"Shooting 22lr at 200 yards is like shooting 308Win at...

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DocRock

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800 yards".

This statement was made recently while shooting 22lr at 200 yards, which is super fun,educational, and quite challenging.

I am not a long range shooter. The longest I have ever shot at was 500 yards,and that with a 45-70 and black powder. So, I don't know what it's like to shoot 308 Winchester at 800 yards. I can see how the challenges would be somewhat similar, but the statement was made with authority. The chap who said it is by no means a blowhard. He's a confident, capable shooter. I asked if this was based on a formula of some kind, but he said "they have roughly the same ballistic challenges".

But I can't see it. Wind must be exponentially harder to read and understand. Muzzle velocities are vastly different. Figuratively, I could accept it, but even assuming properly scaled targets, 800 yards is so very much farther. Just the difference in sight picture alone must be huge.

So, what's the verdict: figuratively valid if factually incorrect, or utter codswallop?
 
Eh, it’s not REALLY true to say, “a 22LR at 200 is like a 308win at 800,” but it’s damned sure not WRONG. And the reason it’s not “right” really isn’t the reason you’re assuming - it’s the opposite!! 200 and 800 are in the ballpark where you’ll see similar elevation correction for the two - but in many cases, managing the wind with the 22LR at 200yrds is actually more difficult than a 308win at 800, even if the drop does roughly align.

I can tell you, shooting a 6 creed at 800 is a lot easier than a 22LR at 200, as my boy and I do exactly that with both a couple weeks out of each month. 308win is certainly more challenging than most of the cartridges I use for 800-1200 yards, but not so different than some of my practice rifle cartridges (223rem, 6.5 grendel, 243LBC/6grendel).

Wind drift is a progressive function based on time of flight. The longer a bullet is exposed to wind, the more it drifts - and the 22LR ain’t movin’ very fast out there. I hadn’t compared the two directly until now, but my boy and I shoot 200 and 300yrds with our 22’s then reach out to 800yrds with my 6 creed match rifle enough to know the centerfire at 800 is considerably easier. Hanging onto 2moa targets at 800 with the Creed is MUCH easier than doing so at 200 with the 22LR.

Here’s a couple screenshots of StrelokPro output for trued and proven data: 6 creed at 800yrds in a 10mph full value is 4.4mils of elevation correction with 1.2mils upwind hold, while the 22LR is dropping 4.2mils at 200, and drifting 2.3mils - roughly TWICE the wind influence on the 22LR than on the 6 creed.

6 creed
8F928D5D-147D-487D-A554-BDA8461D2D21.jpeg

22LR
27BDAC7A-C046-4B7D-93DE-7334B3D77C4E.jpeg

So in all honesty, whoever mentioned “200 with a 22LR is the same as 800 with a 308” probably didn’t actually know firsthand what they were talking about, because 200 with a 22LR is HARDER than 800 with a 308. He likely ran calcs, or heard someone else talking who had ran calcs, and assumed the fact the drops at 200 and 800 were the same meant the challenge would be the same. But it ain’t. The wind is worse for the 22LR...
 
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The wind drift and drop are kinda proportional.

The wind on a 22 is murder.
It'll drift it like there's no tomorrow.
 
Figuratively, I could accept it, but even assuming properly scaled targets, 800 yards is so very much farther. Just the difference in sight picture alone must be huge.

A 2moa target is a 2moa target. We shoot at 4” square at 200yrds and 18” IPSC at 800 (2.15moa). The sight picture isn’t significantly different - you’re looking at a roughly 2moa target at either distance, spanning roughly the same gap between mil-hashes.

Wind must be exponentially harder to read and understand.

“The first wind is the worst wind.” Meaning the first wind a bullet feels matters the most, because it causes deflection which has the most time remaining before it reaches the target. Nudge a bowling ball off course right as it starts down the alley, and it will be a gutter ball before it reaches the pins. Comparatively, you can nudge it MUCH harder in that last millisecond before it hits the pins, and it will still knock down a strike, because the deflection didn’t have time to yield any offset result.

