A Short Course On Reading the Wind

Excerpted from : http://www.sniperflashcards.com/windreading.php

Let me begin by saying that I shoot at the expert level in highpower rifle competitions. There are people
who shoot at the master level and, if you know one, you should talk to him when you are ready to shoot
at that level. However, expert level shooting is all that is required for combat sniping. I will define expert
wind reading as the ability, under favorable conditions, to estimate the wind speed in 2½ mph
increments. Sharpshooter wind reading would be in 5 mph increments. At 300 yards, the range your rifle
is zeroed for and that you will be practicing at, a sharpshooter adjusts his windage in whole MOA
increments and an expert adjusts his in half MOA increments. By "favorable conditions" I mean one of
two things:

(A) There is smoke or dust nearby, allowing you to measure the wind by how fast it is drifting, or

(B) It is a hot day and there is an object with a well defined horizontal edge near the target on which
you can see the mirage. "Mirage" refers to the heat waves which rise off of hot objects. It is easier to
observe in a 50x spotting scope than in a 10x rifle scope, but it is still visible. You can see it with your
naked eye if you look across the hood of your car on a hot day. In still conditions, heat waves appear as
wavy vertical lines. Five mph winds bend them over at about a 30º angle while ten mph winds bend
them over at about a 60º angle. Fifteen mph winds bend them over flat so it is no longer feasible to
measure the wind speed this way. If you look at a horizontal edge, like a rooftop, the heat waves seem
to be running along it.

If there is a large parallel component to the wind (it is blowing mostly towards or away from you), then
the angle of the mirage still measures the perpendicular component of the wind, but the parallel
component will make the heat waves wiggle. This is called a "boiling" mirage and is a difficult shot
because a wind's direction shifts more often than it's magnitude shifts, causing the perpendicular
component to vary more rapidly than if the wind were mostly perpendicular, and those changes are
hard to see because of the wiggle. In cases like this it is not possible to dial your windage up and down
fast enough to keep up with the variations in the wind, so you should set your scope for the least wind
that you are seeing and then fire the next time the wind dies down.

Condition (A) is easy to obtain at any public range because there are always lots of people blasting away
at fifty and hundred yard targets. Condition (B) is easy to obtain at rifle matches because you can look at
the target boards. In combat, condition (A) is obtained in bombed out cities while condition (B) is
obtained in still intact cities. You must practice with both.
Unfavorable conditions are when neither (A) or (B) are obtained, in which case you have to resort to
looking at the greenery. Roughly, when grass sways and leaves flutter, there is a five mph wind. When
tree branches sway, there is a ten mph wind. When small trees sway, there is a fifteen mph wind. What
is most unfavorable about this technique is that the swaying of tree branches tells you nothing about
the direction of the wind. For that you need another technique, the best one being to throw some grass
up in the air. If 0º is perpendicular to your shot and 90º. is in line with the target (it doesn't matter if it is
towards you or away from you), then assign full value to any wind from 0º to 45º. Assign half value to
any wind between 45º and 75º. Ignore winds between 75º and 90º (note 1)

The best thing about favorable conditions is that, when looking at dust or heat waves through your
scope, you are only seeing the perpendicular component of their movement. Thus, you do not need to
know what direction the wind is blowing because you are measuring the only part of the wind (the
perpendicular part) that matters to you. The easiest way to identify beginners at a rifle match is that
they are always licking their fingers and holding them up to determine the direction of the wind. That is
because they are thinking of unfavorable conditions where the wind speed is determined with one
technique while wind direction is determined with another.

The wind near you is more important than the wind near the target. That is because, if the wind near
you blows your bullet off course, it will continue in that direction. If the wind near the target blows your
bullet off course, it will strike the target before it has gone far away. When looking at dust, you should
judge how much importance to give it based on its distance from you. Also, the wind you feel on your
face is the most important, so heed it. Heat waves are transparent, however, so it is not clear how far
away the mirage is that you are seeing through your scope.

