Please do Boss.

Your wind stuff is very good.

The bullet seems to be most affected by wind at the first 1/4 of its flight path.

I cannot explain it! Shooting out to 1200+ yards quite often that is what I have personally seen.

The founder of Horus Vision has showed me the science as to why that is the case.

Go to the Horus Vision Booth at SHOT next month and they will show you the science to prove it.

Horus vision has quite a few multimillion dollar contracts with the military for their sniper scopes and ballistic programs.

Using the Horus Kestrel with the ATrag ballistics program. first round hits at 1000 yards are not uncommon even with the lowly 308 win.

Jerry Jacques
www.Bristol-Bay.com

Alaskaguide,
There is science/math to confirm what you say about the most impact of wind being closer to the muzzle and beyond me to provide such evidence, but can say without question based on quite a few years of shooting at 1000yds., if you do not adjust for wind by determining a "read" some half way or less(as in one fourth) of the range your shot placement will not be where you want it to be. The spotter w/ quality spotting scope will monitor the conditions and take his data to give to you from half way to target or even less to determine sight adjustments. Once the bullet leaves the muzzle and "trace" is visible, spotter will know if flight of the bullet is true or not. The moment the bullet leaves the barrel and wind is present that early flight time is impacted by whatever wind is present; hence, most impact. That is not to say that wind influence is not present during the entire flight, it is, but has less impact than initial exposure. Every experienced spotter will "back focus" his spotting scope to determine what the wind conditions are some half way from the target to call for adjustment. At 1000yds. there will also be spin drift to compensate for as well, bullet will climb to the right on right had twist bore and in RH wind will climb even more and you need to compensate. Understand that a 16" bore battleship gun will produce some 1800yds spin drift over a 25 mile range, now that is spin drift! As a side note, travelled in your area of Alaska and in those days don't think anyone down there even had a computer, to busy watching out for the bears.

Instructor

We also calculate for Coriolis effect for long range work (past 1000)
I never could memorize that formula but did have it written in my logbooks. Now the Horus A-trag ballistics program in my Kestrel does all of the math for me. When spin drift and coriolis are compounded it makes a difference when a first round hit is desired


Jerry Jacques
Alaska Master Guide #110
www.Bristol-Bay.com

I know of such programs, but not a user of same.
For you to achieve Alaska Master Guide level is quite an accomplishment and know that it takes a lot of work and experience to do that, congratulations to you. Have a Merry Christmas!

Tracking Point was at the Dallas Safari Club convention last week. Did anybody take a look at the system?

I read a couple of press releases on the tracking point and the price listed for the system was around $17,000. If that is correct, I think I will spend a bit more time shooting the guns I own or have something built and come out quite abit ahead.

quote:

Originally posted by Unalakleet Yooper:
I read a couple of press releases on the tracking point and the price listed for the system was around $17,000. If that is correct, I think I will spend a bit more time shooting the guns I own or have something built and come out quite abit ahead.

Not knocking the guy's work, but I can buy a lot of reloading components for that much money, even at today's costs.

They have sold over 20 systems in just two days. Seems there is something to it!

quote:

Originally posted by Kanga69:
They have sold over 20 systems in just two days. Seems there is something to it!

It looks like a fine thing, just out of my wallet's league at $17K

So where does that leave the challenge...or the skill. This is depressing...

This is an interesting and depressing thread...but with technology this is certainly coming. Before this type of system becomes generally available I'm sure there will be "ballistic" scopes produced (some are already on the board I've heard) that do much of what this system does. You just program in the ballistics and the cross-hairs automatically adjust based on range, angle, pressure and temp. Those adjustments are not that hard for a computer to make. All that's left is wind. Such a scope would not be that expensive either. Because this will encourage folks who should not be shooting game at long ranges to try and do it, I can forsee as others have suggested that these types scopes may well be banned from hunting and probably should be.

If the price tag is realy btwn $17K and $21K I would have to pass and spend around 1/10 the $$$ on a good rifle and scope and ammo to become a good enough marksman for the ranges I hunt at, and still have enough $$$ left over to buy btwn 2-3 Utah elk land owner tags for the awesome bull elk hunts.

Thanks for sharing the new tech scope info, but you're talking about a scope a mear fraction of a fraction of a percent of hunters or shooters could ever afford.

I went to the range this morning with my teenage son and daughter to shoot the TrackingPoint system out to 1,000 yards. We had pouring rain and at times no rain along with variable 5-8mph winds blowing right-to-left switching from 5 o'clock to 3 o'clock. Anyway, we all three walked the .338 Lapua out to 1,000 yards with first round hits (250, 500, 750 & 1,000 yards) on steel targets (circular plates at 250 & 500 and man size targets at 750 and 1,000). We switched to the 300 WinMag and all three of us had first round hits at 250, 500 & 750. We stopped at 750 with the .300 WinMag.

While I have watched and learned about the TrackingPoint system via friends that work for TrackingPoint, this was my first opportunity to get trigger time on the system and the bonus round was to have my teenage son and daughter participate as well.

Overall the shooting system is technologically impressive and easy to learn. It is ergonomically pleasant and simply a lot of fun to shoot. A couple of enhancements that I would suggest: ability to offload video via micro-SDD cards and enhanced ability to stream video to multiple devices. I would also clean up the trigger for use in manual mode with standard mil dot reticle. In manual mode the scope and trigger mechanics are used just like a conventional bolt action scoped rifle and all the whiz bang software driven elements go away. You must also pull the trigger to fire the weapon in manual mode vice automated mode (my term for fully engaged technology suite) where you pull the trigger to arm the system (after tagging a target) and the rifle actually fires only when the safety is off and the crosshair aligns with the tag you placed on the target. I'd also add retina based tagging vice the use of a toggle button located near the magazine well/trigger guard.

The bottom line: Any day on the range shooting weapons with your children is a day well spent and today's shooting experience was enhanced by the fact that we were able to shoot a technologically advanced weapon system that most people only get to ready about. Very cool.