I don't think that the rain will be as bad as forecast and the wind, yeah, there will be some as normal (a part from the past couple of days there).
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I don't think that the rain will be as bad as forecast and the wind, yeah, there will be some as normal (a part from the past couple of days there).
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There will be the annual event in last January. It's normally sponsored by a number of hunting and shooting industry folk and often have a rifle as a prize (but not to the first place e getter).Quote:
Originally Posted by 7mm Rem Mag
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Thanks for that, do they have a winter shoot? Summer is a bad time for me due to sporting commitments. I would love to give it a go some time if there is a winter shoot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uplandstalker
Just spoke to the team at the range, and we are definitely on for tomorrow!
PS, bring a jacket and your wind calls.
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See ya'll in a few hours.
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You are lucky in the sun down there,pissing down with rain up here in Tekapo and windy.
Southerly just hit Geraldine. You fellas will be having fun.
Quick update from me, despite the 0830 start time shooting didn't start till around 1530 due to dangerous wind conditions and then torrential rain.
Once we were given a saftey brief we spilt off into teams of 6 and started the course in a staggered format. The course is well set up and consists of an appropriate 3km loop track with all targets on the outside of the loop, each team had a R.O to give instructions for each station and keep score.
Starting so late in the day we were unable to complete the full course but it was certainly a lot of fun, if anyone intends to do the course I will point out there are a couple creek crossings (you will get wet feet) and the track can be very slippery when wet.
The group I was in set out last, the weather was still not our friend with the odd shower and gusting wind.
I think in total we engaged 10 targets all very challenging mostly up hill shots accros a creek with terrain obstacles.
Of all the targets we engaged I noted not one of them was a shot I would be prepared to take in the field which was backed my results scoring 2 hits :yaeh am not durnk:
The last 3 targets personally I was struggling with light but I'm not using that as an excuse.
Big thanks to the team at Sparrowhawk, wish I could've stayed for the BBQ but a long trip home dictated my leaving time.
Was great to catch up with a few fourumites and put names to faces.
Attachment 258728
At Last.
A comp that favors old age and those of a stout figure.
Old age:
Superior sledging skills
Possessed of sufficient cunning to use most powerfull wind bucking rifle
Letting young-uns go first and hear their wind calls
Did I mention superior skills in slinging bullshit
No chance of thinking like a virgin even though having not done the course before
Stout figure (it's OK - call me a fat bastard if ya like):
Improved ballast ratio in the wind over young skinny buggers
Ability to use tummy as a natural range bag (fake range/rear bags not "de rigour" on the hunters challenge course)
Many thanks to all those arranging and helping out . . .
Things I learnt:
fill my pockets up with rocks to act as wind ballast. (See Tentmans comment, I fall under the skinny bugger class)
Wait for a wind gap before trying ~400yd shots with a 223.
Don't over think the wind, small amount of thought then just shoot the bloody animal. It'll either hit or it won't.
It was a good day out and I learnt a few things. Great to catch up with folks and sling some bullshit too.
Massive thanks to organisers and R.Os on the day.
We shot the first 10 yesterday afternoon in the tail end of the rain & finished up the back 10 this morning in the sun. Difficult conditions yesterday and tricky wind this morning. I did alright on the closer targets except a couple of definite shooter errors, but struggled with the switching wind on the 400+ targets today. Pulled out 8 in total which I imagine is around the average. It is a tough course, there are some small targets. Good to meet some people and see others again. Bit of a stitch up with the way the weather turned out but made it work.
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Good if people care to declare their scores. We shot 7 stages and I finished with 4 hits (Ben and I couldn't stay the night), so again about average. The weather conditions (and course too for that matter) favored the more powerful calibres I think. For example in our squad nearly everyone got the big cat, which was a target that was a bit more forgiving of wind than many.
I feel it's an excellent course, nothing can replicate real hunting - I'd have attempted to close the range on most targets, which would dramatically improve my hit rate, but some of the animals would have gotten away whilst one was getting through the matagouri filled gullies, so I doubt my overall "bag" would increase much. I'm itching to shoot it again, it's a great leveler for us older blokes - I struggle with PRS due to the degree of athleticism required.
Typical Canterbury springtime weather! NW flow and rain. Some tricky winds this morning, switch left to right and back again at some, and still up to 10mph to complete drop offs.