Here’s a relatively quick reading article reflecting this principle: the early wind matters the most, so we focus the most on the early wind.

https://kestrelinstruments.com/mwdownloads/download/link/id/100/

In this snippet below, you can see that the wind the bullet experiences in the first 1/3 of its flight predicts around 1/2 of its total drift. So if a shooter can read the wind at 0-350yrds for a 1000yrd shot, they’ll be much more likely to be on target than if they only had the windspeed at the target. The bottom half of the page illustrates my bowling ball example above, and why “the first wind is the worst wind.”

7040FF98-D99C-44C7-A378-F8794CAF1D5A.jpeg
 
A 2moa target is a 2moa target. We shoot at 4” square at 200yrds and 18” IPSC at 800 (2.15moa). The sight picture isn’t significantly different - you’re looking at a roughly 2moa target at either distance, spanning roughly the same gap between mil-hashes.



“The first wind is the worst wind.” Meaning the first wind a bullet feels matters the most, because it causes deflection which has the most time remaining before it reaches the target. Nudge a bowling ball off course right as it starts down the alley, and it will be a gutter ball before it reaches the pins. Comparatively, you can nudge it MUCH harder in that last millisecond before it hits the pins, and it will still knock down a strike, because the deflection didn’t have time to yield any offset result.

Here’s a relatively quick reading article reflecting this principle: the early wind matters the most, so we focus the most on the early wind.

https://kestrelinstruments.com/mwdownloads/download/link/id/100/

In this snippet below, you can see that the wind the bullet experiences in the first 1/3 of its flight predicts around 1/2 of its total drift. So if a shooter can read the wind at 0-350yrds for a 1000yrd shot, they’ll be much more likely to be on target than if they only had the windspeed at the target. The bottom half of the page illustrates my bowling ball example above, and why “the first wind is the worst wind.”

View attachment 1001148
sooo....don't fire into a gust?

Im not much of a distance shooter, and I've read that you need to be more concerned with what winds doing down range...enough that I didn't really question it.

That description and diagram make more sense to me tho, now that I've thought about it.
 
Whole lot tougher to handload 22's than the 308. And even when some folks do,there's still hurdles that make the 22 a non starter for me. So for that reason,will say in the example given,the 308 would be easier.
 
I'm by no means an expert on this, but I got bored with shooting 22's at 50 yards and have pushed the limits a bit in recent years to 200-250 yards with a 22. I can't compare it to 308 at 800 because 600 is as far as I've gone with centerfires. I found it much easier to get hits at 600 with my 308, 30-06, 6.5CM, and 300 WSM than my 22 at 200.

I will say that it is challenging and fun. I picked up a used Leupold VX2 with CDS dials pretty cheap a few years ago. For the ranges I typically use to deer hunt it wasn't necessary so I put it on my most accurate 22 and used the "trial and error" method to figure out where to set the dials for 100 and 200 yards. I currently use that scope on my Tikka T1. It maxes out at about 220 yards with 36 gr CCI Mini-mag ammo. The few times I've shot at 250 required some holdover even with the adjustments maxed out.

I've tried some of the slower target ammo. It is a tad more accurate at 50 yards, but hits significantly lower at 100 yards. And I don't have enough adjustment to get it on paper at 200 yards, at least with the scope I'm using. If there is much wind at all I don't even try at 200. Even the slightest breeze will make a huge difference at 100. The way the range where I shoot is arranged it is easy to place clay targets on a dirt bank just beyond the 200 yard line, right at 220 yards. I find that more fun than paper targets.

There is also a 6" steel plate at 250 yards, 300 and 400. This is at 250, the bigger hit was from a 223 round fired from my AR earlier. I hit 6 of 10 shots though. I fired the 1st two shots and missed, but observed where they hit to get an idea where to hold. I was actually using the 4th link in the chain on the left as my aiming point and got 6 out of the last 8 shots on target. That's pretty good for me.

IMG_1575.JPG
 
I've read that you need to be more concerned with what winds doing down range.