Rifle competitors will focus their spotting scope at three hundred yards so, when they move back to the
six hundred yard line, they will be seeing the near mirage. This only works with powerful spotting
scopes, not with 10x rifle scopes. To see why, recall that, when taking someone's photo outdoors,
photographers are advised to stand back and zoom in on her. This is because, the higher the
magnification used, the shorter the focal range. If you zoom in on her, the girl will be in sharp focus
while the bushes behind her will be a green blur. At low magnification, both the girl and the bushes will
be in good, but not sharp, focus and the picture will appear cluttered because you can see every leaf in
the bushes. Similarly, 50x Kowa spotting scopes can focus on just the 300 yard mirage while 10x rifle
scopes show everything from 100 yards out to infinity in equal, if not great, clarity. Focus your scope on
a clear day and then don't monkey with it in the field.
Reading the wind is not your highest priority in combat. Finding the enemy sniper and getting to the
trigger first is more important, and for that you need a scope of no more than about 12x;. The high
magnification scopes that seem to be all the rage nowadays have far too small a field of view for combat
use. Also, they require readjusting the focus depending on how far away the target is. So, forego some
wind reading ability and buy a 10x scope. Also, when buying your scope, remember that your objective
is mediumrange sniping, which means from about 200 to 500 yards with occasional 600 yard shots. If
you look at a Leupold adjustable objective, you can see that only an eighth inch separates the 200 and
400 yard marks, but 1½" separate the 25 and 100 yard marks, so this adjustment is really for .22 RF
rifles. Non-adjustable scopes can be set to be parallax free at any range you chose; ask for 300 yards.
30mm tubes have a large range of adjustment, but Aguilar System shooters are holding over on the mil-
dots, so a 1" tube is sufficient. 50mm objectives sit too high on the rifle, so get a 40 mm lens.

Practicing with a rifle is pointless unless you are getting immediate feedback after each shot. If you fire a
box of ammunition and then, when the rangemaster calls for a cease fire, you walk down range and
discover a long horizontal string of bullet holes, all you have really learned is that you are a lousy shot.
You have not learned how to become a better one. In the past, getting feedback on your wind reading
could only be accomplished at rifle matches when you had someone pulling the target for you. However,
now we have Shoot N-C targets, so you can do this alone at a public range.

You are going to be estimating the wind speed in either 5 or 2½ mph increments and it is important to
be systematic about adjusting your windage dial in only those increments. Just because your scope has
quarter MOA clicks does not mean you are going to be using them all. At 300 yards a 10 mph wind
requires 2 MOA windage, so a 5 mph wind requires 1 MOA and a fifteen mph wind requires 3 MOA. So,
for sharpshooter level wind reading, you will be adjusting your windage dial only in whole MOA
increments. Do not make any finer adjustments until you are confident that you know the difference
between a zero, five, ten or fifteen mph wind.

While Shoot N-C targets are a fine thing, the problem with practicing alone at a public range is that it is
boring and not very goal oriented. If your only goal is to shoot a tight group so you can take the target
home and show it off to your friends, this is more easily accomplished, not by learning to read the wind,
but simply by trying to show up at the range on a day when there isn't any wind. However, if you make
an occasion out of promoting yourself from sharpshooter to expert, and always behave as one or the
other by estimating the wind in either 5 or 2½ mph increments, you will have a goal. But don't be too
anxious: Sharpshooter is sufficient for shooting fat people.
But what if you do not have access to a 300 yard rifle range? Should you practice at 100 yards? No. That
is really a waste of ammunition. You will need to drive to a 300 yard rifle range at least once to zero your
rifle. However, to learn to read the wind, you should buy a .22 RF target rifle and a case of subsonic
match grade ammunition for it. I use Federal Gold Medal UMB1 but, as long as you are using
ammunition that is less than or close to the speed of sound (1125 fps), the windage needed at 50 yards
is the same as the windage used on your highpower rifle at 300 yards. Practicing at 100 yards with a .22
is equivalent to practicing at 500 yards with a highpower rifle. Even if you have access to a 300 yard
range, buying a .22 target rifle is not a bad idea. It costs a dollar every time you fire your highpower rifle,
but even the most expensive .22 ammunition is a tenth that much.