gun isn’t shooting well, how do you know it’s not the shooter or conditions down range that day? Having a spare known good gun will tell you within a few shots.

Talking to a guy about his point of impact shifts using a bipod - it doesn’t take a 30 round group to tell his rifle shoots really good as is - the advice was to experiment with different shoulder pressure, watch what the bipod was resting on, and don’t put a lot of load on it. If his rifle had horrible accuracy, there is so much noise that it would take large numbers of shots to see if anything he was doing helped or hurt. He put 5 into a half MOA, a little less shoulder pressure changed the impact, but it was still a tight group. Another group with even less pressure changed the point of impact more, but it was still a tight group. He learned more in those 15 rounds than he did the previous 100.

Learning to shoot in wind moves shots up and down, in addition to left and right. Again, if a rifle shoots like a shotgun, the shooter’s ability to learn from the wind calls is greatly diminished.

So nope, I’ll never believe an inaccurate rifle helps anyone - it’s like wearing blurry glasses and slows down progress at every level. Stop wasting ammo, stop wasting time, save up and buy an accurate barrel.

View attachment 684878

Before I respond to the multiple issues, did you listen to the video of what the OP is talking about?

 

[Formidilosus]

.Brian often gets stuck in improperly applying statistics to situations in ways that aren’t useful.

Do explain in detail please.

The shooter should know what the whole system is capable of, but also what a rifle can do under ideal conditions, what he can do in various positions, and how close his wind reading are.

Yes, which is what was and is being discussed. Maybe start with the video of what the OP posted to have context.

Brian isn’t a not smart person, but he makes a good part of his money from guys who may not be shooting the best rifles, and it shows.

Really- please explain that as well.

Going from a 1-1/2 MOA rifle to a 1 MOA isn’t that hard - hell, you can buy one off the rack from a number of gunsmiths.

Really- please show all your 1 MOA 30shot ES groups from “off the rack”.

 

[Formidilosus]

Great podcast! Im going to have to listen to it 3-4 times like i have the terminal performance one.

Im curious to know but does the accuracy dispersion start to matter more when you shrink the target size down? Say your trying to hit a 4-6 inch target at 500 would the accuracy matter more because the general dispersion starts to get larger than the target or do the other factors increase so much it still doesn't matter.

Yes. When the target size is smaller than the cone, and the wind calling error is relatively low due to closer ranges, baseline precision starts to have more of an effect. Still not as much as most believe, but more than with big game sized vitals.

 

[TaperPin]

example, you might have 1.5MOA due to rifle and 3.5 MOA due to shooter for a total of 5 MOA in precision. In that case you're probably better off working on the shooter.

I can see you’re verbalizing a way to get the most bang for the buck - where to put limited resources and time for the biggest return on investment. No? There’s nothing wrong with that - except you‘re handicapping the learning experience by not having an above average rifle that gives better feedback and you have more confidence in. You go to battle with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.

A family member asked if I‘d teach her son how to fly fish - of course I did. She expected him to learn with a crappy rod, crappy line and I better not dare give him a new rod. First thing we did is rip out the old line and load up some top quality line and tippet - his mom wouldn’t know the difference - I told him this is a lesson in how to learn a new hobby without a lot of struggle, not just how to fly fish. He had the best line and flies - if he put the work in and learned to cast accurately in all wind directions he’ll learn the rest fast and do well. We cut the hook off a fly and he spent a weekend casting onto the grass at a park. His first trip out fishing by himself, he comes back with a photo of a 5 lb trout caught sight fishing at a lake - heck, I’ve never caught a trout that size where he caught it. Granted he was lucky, but there’s little doubt the quality line made practice more fun and faster/easier to learn, he was full of confidence, and just a few of the correct flies tipped the scales in his direction just enough to catch that fish. That was the best $100 I could have spent.

 

[2y2c]

What I got out of the video was that you can’t buy hits in the field over the counter. You can’t load develop your way to an incredibly high chance of first round hits at long range.

It’s the running joke that you just buy a 6.5cm, a box of match ammo, a BDC reticle and you can shoot anything out to 800yds. You’re not going to hit what you’re aiming at if you have a bad wind call, don’t have a real zero, lost zero, or can’t build a consistent shooting position.

I think the bottom line is that we don’t shoot as well as our guns can. We should practice more, because going from a rifle that shoots 2” 30 round groups to one that shoots the mythical 1/2” doesn’t do nearly as much as being able to honestly shoot 2” from field positions, having a reliable zero, or getting better at calling the wind.

 

[aschuler]

What I got out of the video was that you can’t buy hits in the field over the counter. You can’t load develop your way to an incredibly high chance of first round hits at long range.

It’s the running joke that you just buy a 6.5cm, a box of match ammo, a BDC reticle and you can shoot anything out to 800yds. You’re not going to hit what you’re aiming at if you have a bad wind call, don’t have a real zero, lost zero, or can’t build a consistent shooting position.

I think the bottom line is that we don’t shoot as well as our guns can. We should practice more, because going from a rifle that shoots 2” 30 round groups to one that shoots the mythical 1/2” doesn’t do nearly as much as being able to honestly shoot 2” from field positions, having a reliable zero, or getting better at calling the wind.

Excellent summary!