300m ladder waste of time in mirage??

[Pigdog]

As the title says am I wasting my time trying to do a 300m ladder in heavy mirage? I live in the tropics and the last couple of times mirage has been giving me trouble I'm certainly no expert with it. I'm thinking that shooting a ladder at 300m is going to have enough variance with mirage to make the difference between charge weights disappear in the noise so to speak??

What are yall thoughts on this, should I try doing this as soon as the sun comes up? Or some other option?

 

[ShootDots]

As the title says am I wasting my time trying to do a 300m ladder in heavy mirage? I live in the tropics and the last couple of times mirage has been giving me trouble I'm certainly no expert with it. I'm thinking that shooting a ladder at 300m is going to have enough variance with mirage to make the difference between charge weights disappear in the noise so to speak??

What are yall thoughts on this, should I try doing this as soon as the sun comes up? Or some other option?

It just depends on how heavy the mirage is. If you can barely make out the target, then don't waste your time. However, even if it's "bad" you can "shoot through it".. How is that done? Excellent question. I shoot at 1" circles at three hundred for load development. I aim at the little black diamond inside the 1" circle. The "heat waves" or mirage, will make the target appear to dance. As long as the reticle stays evenly inside the 1 inch circle, you are "shooting through" the mirage. I have shot some of my best groups doing that. However, if the mirage is worse and the target is "moving" so severely that you can NOT "control" where the reticle is either inside or drifting outside the circle, you can not hope to shoot good groups. Now I am NOT a benchrest shooter, and they may have a few tricks I do not know about for beating the mirage! Hopefully, one or two of them will chime in with some good insight!

 

[Willie]

It just depends on how heavy the mirage is. If you can barely make out the target, then don't waste your time. However, even if it's "bad" you can "shoot through it".. How is that done? Excellent question. I shoot at 1" circles at three hundred for load development. I aim at the little black diamond inside the 1" circle. The "heat waves" or mirage, will make the target appear to dance. As long as the reticle stays evenly inside the 1 inch circle, you are "shooting through" the mirage. I have shot some of my best groups doing that. However, if the mirage is worse and the target is "moving" so severely that you can NOT "control" where the reticle is either inside or drifting outside the circle, you can not hope to shoot good groups. Now I am NOT a benchrest shooter, and they may have a few tricks I do not know about for beating the mirage! Hopefully, one or two of them will chime in with some good insight!

Had that same experience today! I kept dropping magnification, adjusting parallax.....nothing seemed to help..... just ended up with velocity numbers. I'm certainly not good enough to "shoot through it", but at least I didn't stay at the house. A bad condition is still a good day shooting!

 

[Pigdog]

thanks guys yer I'm happy to shoot through it when practicing to learn to read the mirage my main concern was getting false node numbers when doing my ladder test. I will give it a go anyway and see where it goes. I have a fair idea of what the node should be based on others 6.5x47l with 139 scenars should be around 39.6g of H4350 but I want to check anyway.

 

[Zero333]

If you can make out the aim point and it doesn't float around (mirage is constant), you're good to go.
But if the aim point on the target keeps moving more than 1" or keeps fading in and out I would just bring along other fun guns and have fun while you're there and do the ladder next time.

Like Willie said... A bad day at the range is still better than a good day at home.

 

[LHSmith]

Wait for better conditions. Unless you are exceptionally gifted, you will not decipher mirage in just a few outings. You have to have a gun/ tunable load that you can trust before you can truly learn wind and mirage effects.

 

[R.Morehouse]

I practice shooting in mirage using a target cam. Its interesting to know your point of aim then breaking the shot and really seeing where you hit with out having to go to the target. Works great for 1k practice as well. I am not sure if i am getting any better...........But it's fun.

Regards
Rick

 

[Toolbreaker]

I practice shooting in mirage using a target cam. Its interesting to know your point of aim then breaking the shot and really seeing where you hit with out having to go to the target. Works great for 1k practice as well. I am not sure if i am getting any better...........But it's fun.

Regards
Rick

Like you, I do enjoy shooting known loads through less than ideal conditions although I wouldn't try to develop a load in one. It is pretty amusing to actually see just how much wind and mirage change the point of impact vs. point of aim.