Have to fight the urge to cant the rifle
Beautiful range, can imagine the terrain does all kinds of numbers on the wind depending on the direction.
The prevailing wind is south west or west which blows up the range from around 5 o'clock to 5.30, so although 20 mph wind speeds are pretty common, oftentimes remarkably little
average right windage is needed. The problem isn't so much strength changes as angle changes - very difficult to spot on the wind flags, and often when you do see them it's too late as the flags have a habit of changing aspect apparently well after the wind arrives. There is often an element of elevation change allied to wind angle change when from this direction, but in an apparently random relationship. (I'm sure there is an actual relationship, but nobody I know of has worked it out yet
) What is quite common in an F-Class match is to get a Four (more likely a Three given the degree of such changes, but we're talking ex 5 points here not 10 as in US targets) which 'comes out of the blue' for most people and where the wind change has moved windage by somewhere between half and one and a half MOA, but also moved elevation by at least a half-MOA, often three-quarters. This can be either up or down making it near impossible to counter even if you spot the angle change. When it comes, it is usually very short-lived so we don't chase the spotter for the next shot (or even chase our partner's spotter, as we shoot in two, more often, three to the mound alternately in 'Target Rifle' and F-Class.) The only good thing is that when this disaster occurs, you usually see the same thing on adjacent targets, so you do get the reassurance it's the conditions, not your rifle / ammunition.
Around a third of the time, the wind comes from the North East or around 11 o'clock down the reentry ('draw') you can see behind the line of telegraph poles in the top left of the upper photograph. This can be a difficult wind to cope with, often seeing rises in windage values over a number of shots followed by a dramatic fall of around 2-MOA when the cycle restarts, the drop-off catching more people than the rises / gusts. Because the wind is bending downwards over the hills, an increase in strength not only pushes shots to the right but down too. For a 6.5 or 7 at 1,000 yards, average elevation is often + 2-MOA over that needed over a normal day.
On top of that there is rain, fog, sleet, and low cloud, occasional mad foxhounds loose on the range, in fact almost every biblical weather condition bar plagues of frogs, not to mention the occasional lost hill walker who blunders into the valley - if the summit of the hill behind the end of the range isn't visible, you can't shoot for safety reasons. We don't actually lose many matches - I've lost two this year so far, one where we never got out of the range house, a second abandoned during the F-Open relay when low cloud and fog rolled in. It wasn't a case of not seeing the top of the hill - you couldn't see the targets either! Despite this, we shoot matches 52 weekends of the year - the wet and windy but relatively mild climate rarely sees the range closed.
Just to top everything off, with the possible exception of the covered BR 1,000 yard firing point, all other FPs on the main range you're looking down in these photos are lower than the targets, some by a very large margin. Front-rest, rear bag, and bipod heights / adjustment ranges struggle to cope with the varying muzzle elevations needed. The BR FPs are built on the level, but the open grass points are all tiered down a steep hillside so the right hand shooters may be 30ft lower than those on the extreme left. Diggle regulars take this in their stride, but some visitors simply don't like shooting uphill.
This all sounds really bad, but it is a fantastic range to shoot on, and can offer some pretty unusual and rewarding challenges. (Also very frustrating ones too on occasions.) As well as club matches whose numbers run to three figures over the course of a year and involving around 10 different disciplines, we host 18 UK Benchrest Association matches, three GB F-Class league rounds, a couple of Practical Rifle league rounds , several Practical Shotgun league rounds on top of purely club fixtures on the three ranges that are on the site. The club itself has over 400 members, is growing rapidly, and visitors usually say they get a warm welcome and plenty of help from the natives.
