Rimfire Fun: 22lr @ 200 yard steel targets

[Prof. Chaos]

enjoy!

[Tomcat088]

That's a fun video, and thank you for sharing with us. I did want to ask a few questions about it thought. I'm not trying to be a jerk, and I hope you don't take this as such. I bring this up because I shoot in windy conditions and at long ranges, and what I'm bringing up may help you in your shooting. I've seen wind conditions mentioned in the past week that just seem a bit improbable, and it's bothering me a little bit. Do you honestly think that you were shooting in 30 mph winds? If so, I'd really like to know how you decided that you were shooting in 30 mph winds. Was it gathered from the weather forecast, physical signs (branches, grass, wind flags, etc), a wild guess, or something like a Kestrel?

I haven't ran the numbers for the load you mentioned, but I've shot .22's and .17 HMR at lots of ranges and in various conditions. Even a 40 grain bullet moving 1,260fps has 5" or a tad more, at 100 yards in 10 MPH winds. So when we're talking about 30 MPH wind, we're talking about 15" deflection or more. Lots of scopes that go on rimfires don't even have enough windage travel to dial on 15" of deflection, it's 60 clicks on a 1/4 MOA click scope at 100 yards. That's a lot of travel for a rimfire scope that may also be a fair bit off of it's mechanical zero just to zero the scope. So were you dialing this wind correction, or holding it? If you were holding, what kind of reticle were you using to hold over?

There's something else that kind of got me a little stumped. I come from a VERY windy place, and it's quite common to have 30 mph winds. In those kind of winds, the wind is usually gusting and changing, it's not typically straight up 30mph sustained winds. Even when it has 30 mph sustained winds, there's usually gusts that are over 10 mph harder or less. Even if the wind is gusting 10 mph, we get back to from one shot to the next there's going to be at least 5" of wind deflection difference. It's just not something that is easy to shoot in with even a centerfire cartridge and bigger/heavier bullets, much less a rimfire. So that's why I'm wondering exactly how you came to your wind estimation, and how you were compensating for it. I'm not saying it can't be done or can't be done by you, but that's some DAMN FINE shooting if it was done.

[Prof. Chaos]

lol thats a hell of a response man.

basically, the wind thing was just a guess between my buddy and myself. the target is from the 17 grain bullets(the 17hmr) we were shooting in the wind. i was just giving it kentucky windage with a basic crosshair. i wasnt trying to be a sniper or anything like that, just having some fun. same goes for the .22lr at the steel. i was holding about 2 feet above the target and going off of my buddy's calls to adjust. i prefer to not be super duper serious when im out shooting with my buddies that i dont get to see all the time.