Finished with 14 from 20, dropping all the offhand shots and a couple of mental issue on the other too.
We often pick our rifle caliber based on the target we are chasing. Certainly worth considering it based on the weather forecast, hence the 284Win for this weekend.
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I hit 3 of 7.
Good to meet a few of you guys in person and an awesome set up. I got 6/10 on day one but it all turned to shit today on the long side with 1/10... pretty stoked with the second round hit on the 700m roo with the 14" grendel today. Will be back
Bloody good fun I thought. Pretty happy with my results all considering I was finishing up loading Thursday at midnight and shooting a 20ish round zero Friday evening after work. Didn't quite manage the 50% I'd hoped to follow up with from Day 1 but ended up with a total score of 9 which I'm happy with.
I was shocked to learn I actually preferred a higher wind than a really gentle wind. I was one of the guys that stuck around to have a wee play on the long range and after shooting a few at 500 odd yards. Managed to get the 700m target in a decent wind and then managed a 1st round hit on 800m and 900m a bit later and a finished my day off with shooting the 1000m target with a second round hit after the firstt went low. Followed up with the exact same hold and made a hit so I cracked 1000yards for the first time ever and did so with a 223 in 9-10mph crosswind. Stoked!
What's behind the target made a huge difference in spotting shots with the 223 and I actually found it much easier to spot misses in the short grass behind the 7-1000m targets than i could tell hits on the steel in the wind. Ah huge thanks to everyone in our squad I felt like I learned a lot this weekend especially on getting a basic understanding of wind.
All in all a great little event
It's always a good day at Sparrow Hawk, my daughters enjoyed plinking all the ammo away in their Creedmoor,
Thanks to Al for organizing the event and Nick and team for hosting it
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Yeah, sometimes those light changeable winds are way worse than a constant 12mph blow!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stocky
Remember that the wind doesn't always affect the entire bullet flight, too. This may be due to terrain sheltering some of the bullet flight and also that the felt wind at your location and observed wind at the target location are less than the wind at max Ord.
Think of air movement like water in a river; it's slower near the shore, faster in the middle. It's Eddie's or/and changes velocity near changes in terrain and structure.
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First time to Sparrowhawk, great setup. Mix of target sizes and distances, shooting prone, freehand (which I was hopeless at) sitting, shooting of fence post, logs etc so a really good mixture. Got 7/10 yesterday in the wind and only 4/10 today in the light shifty wind (Go figure) but did manage a first round hit on the 700m Wallaby today which I was pleased with, learnt a few things, need a longer bipod than the old Harris for the steeper uphill shots. Thanks to my squad members for the banter and making it fun, Nick for hosting us and the bbq last night.
I can confirm Stocky got the 223 to 1000m, very well done!
Great to meet a few more members and see all the different equipment, rifles etc
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Attachment 258819
You shot very wellQuote:
Originally Posted by outdoorlad
I had signed up for this event but another shoot came up that I wanted to do closer to home.
Sounds like the conditions were, difficult.
Definitely keen to attend if another one is held, hopefully 3rd times the charm with the weather.
I did feel I learnt alot with the weather. I would usually say don't shoot in anything windy but it became apparent that gentle shifting winds were a much bigger issue than more constant high winds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beetroot
Apart from the poor guys that couldn't shoot the whole thing that only had a day I didn't feel the weather took much away from the event.
I was hoping to get enough scores and rifles used data to try and convince one of the scientists ((looking at you @gimp) to do a matrix of caliber versus hit rate sort of thing. I felt that everyone had pretty similar ability ( and shared info as well) so it was a pretty level playing field shooting wize. On the Saturday I watched with interest on the cat target, which was the most forgiving target wind call wise, and most of our squad hit it. But it seemed the less powerful cartridges were handicapped a bit with the wind generally.
Got to be careful not to turn this sort of thinking into a pissing match . . . . better if we can discuss it to learn something.
Funny you should say that, I have a stats project I've been working on a bit recently - not data from Sparrowhawk. Full writeup will come at some stage
Attachment 258905
I was focussing on specifically making my own wind calls and trying not to pay attention to anyone else's. I don't think there was any difference in hit probability inside 400m due cartridge, however it certainly changes somewhat past there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tentman
No amount of BC helps if I hold the wrong direction....
I think I said at one point (whilst we were discussing scopes and the uselessness of plain duplex reticles in wind) that "I like this scope and how easy it is to precisely dial for wind. But that doesn't stop me making a bad wind call".
