I'm Confused

Shabazz

Shabazz

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So I just finished watching this documentary on famous snipers and some of their memorable shots. It was interesting to watch although something said at the end bugged me, so I watched it a few more times just to make sure I heard it right. Feel free to watch the whole thing but the part i'm asking about starts around the 1:28:30 mark.
Basically Ryan Mcmillan is trying to recreate Rob Furlong's record shot and fails, he then explains that a big problem their having has to do with wind, and then he seems to make a general statement that wind at the muzzle has more effect on a bullet then wind at the target. Wouldn't the opposite be true? Since the bullet is losing velocity wind downrange has more time to act on it than at the muzzle, right? The guy is a former sniper and i'm fairly new to external ballistics, so I thought id ask so I stop thinking about it.

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That's true, wind at the muzzle does have more of an effect than wind at the target.

The idea behind it is like this...

Once the wind near the muzzle starts pushing the bullet over, the bullet is now pointing and travelling in that new direction and if there was no wind further out, the bullet would continue on this new path all the way to the target. I hope that makes sense. Now as the bullet goes downrange it slows down, so the wind can really make a difference, but the bullet has less distance for the newly adopted angle to deviate from the original path.

Another way to think of it is with 2 vector lines deviating at an angle to each other. In one case the vector lines are short and the other case the lines are long. Obviously the ends of the longer lines are farther apart than the ends of the shorter lines.

I hope that makes sense.

Since we are on the subject of wind, 'll expand on this just a little more....

It makes perfect sense that a left to right wind coming from 9 o'clock would be a full value wind. Where people often misunderstand is the half value wind, because they think it would be the 10:30 wind, but that is not the case. It's actually the 11 o'clock wind.

A way to explore this visually is to look at a clock... If you draw a line straight down from 11 o'clock that line will intersect half way to the line from center to 9 o'clock.

This is why a fishtailing 11 to 1 o'clock wind is the hardest to shoot in. A change in direction from 11-1 is a full value wind change, but a change anywhere from 7 to 11 is only a max half value wind change.

So to expand on that...

11-1 winds you should focus on direction more than wind speed.

7-11 winds you should focus on speed more than direction.
 
I always get a chuckle when reading near vs far winds and which is more important.

For me, the wind I watch for is the wind which affects me the most.

It can be anywhere on the bullets flight path.

Jerry
 
I believe he is referring to the difference in POI of a near muzzle wind vs POI with a wind near target.
All wind affects a bullet in flight to some degree similar to the way gravity would, except wind affect is just in another plane.

Think of the wind like you would when turret turning for wind, for ex. a 1/4" click left at the bench makes about a 1.5" difference left at 600 yds. However that same 1/4" left click at a distance of 500 yds would only make a 1/4" left difference in the last 100 yds. traveled to the 600 yd target.
So a wind moving the bullet at the beginning of flight(1/4" left) affect the POI more than a wind moving the bullet 1/4" left in the last 100 yds to target.
 
It's like having your bullet clip a blade of grass or a twig which is three feet in front of a deer at 300 yards...no problem. But if you clip that same twig three feet from your muzzle while shooting at that 300-yard deer, you're screwed.
 
The first wind the bullet sees will gradually add momentum(energy) to it up to matching the wind speed, if the wind changes to the other direction the bullet doesn't automatically go the other way due to inertia(yay heavy bullets).

Saying that a 10KM wind the first 200M followed by zero wind the next 800M would have the same POI as 10KM wind for the whole 1000M isn't exactly right either, though would be interesting to see the difference if such a scenario could actually be created.

linear calculations, approximations and known average POI from ballistic data gets most people close enough and you can tweak it after you get a couple shots out there if the variables don't change too much. But there's nothing linear about what's really happening as far as I know.
 
Military snipers are just a bunch of guys trained to lob lead at other people by pulling the trigger. Most of there super duper crazy long distance kills are more luck than anything. I wouldn't look to deeply into what is being said.
 
emerson said:
Laugh2:stirthepot2: Tiger Woods is mostly just lucky too.....
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Absolutely. Unless he's fooling around with #### stars his game is way off. ;)

Lets see tiger make a hole in one at 2 km with a putter.


In all seriousness look at Mr Furlong. Miss, miss and finally hit. That's all about luck. Really skill is one shot, one hit.
 
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At those distances, under the conditions the military operates, luck doesn't bring a shooter that close in 2 or 3 shots. I have personal experience with military snipers. Do you?
 
emerson said:
At those distances, under the conditions the military operates, luck doesn't bring a shooter that close in 2 or 3 shots. I have personal experience with military snipers. Do you?
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I'm not the one making the claim here. You pick 3 Canadian military snipers, military issued 50 BMG rifles, military issued ammo and a silhouette at 2.5 km. I'll show up and we will see the skills not luck your making claim to. 5 shots each and I want to see one shot on target from all three snipers.

