I shot yesterday in a downpour. 100 yard groups were ok, maybe a little worse than normal, but 200-tard groups went straight to hell!

Anybody else ever experienced this shooting in the rain?

I think this was debated before and the outcome was that rain has little or no impact on shooting. But I have to imagine the trajectory of a 40 grain bullet traveling @ 2900+ fps will be affected by the act of slamming into a falling drop of rain.

Never shooted well when raining.
Never had good groups.
Of course it is more evident with little calibers and light bullets.

bye

Rain drops impacting the bullet may affect accuracy, but I am sure that looking at the target through a wall of moving water is going make accurate shooting very difficult.

Slight rain will not have much effect on the bullet's path, and in heavy rains it does not matter as you cannot see the target.

So what ?

[ 04-23-2003, 02:56: Message edited by: waitaminit ]

According to an article I read a few years ago, medium to heavy rain affects the accuracy of bullets. Have you been hit on the face by a heavy rain droplet while riding a motorcycle?

Keep in mind that even wind can deflect a bullet. But at normal hunting ranges, I imagine that some POI change is not great enough to make a difference.

I believe it causes the bullet to get wet.

Get wet? I dont believe that a bullet spinning with 200,000 revolutions per minute will stay very wet. talk about a selfdrying spin drier...

Hitting a splatter drop will sure affect line of flight though. As will a wet stock with differential warpage and pressures.

I once shot a rifle at targets after a four day soaking on a backpack hunt. It was not a pretty sight. groups were WAY BIG, to patterns. I realized how badly I would have shot at distances over a hundred yards as compared to warm dry range conditions. The good news is that you can sneak closer when its wet.

Yes

There is an article in the book written by Beat P. Kneubuehl (Switzerland) which describes that the rain does affect bullet performance�

Page 102
�If a bullet (61.7 grains) of the cartridge .223 Rem (5.56x45) with a velocity of approx. 2790 fps is slamming into a falling drop of 216/1000 grains weight the bullet velocity will be reduced for approx 10 fps and the target at 200 meters (219 yards) will be hit 0.260 inches below POA...�

Copyright 1994 by Beat P. Kneubuehl �Geschosse, Ballistik, Treffsicherheit, Wirkungsweise�

Good shooting and good hunting

Collani

I lived in South Carolina in the 70s, and shot bench rest matches. That means you will shoot in the rain, because you get a lot of rain during the match season.

I liked the rain because you can use it to finely read the wind. It did not seem to increase people's group sizes. The bullet flies inside a shock wave raincoat.

jim dodd

As a am not a rain shooter that much (going to the target line to inspect/change the targets - brrr), I' like to know:

do you see the bullet's trail when it's rains ?

Or No
I asked this Q to a Benchrest shooter some time ago. He mentioned that a guy had tested this by letting a sheet be exposed to heavy rain during 10s. After this he counted the drops on the sheet and divided with the time the bullet fly to it targets. This and using known data to count the size of the drops he calculated the area the bullet fly to the target (,006m x 100m)
Toghether this gave the shooter the possibility that the bullet would hit a drop on its way to the target.
The answer was larger than zero but I think it was less then 1 at 1000 to hit a drop on the 100m competition
PerN

I recall a friend of mine shooting a 30/338 in a heavy droplet rain. It was really something to see the occasional puff of steam in the bullets flight path through the spotting scope. My friend could see them if they were in close. Schock wave raincoat,not on our range that day. derF

opps, wrong topic

[ 04-26-2003, 16:28: Message edited by: jeffeosso ]

yes, it does affect it, I was shooting one day with my 22-250, and it actually looked like my bullets were expanding before they hit the target. It is hard to explain but it was weird. Anyone else had this happen?