looking for an expert in wind drift.

[5whiskey]

Honestly, to learn- I'd start with a .308. Ammo is plentiful, reasonably priced (until you get into handloading) and capable. The key, is practice ...and more practice...you won't burn up a barrel on a .308, and once you develop some skills using a "optimal" setup for your conditions will make it a cakewalk.

I agree with this actually. .308 may not be as pleasant on the shoulder, especially with high BC heavy bullets, but it does have a lot of advantages. Many of which are posted above.

If recoil is an issue for the young ones, you can add a recoil pad and lead weight to the rifle to help.

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...have the opportunity..." That doesn't mean you should.
"...at up to 500Yds..." The .308 has insufficient energy at 500 to be talking a hunting shot at a deer. A 180 grain bullet, with a MV of 2,620 FPS, sighted in .1" high at 100 will drop 67.3" at 500 with 1083 ft-lbs. of remaining energy.
Absolutely no new shooter/hunter should be encouraged to take a shot like that either. Except on a target range. They are simply not capable of hitting the kill zone of a deer at that distance.
"...the varmint..." What varmint?

 

[5whiskey]

"...at up to 500Yds..." The .308 has insufficient energy at 500 to be talking a hunting shot at a deer.

Incorrect.

500 with 1083 ft-lbs. of remaining energy.

Which is on par with .44 mag and well above .357 from a carbine. Either of which can quite easily kill a deer, and no one argues against their ability to.

sighted in .1" high at 100 will drop 67.3" at 500

Calculating holdover is not a difficult skill to master. It is a constant variable, all you need to know is the range.

Absolutely no new shooter/hunter should be encouraged to take a shot like that either.

This I completely agree with. Especially the new shooter part. I am very comfortable with my ability to hit an 8" circle at 500 yds in most any condition... BUT just because I can do it on the range doesn't mean I will if a poor shot means lost/suffering game. High winds, high angle firing, platform stability, and lighting conditions often put a cap of my shot distance.

 

[Picher]

I try to limit my deer shots to 350 yards, though wind isn't much of a problem at my woods-lined, abandoned county road stand.

When I used to hunt woodchucks, we started using .30/06, 125 grain loads, but went to .22-250 Rem, which was problematic during windy spring days. I switched to 6mm Rem and it was much better in the wind, but the rifle had a heavy barrel and though very accurate, proved too heavy for carrying around for several hours. It was especially good in the wind with 90 grain varmint bullets, however.

I now use a .243 Win in a Tikka T3 Lite and it works well for carrying around. It's mostly used for coyotes and scored well on several in the past couple of years. Picked one off running flat-out directly away from me in the blueberry field, at about 200 yards (offhand).

 

[Erno86]

I'm no expert in wind deflection...but I believe that if you have a right hand twisted barrel, with a left to right crosswind --- the flight of the bullet will have a slightly downward spiral. With a right to left crosswind...the bullet will have a slight upward spiral.

A tailwind will keep bullet speed up, hence...less bullet drop --- A headwind is the opposite.

Wind gusts come in waves. A wave maybe lasting 5 minutes before it might start to die down, signaling a possible wind direction change. You probably don't want to shoot when the wind gust has died down, because it might just start-up in a different direction when you shoot. You want to shoot when the average wind speed is maxed out, and all of the wind flags are flying in the same direction.

Invest in a good wind speed indicator.

 

[Don Fischer]

So your shooting at 500yds, paper target of course, how do you tellthe speed of the wind and direction half way to the target? How about 3/4 of the way? Drop is easy, I get that but wind drift is another matter. How do you know at the moment you shoot the wind either dies or gust's?

I have read where the wind is judged by the blowing trees or grass, a guess at best I'd think. Have read somewhere where wind can be judged by reducing the magnification, think that was it, at half way to the target. Then your supposed to be able to see mirage and judge wind by it? I think the major draw back on long range is in fact the wind.

 

[Erno86]

Major wind deflection vectors of the bullet (besides on long range bullet flight paths), is affected the most where the bullet exits the muzzle.

I believe that the spotting scope focus needs to be adjusted about 10 yards before the target, in order to see the wind mirage.

Dealing with cross canyon wind deflection is difficult to judge at times.

It is recommended that at least 5 wind flags be placed at different interval distances, for a 100 yard target; especially while shooting 22 rimfire.

 

[CockNBama]

Reno, all gyroscopically stabilized ballistic objects will, after the apex of their trajectory, have a tendency to a nose-up attitude.

As that projo descends, a culmination of forces tend to deflect the nose up more. This tendency begins to result in precession, and the resultant action of precession is at right angles to the input force.

So, when forces combine to try to push up the nose, the translation is to the right (in your example) or to the left (if the spin of the projectile is to the left).

This is why drift (actual drift, not the miss-named "wind drift") is a function of time of flight. The longer the bullet flies, the more time for precession forces to affect the nose attitude.

Ultimately, the nose is deflected into a yaw of repose, and this steers the bullet to one side or the other of the axis of the bore the bullet was fired from.

Here endeth the epistle.

 

[Erno86]

It's not only possible to determine wind direction by mirage, but also wind speed as well. For example: The smaller the height of the wave...the faster the wind. You'd have to probably check out a U.S. military sniper book, for illustrations of wind speed mirage wave heights.

You can more easily determine mirage wind waves, by a target backing paper that has horizontal black/blue & white lines (about a half inch in height x 2' or 3 feet long) that surrounds the target paper.

Target shooter...David Tubb, has a chapter in one of his excellent books about wind doping --- I learned a lot from Tubb.