Thread: NZHS Hunter Challenge and Long Range Day - 7/8 Sept; Sparrowhawk

Originally Posted by Pommy

I think I said at one point (whilst we were discussing scopes and the uselessness of plain duplex reticles in wind) that "I like this scope and how easy it is to precisely dial for wind. But that doesn't stop me making a bad wind call".

Shooting at Sparrowhawk on a windy day is a pretty eye-opening experience. On the plus side I'm happy that one of my misses was simply down to me having not learned to use AB properly, and a couple of them were only very narrow on the longer ranged targets. 5/10 for me including the bastard offhand shot.

We only had what, 7 or 8 people in our squad? The wind was stiff and changing constantly, we had a variety of cartridges, and not knowing (or caring) what the person before you had dialled/held correctly or incorrectly, it meant that there wasn't really any point trying to deduce the actual conditions based on other people's results before it was your turn anyway.

Listening to others wind corrections is pointless if they aren't any good in that position. If they miss due to a poor setup with their gear, their correct wind call is likely to not be the reason for the miss anyway.

We had a few discussions on reticles too, and a duplex isn't ideal in my opinion and experience when there are switching winds. Dialing for wind creates some challenges too when the wind increases, decreases and/or switches direction (unless you understand bracketing and the size of the duplex)

Duplex can be used if you understand the size of the markings. For example, the VX5 3-15 (a couple in our squad, mix wind-plex and duplex) - at 15x, the thick post is 0.6MOA think, think the line is 0.2MOA, the length of the thin line is 18.9MOA (or 9.45 from centre to start of the taper). Can adjust the magnification to give a range of other values too. This all comes down to being familiar with your gear, not just a ballistics app. Most of the wind I use was between 0 and 2MOA, is a Duplex would work if knowing the thickness of the thick post was 0.6MOA (3 time this is close enough to 2MOA)

A lot depends on the situation too. I know I can shoot my 224 Valkyrie and 223 better in field positions if it's a situation where I'm doing strings of more than 3-5 shots but under that the more powerful cartridges are fine.

It does take a heck of a lot of practise to see splash (or impact on game) with anything in the 7mm08 class and up - I'm at less than 50% on this with the 6.5-284 (saw none that I recall at Sparrowhawk, positions made it very difficult) for example.

My misses inside ~400 were "the dumbs", excluding the sitting unsupported position - it is hard. We had 2 shots hit over 5 shooters. 15 shots fired for 2 hits at 200m. Small targets. I re-shot (no score) and got 2 of 3. The wallaby vitals on that stage are about 1.5-2moa which is extremely small for an unsupported sitting position.

My misses outside ~400 were "I can't call wind that well in those conditions" - more to learn!



I don't really think there's enough info from Sparrowhawk this time aroumd to draw any conclusions, other than "shooter proficiency (including wind calling, familiarity with equipment etc) is the most significant factor in hitting anything". It could be a useful data set if collected over a couple of events.

Originally Posted by gimp

I don't really think there's enough info from Sparrowhawk this time aroumd to draw any conclusions, other than "shooter proficiency (including wind calling, familiarity with equipment etc) is the most significant factor in hitting anything". It could be a useful data set if collected over a couple of events.

I imagine you’ll run into the issue where the most proficient shooters are the ones who practise the most and do other types of shooting, and these guys will tend towards smaller cartridges.

If you were serious about collecting the data it’d pay to find out what other types of shooting guys do and how that biases there equipment.
I believe the hunters comp earlier in the year had a lot of PRS type shooters who by and large don’t shoot big cartridges and practise/shoot a lot.

They probably tend towards a more “gamer” rifle than just a 7mmRM Tikka with a VX5 on it, I’d imagine.

The ability to release a shot, while maintaining the ideal fundamentals, from these positions far outweighs the effect of recoil. In fact, it's good fundamentals that mitigate the effect of recoil in the first place, regardless of position.

Each shooting position in the course of fire is specifically planned to challenge the shooter to build the best position and undertake the shot to highlight that field shooting is very different to "at the range". If you can do this, you will score well!

In the annual match in January, this has been won by 7mmRemMag 3 times and 6.5mmPRC once (it might be 7mmRemMag 4 times actually). Note that in most years, the winning score has been 100% or one missed shot - other than earlier this year when the wind was 30mph.

As mentioned by @gimp, understanding wind, familiarity with equipment etc is key. As is having validated data from your rifle.

Mine was a duplex, I just worked the wind hold out in MOA and then did the math to put that to inch’s, I use what Norway taught years ago which is your fist width is 4” so if the hold is 10” I put the crosshair 2 1/2 fists into wind and send it, not as precise as having one of those fancy reticles the others had but seems to work ok generally. Being able to bracket the wind accurately would be nice though

I should’ve looked thru Gimps scope……