Or should we go with Mr Harrison's scenario. Two consecutive kills at 2.5 km. Try and convince me that's not luck?
 
mildcustom2 said:
Absolutely. Unless he's fooling around with #### stars his game is way off. ;)

Lets see tiger make a hole in one at 2 km with a putter.


In all seriousness look at Mr Furlong. Miss, miss and finally hit. That's all about luck. Really skill is one shot, one hit.
Click to expand...

3 shots to make a 2657 yd hit is still way better than an eagle or birdie.
 
I used to play a lot of of different combat flight simulators. Whether you're trying to avoid an enemy fighter in a WW2 p-51 Mustang, or dodge an incoming Sidewinder, the principle is the same:

Jinking, bobbing and weaving when the enemy (or missile) is 5 miles away is useless. at 5 miles, from the enemy's perspective, you're not moving at all. You could be pulling 8-9 G's in a turn, doing an immelman or a split-S, make a 1 mile long corkscrew, but from 5 miles away the enemy pilot (or missile) doesn't need to correct course in any way shape or form in order to approach you. You're just wasting your speed and altitude.

The trick is to put the bogy (or missile) on your wingtip, 9 or 3 o'clock, and keep it there. This way, the bogy or missile expends the maximum amount of energy in its attempt to chase you down (missiles will sometimes deplete their fuel doing this). Save the bobbing and jinking for when the threat is CLOSE.

So, what's that have to do with ballistics? Flip the situation around.

At large distances, the smallest of corrections can account for very large movements down range. Likewise, the smallest force/error/wind imposed on a bullet's flightpath as it leaves the barrel can have a very large role in where the bullet impacts down range.

If the enemy is coming straight at you from five miles out, he requires only the smallest of corrections to adjust for your wild (and useless) evasive acrobatics.

Likewise, at a distance, a small correction or error makes for a big correction down range.

I guess the way I'm explaining it isn't very good after all...

Okay, imagine this. What do you think matters more? A big 20 knot gust of wind pushing on the projectile at the muzzle, or a big 20 knot gust of wind pushing on the projectile 1/2" before it impacts its target? The answer just makes intuitive sense.
 
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There is no luck. There is only collapsing probabilities, and it is the snipers skill, and his machinists, who make the collapsed probability's average deviation within acceptable parameters. You can say they make their own luck.
 
I think I understand what you guys are saying, but let me throw one hypothetical at you just so i'm sure. Let's say your shooting a target at 1000m, for the first 500m you have a 10 mph wind right to left, and for the last 500m a 10 mph wind left to right. Will the wind for the first 500m still have more effect on the bullet? I understand that in the real world all wind has to be accounted for and there are 50 other variables, just trying to wrap my head around this.

BTW: If you want to discuss the skill vs. luck of snipers start your own thread, that's not the topic.
 
don't take this to be rude but THINK LESS AND SHOOT MORE.

All of this becomes very clear once you send lead downrange.

Jerry

PS having had the pleasure of shooting with a few of Canada's finest in Uniform, them boys are sure LUCKY!
 
Mystic Precision said:
don't take this to be rude but THINK LESS AND SHOOT MORE.
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This is what people always say when the finer points of the subject matter are beyond their comprehension.

Unconscious incompetence is a condition where an individual does not understand and rejects the value of a greater academic understanding of a given subject.

Conscious incompetence is a condition where you at the very least recognize that you have more to learn and that increased learning has value. Without at the very least accepting this, a person can never advance or improve on anything.

Shabazz said:
Let's say your shooting a target at 1000m, for the first 500m you have a 10 mph wind right to left, and for the last 500m a 10 mph wind left to right. Will the wind for the first 500m still have more effect on the bullet?
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Shabazz, this is an excellent scenario.

Your bullet will impact to the left. It will also impact slightly low from your no wind zero due to spin drift.
 
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Any chance a few of us can use one scenario with 1 particular bullet and speed at the muzzle and see what we all get? maybe with a popular 308 bullet?
 
mildcustom2 said:
Military snipers are just a bunch of guys trained to lob lead at other people by pulling the trigger. Most of there super duper crazy long distance kills are more luck than anything. I wouldn't look to deeply into what is being said.
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Don't know about the luck part but I'm amazed the amount of hero worshiping these guys get. Everyone from Carlos Hathcock to Rob Furlong. To me they are highly trained soldiers doing military operations on the government dime. But heros?
 
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