Shooting at Sparrowhawk on a windy day is a pretty eye-opening experience. On the plus side I'm happy that one of my misses was simply down to me having not learned to use AB properly, and a couple of them were only very narrow on the longer ranged targets. 5/10 for me including the bastard offhand shot.
We only had what, 7 or 8 people in our squad? The wind was stiff and changing constantly, we had a variety of cartridges, and not knowing (or caring) what the person before you had dialled/held correctly or incorrectly, it meant that there wasn't really any point trying to deduce the actual conditions based on other people's results before it was your turn anyway.
A lot depends on the situation too. I know I can shoot my 224 Valkyrie and 223 better in field positions if it's a situation where I'm doing strings of more than 3-5 shots but under that the more powerful cartridges are fine.
It does take a heck of a lot of practise to see splash (or impact on game) with anything in the 7mm08 class and up - I'm at less than 50% on this with the 6.5-284 (saw none that I recall at Sparrowhawk, positions made it very difficult) for example.
My misses inside ~400 were "the dumbs", excluding the sitting unsupported position - it is hard. We had 2 shots hit over 5 shooters. 15 shots fired for 2 hits at 200m. Small targets. I re-shot (no score) and got 2 of 3. The wallaby vitals on that stage are about 1.5-2moa which is extremely small for an unsupported sitting position.
My misses outside ~400 were "I can't call wind that well in those conditions" - more to learn!
I don't really think there's enough info from Sparrowhawk this time aroumd to draw any conclusions, other than "shooter proficiency (including wind calling, familiarity with equipment etc) is the most significant factor in hitting anything". It could be a useful data set if collected over a couple of events.
The ability to release a shot, while maintaining the ideal fundamentals, from these positions far outweighs the effect of recoil. In fact, it's good fundamentals that mitigate the effect of recoil in the first place, regardless of position.
Each shooting position in the course of fire is specifically planned to challenge the shooter to build the best position and undertake the shot to highlight that field shooting is very different to "at the range". If you can do this, you will score well!
In the annual match in January, this has been won by 7mmRemMag 3 times and 6.5mmPRC once (it might be 7mmRemMag 4 times actually). Note that in most years, the winning score has been 100% or one missed shot - other than earlier this year when the wind was 30mph.
As mentioned by @gimp, understanding wind, familiarity with equipment etc is key. As is having validated data from your rifle.
Listening to others wind corrections is pointless if they aren't any good in that position. If they miss due to a poor setup with their gear, their correct wind call is likely to not be the reason for the miss anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pommy
We had a few discussions on reticles too, and a duplex isn't ideal in my opinion and experience when there are switching winds. Dialing for wind creates some challenges too when the wind increases, decreases and/or switches direction (unless you understand bracketing and the size of the duplex)
Duplex can be used if you understand the size of the markings. For example, the VX5 3-15 (a couple in our squad, mix wind-plex and duplex) - at 15x, the thick post is 0.6MOA think, think the line is 0.2MOA, the length of the thin line is 18.9MOA (or 9.45 from centre to start of the taper). Can adjust the magnification to give a range of other values too. This all comes down to being familiar with your gear, not just a ballistics app. Most of the wind I use was between 0 and 2MOA, is a Duplex would work if knowing the thickness of the thick post was 0.6MOA (3 time this is close enough to 2MOA)
Mine was a duplex, I just worked the wind hold out in MOA and then did the math to put that to inch’s, I use what Norway taught years ago which is your fist width is 4” so if the hold is 10” I put the crosshair 2 1/2 fists into wind and send it, not as precise as having one of those fancy reticles the others had :D but seems to work ok generally. Being able to bracket the wind accurately would be nice though
I should’ve looked thru Gimps scope……
I imagine you’ll run into the issue where the most proficient shooters are the ones who practise the most and do other types of shooting, and these guys will tend towards smaller cartridges.Quote:
Originally Posted by gimp
If you were serious about collecting the data it’d pay to find out what other types of shooting guys do and how that biases there equipment.
I believe the hunters comp earlier in the year had a lot of PRS type shooters who by and large don’t shoot big cartridges and practise/shoot a lot.
They probably tend towards a more “gamer” rifle than just a 7mmRM Tikka with a VX5 on it, I’d imagine.