This (bad) advice has been flying around for a long time - I’ve been smiling and nodding whenever I have heard short range shooters mention this for at least 20yrs myself, and I can be sure it wasn’t a “new idea” the first time I heard it.

Unfortunately, this statement is a case of the telephone game: twisting true words poorly which yields a false statement.

False: “shooters need to be concerned more with downrange wind than close range wind.”

True: “Slower bullets get pushed more (per yard) by the same wind than a faster bullet AND bullets are slower downrange than they are at short range.”

So bullets drift more in the wind downrange, but that does NOT mean the downrange wind matters more than the close range wind.

Truth: Wind drift is a function of exposure time. Bullets are flying slower down range, so they take longer to traverse every yard than they do at short range, meaning the force of the wind has longer to work on the bullet per yard, pushing it farther off course per yard. Wind drifts slower bullets more per yard traveled than it does faster bullets.

For example, there’s a simple rule of thumb for predicting wind drift in the field - a shooter can determine the specific windspeed for their bullet which causes .1mil drift per hundred yards in the short and mid-range, then determine the range their load skips a tenth, and then the range it starts drifting .2/100yrds. For a 6mm rifle at 3000fps with a long-range-worthy bullet, a 7mph wind will cause .1mil drift per 100yrds out to 1000, it adds .1 before 1100, then from 1400-1800, it drifts .2mil/100yrds. This means a 7mph wind pushes a bullet twice as far per yard at 1500 as it does at 500yrds.

So yes, the wind has more time downrange to work on the bullet than it does at short range, and causes more drift per yard downrange than at short range. Effectively, a 3.5mph wind at 1500yrds causes as much drift (inches) as a 7mph wind at 500....

BUT.... it remains false to say the downrange wind matters more.

Let’s say you have a 10mph exposure at 0-600, and a 15mph exposure at 600-1000. If you call 10 across the board, you’d hold 1.6 at 1000, if you called 15, you’d hold 2.4. Quick and dirty correction on a compound trajectory of 10mph for 0-600 and 15mph for 600-1000 shows 1000 would be 1.9mils... So if you use the close range wind, you’d miss downwind by .3mils, whereas if you used the downrange call of 15, you’d miss upwind by .5mils...

Missing sucks either way, but missing by twice as much because you used downrange wind instead of close range wind sucks more...

Equally, we have a logistics problem: how do you measure the wind at 1000? We can only measure the wind at our position, then ESTIMATE wind downrange. Going back to our example above: If a shooter measured 10mph at his position, and can tell the grass and mirage are all moving the same to 600, but the grass says the wind picks up past 600, a shooter can estimate - ok, so 10mph straight is 1.6, and the last 400yrds are a lot faster... 15mph would be 2.4mils, that’s 8 tenths difference between 10 and 15mph... downwind range matters about half as much as close range wind, so 1/3 of 8 tenths is just shy of 3 tenths... so I’m gonna hold 1.9 mils... That close range wind call accounts for 85% of the total wind call, whereas the downrange wind call only causes that extra 15% of drift... even for a 50% increase in wind over 40% of the travel!

Close range wind matters the most.
 
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Just for fun, starting a holiday weekend a bit early this afternoon...

This is a shot of my son last summer with his budget friendly plinking 22LR ($400 total in the rig), and his 300 yard target. His hair depicts the wind speeds in which we were shooting that day...

It doesn’t take a master marksman or an exceptionally expensive rifle to shoot 200-300yrds with a 22LR. Just a matter of knowing your speed and BC, or walking targets out to range to develop your trajectory, and taking the time and ammo to try it.

66AA6C56-7016-43E9-A7A2-C90FE8AD81E9.jpeg
 
A friend of mine and I spent months playing with .22’s at long range. Highly ammunition dependent but one of our best was in the neighborhood of 48” of drop at 200 yards and 156” of drop at 300. Best groups were fired where the smoke from a cigarette went straight up.
 
Well, as a non-long range shooter, I can only say that moving between 100 yards (which I do shoot in a competition with iron sights - Marlin 1892, Marbles tang) and 200 yards (shooting Savage Mk II with a Nikon pro staff 3-9) is exponentially harder.
 
