Learning to shoot with wind flags

[BowChamp]

I wasn't going to join this thread because the members have such a wide background of experience, I don't think anything I add will be beneficial.

But I will put this out there. Do with it as you will.

I'm speaking only about RFBR not centerfire.

Flags, all flags, lie. They tell you what happened, not what is happening.

Sighters tell you where your bullet went in a particular condition. If you can tell that same condition is out there you have a good chance of your next bullet going like your last.

Shooting the lulls e.g. waiting for the flags to drop and hang is a losing strategy.

Rimfire has far too much vertical for that. It will take two or three shots to confirm you haven't been riding the wind with your last shots. (If you don't understand this, don't worry about it. Only with time on the range will it be important.)

Shoot the push. Find a hold off that works for what you think is the predominate condition and shoot it.

What you feel around you is your best wind flag. If you are about to pull the trigger but something in the back of your mind tells you something isn't right, don't shoot.

You can't give up shots and win with competition being what it is today. Make conditions beat you, don't beat yourself.

When you finish shooting a target you should be exhausted, if you are not, you aren't trying hard enough.

TKH

I'm glad you joined in Sir, very good advice!!

Sounds like you're speaking from experience and not just pulling it out of your butt.

 

[Hi-NV Shooter]

Almost forgot, interesting advice on the weight of the indicator tails from 6shotsor5? (cool reference by the way). Does anyone know what the tails that come with the Graham flags are weightwise?

The Graham has soft tails like surveyor's tape you want sail tails. look for J. Mayo here on this site he sells sail tails.

Lee

 

[BowChamp]

Almost forgot, interesting advice on the weight of the indicator tails from 6shotsor5? (cool reference by the way). Does anyone know what the tails that come with the Graham flags are weightwise?

SELLING - Sail Tails (JM)

6 for 25.00 + 6 shipping, in a box. (Shipping a tube is cost prohibiting. ) Tube should be 1.5 x 32" Johnny Mayo 8409 Wilson Woods Dr Mint Hill NC 28227 901-238-5132 .75 wt - white, pink, orange, florescent green (2 sets left) darker green 1.5 wt - white, pink, orange, Cash, Check or ...

forum.accurateshooter.com

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

Almost forgot, interesting advice on the weight of the indicator tails from 6shotsor5? (cool reference by the way). Does anyone know what the tails that come with the Graham flags are weightwise?

My Graham flags came with lightweight tails, but they may offer heavier tails too, I don’t remember.

I bought my heavier “sail tails” from David Halblom, davidhalblom-bugtyer@att.net, (515) 556-5833. I’m sure there are a small handful of others that sell them too.

 

[johnmyers]

Practice shooting a lot in adverse conditions and see what works best for you and listen more to your flags than what most people tell you

I use Mike’s flags and they work well for me

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

… I thought your ideas with the Kestral was interesting early on to try and correlate the angle of the streamer with how hard the wind is blowing, but once you have the experience under your belt, is probably me complicating things and I should learn it by shooting and getting a better read on things that way. …

Just to be clear I talked about calibrating a wind probe to anemometer readings. I also talked about some mph numbers for various wind flag tails, but I didn’t say I used the anemometer directly to get those numbers. Once I had my wind probes calibrated, i used them to learn the wind speeds that caused different deflection angles on the wind flag tails.

Also, there’s no claim to originality here. After checking the calibration on my wind probes, I have talked to lots of guys that use wind probes and several of them have done similar things with their probes, back when dirt was young.

There is some serious creativity in our sport around wind measurement. Some guys have come up with really creative gadgets to measure downdraft and updraft wind angles. Most of us usually have all we can handle just figuring out the horizontal components of the wind,

Show up at matches, observe how other people do stuff, ask questions, try stuff, and have fun!

 

[foxguy]

The Graham has soft tails like surveyor's tape you want sail tails. look for J. Mayo here on this site he sells sail tails.

Lee

Lee,

If you don't mind? Why the Sail Tails vs the Surveyor's tape?

I haven't shot over Sail Tails.

Thanks

 

[Hi-NV Shooter]

Lee,

If you don't mind? Why the Sail Tails vs the Surveyor's tape?

I haven't shot over Sail Tails.

Thanks

The sail tails float with the wind and give a better read on velocity almost like a finger pointing and following an object that is moving which is easier to read vs the soft/surveyors tape tails which will whip around like a bullwhip especially in conditions with a lot of shifting directions and strength.
shoot under a lot of conditions like that and you will see the value of sail tails.

Lee

 

[WyleWD]

I use Mike’s flags and they work well for me

+1 on Mike Ezell's flags. I like them. JME. WD

 

[Tony K Harper]

I hate holding till the conditions come back especially if the rifle is hot, seems like the round changes while sitting in a hot chamber too long and can create a flyer. This situation of waiting on conditions can let you run out of time as well.

Jpete,

You make a good point. Waiting is hard to do with the clock counting down.

But you make an even better point about letting the round stay in the chamber too long.

You have to shoot in rhythm. Many of your shots will be at sighters and not the scoring target.

If you shoot in various increments of time, you are allowing differing amounts of condensate build up in your barrel. Those different amounts of water will send your bullets to different places on your target.

There is no such thing as a barrel that will wait for you. There are days when more or less condensate builds up that may give you the impression that the barrel is waiting. But you will always be better off shooting in rhythm.

TKH

 

[VLNBYR]

I'm glad you joined in Sir, very good advice!!

Sounds like you're speaking from experience and not just pulling it out of your butt.

Cracks me up.

 

[Williwaw]

Cracks me up.

He definitely has a way with words.

 

[TRSR8]

I hate holding till the conditions come back especially if the rifle is hot, seems like the round changes while sitting in a hot chamber too long and can create a flyer. This situation of waiting on conditions can let you run out of time as well.

Absolutely. Always a good idea to practice consistent shot pacing, even if that requires that you peck around on sighters until your condition returns.
It’s a good exercise to learn how long your particular gun will wait until your in the weeds with a shot. When in doubt….,sighter.
I know guys that sometimes shoot as many sighters as record every once in a while.

 

[VLNBYR]

Might have been overkill but there was one match this year that I had 3 targets with over 50 sighters each. It was a particularly nasty wind day. It is rare for me to shoot less sighters than record bulls.

 

[JEFFPPC]

Lots of good thoughts from Tony Harper and some others. BUT, you will only learn by doing it, all the time. If your not doing well I doubt you will do worse by looking at flags and scratching your head. Eventually you will see some patterns of flags and shots lining up and start putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4. You can read all these posts, look at all the videos, but until you commit to using them you will never, Never, learn how. You gotta jump in the water, or stand on the dock.

 

[MUP]

This wind chart may help.

 

[Hi-NV Shooter]

Lots of good thoughts from Tony Harper and some others. BUT, you will only learn by doing it, all the time. If your not doing well I doubt you will do worse by looking at flags and scratching your head. Eventually you will see some patterns of flags and shots lining up and start putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4. You can read all these posts, look at all the videos, but until you commit to using them you will never, Never, learn how. You gotta jump in the water, or stand on the dock.

Absolutely! nothing will beat trigger time for experience.

Lee

 

[mudduck]

This wind chart may help.


View attachment 1620807

That chart is different from most others I’ve seen.

 

[VLNBYR]

A lot different and shows the real world low/left and high/right that the others don't show.

 

[BowChamp]

This wind chart may help.


View attachment 1620807

A lot different and shows the real world low/left and high/right that the others don't show.

Same thing I was thinking when I saw it.