Long Range Shooting - Reading Wind with Mirage

When it comes to working with your partner and shooting at distance or simply attempting to make the most educated call and shot on your own, there are a ton of things you have to make sure you get right. But one of the most variable (and therefore one of the most difficult) is getting the wind call correct. That's because wind is a fickle thing and every bit of wind between you and your target is going to have an impact on your bullet.

For example, even if it feels completely still at your position, if there's some wind happening down range, that will absolutely affect the projectile -- and we're not talking about by a small amount either. Let's say we're shooting M118LR, a 7.62, 175 grain, or .30 Cal boat tail projectile. And let's say we're shooting at about 750 yards. That's a decent shot, pretty far away, but still within the performance profile of that projectile in that round. Let's just add in two miles per hour of wind, which is almost soft enough that you really can't even feel it. If that wind isn't accounted for, that will move the projectile upwards of a foot from point of aim to point of impact. Getting the wind call right is hypercritical to collecting a hit.

You can use all sorts of techniques to help dial in on that wind. You can use instruments like a Kestrel to get exact measurements at your position. You can feel the wind on your face. You can listen to the wind and how it's blowing past you, what sounds it makes. Over time you can sort of equate what those noises are to how hard the wind is blowing. And you can even visually observe what the wind is doing down range if you've got a wind flag of some sort set up, or even if you're in the field and all you have is vegetation, you can see that vegetation blowing in the wind. However, many of those cues don't really help when the wind is slow or soft, say between zero and three or four miles an hour. But, as we established, even just two miles an hour is enough of unaccounted-for wind that it can throw a shot off target completely at distance.

For that, we use light distortions in the air, or the "mirage" effect to see what the wind is doing. Watch the video above for a demonstration of this technique!

--9-Hole Reviews