Mirage, Light and Lite mirage

[mike a]

Even with my limited experience I can attest that mirage will float the target image up. I’m the dummy that’s shot in a Boil !!! However, for quite a while now I have noticed that my shots go LOW in a light mirage. Or so I thought. Now having a more accurate rifle, better scope and better rests I’ve discovered something, I think? Let me clarify terms. Light means less and Lite means bright. So I’ve heard “lites up, sights up” but I alway thought of that for the iron sight guys. So it’s been my experience as the morning progesses and a light mirage starts coming up my shots go low. This has had me really confused for quite a while. I say to myself how can any mirage move me down? Well as the morning progresses it gets more LITE/ Bright. More bright! A light bulb has come on in my head. I recently proved it to myself. See the two targets. Target 1 was shot at first lite with the sun just a few fingers above the horizon. The target was in the shade. But as I shot I noticed my shots going lower and I held higher with my last few shots going quite lower than the rest. I took about 15 minutes to get all 20 off. Target 2 was shot after a 15 minute break. So conditions should not of changed much except wind. AND lite/bright, now the sun is on the target face. Look in the upper left corner and you see my two sighters. Wow low, so I dialed up. Started my string and was hammering the X. I took almost the full 20 minutes to get these off and during that time a light mirage was coming up and got to the point I couldn’t see my hits. So I kept shootin. When I went down range I was surprised to see those low ones. A light mirage came up but it got substantially brighter. And that’s my story. I’d like to here your thoughts and if you’ve experienced this. Turn the tv off and concentrate! Don’t turn that tv on until tomorrow.

 

[Outrider27]

Longer ago than I care to remember, a group of BR shooters (including Homer Culver), clued me in to mirage in an effort (partially successful, lol) to improve my shooting off a bench. One of the things that they taught me was to crank up the power on my spotting scope once in awhile, so that I could see which way the mirage was actually "running" - I thought it always boiled up. Wrong. While up was the most common direction, I have observed it going down and to the right or left (and sometimes diagonally up or down in combination with right or left). All caused a shift in point of impact in the appropriate direction. I never got really good at dealing with mirage, but at least I could figure out in what general direction the point of impact would shift in relation to the point of aim.

 

[Depart123]

The direction the target image moves can be influenced by...

The angle of the sun,... reflectivity of the surrounding terrain,... the shooters height relative to the target (being in a different temperature gradient than the target),... terrain features between the shooter and the target,...the light condition you initially zeroed the rifle in.

There are no absolutes. The target generally displaces in the direction of the warmer air. If you zero in the morning before it gets hot, then you might find your zero migrating down as the day goes on.

If you zeroed in the middle of the day, then you might see your shots go high if a cloud covers the sun.