Well, as a non-long range shooter, I can only say that moving between 100 yards (which I do shoot in a competition with iron sights - Marlin 1892, Marbles tang) and 200 yards (shooting Savage Mk II with a Nikon pro staff 3-9) is exponentially harder.

Assuming your 1982 is chambered in 22LR, yes, it should be harder to shoot twice as far with the same cartridge. Shooting 800 yards with a 308win is a lot harder than shooting 400 yards with a 308win also.

But it’s a lot easier to shoot small groups at 100yrds with a rifle than it is with a bow. One is flying much faster, giving the wind much, much less time to work on it. Same with the centerfire and 22LR comparison - poor aerodynamics and low speeds are more challenged than highly efficient bullets at high speeds.
 
I figured 300 yards w a high vel 22lr is pretty much equil to 1000 w a 762n. Curves were pretty much exact scale. The BC of a 762 is appox 3 times greater then a 22lr, so wind drift @ scale distance is also equil (about). I did discover a strange flat spot in a 22lr curve between 200 & 250, however. (May have been mirage condition @ test location.)
 
I know that the wind will play havoc with the 17m2 once you get to 100 yards and farther. It's been a while since I have shot my 22lr setups past 100 yards.
 
But I can't see it. Wind must be exponentially harder to read and understand. Muzzle velocities are vastly different. Figuratively, I could accept it, but even assuming properly scaled targets, 800 yards is so very much farther. Just the difference in sight picture alone must be huge.
Screenshot_20210529-095212.png Screenshot_20210529-095049.png
I typically dial elevation and hold Windage when shooting at distance. So shooting a 4" plate at 200 yards with my 22 would produce exactly the same sight picture as a 16" with my 308 of 2.2 mil hold for wind.
 
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For example, there’s a simple rule of thumb for predicting wind drift in the field - a shooter can determine the specific windspeed for their bullet which causes .1mil drift per hundred yards in the short and mid-range, then determine the range their load skips a tenth, and then the range it starts drifting .2/100yrds. For a 6mm rifle at 3000fps with a long-range-worthy bullet, a 7mph wind will cause .1mil drift per 100yrds out to 1000, it adds .1 before 1100, then from 1400-1800, it drifts .2mil/100yrds. This means a 7mph wind pushes a bullet twice as far per yard at 1500 as it does at 500yrds.

So yes, the wind has more time downrange to work on the bullet than it does at short range, and causes more drift per yard downrange than at short range. Effectively, a 3.5mph wind at 1500yrds causes as much drift (inches) as a 7mph wind at 500....

BUT.... it remains false to say the downrange wind matters more.
Very well said. ^^^^

I remember buying my first 22lr rifle after I retired from the Army in 96. It was a Remington 513T and paid more money than I should have but I learned afterwards. I wanted to practice shooting off hand with it for deer season something that would mimic my 30-06 rifle. One of the first things I heard was that shooting a 22 at 200 was like shooting a 308 at 800 too. Also throughout the years I hear that you should only use subsonic for the longer ranges as you do not have to deal with the trans sonic stage.

I have found the last statement to be false as well, even though physics may dictate that a supersonic bullet dropping back to subsonic speeds can destabilize. I think it has to do more with the profile and design and the spin but I don't really see it happening with the 22lr.

At my range the wind is always swirling it never is a 90º wind or 180º, it comes to you from the front the back the side all at once. We set up clay targets at 230 yards on a berm, makes it easier to see impacts and if the wind is blowing at 6 mph or higher you are always all over the place more so with subsonic rounds, like eley, lapua and such. I have more success with high velocity rounds like Aguila hypervelocity where I can hit the clay and than the fragments more consistently, probably because it spends less time being affected by the wind than the subsonics.

I don't claim to be a professional shooter, just a guy that loves to shoot without being OCD and I do not compete so all the scientific data that is out there in the world is just that data.
I am not dismissing it but in my world I do not have room for all of it just some like the reloading stuff.
 
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