Shooting high in the rain

[Surpmil]

I've heard of a few cases - and by that I mean spoken to someone credible who witnessed it personally - where No.4s converted to 7.62mm have cracked the small recoil lug firing in the rain, so the effect of wet ammunition and water in the chamber seems to make sense. Considering that water is not compressible there is no reason why it would not have a similar effect to oil on case adhesion and therefore on thrust against the bolt.

Of course those may have been rifles with imperfectly fitted, possibly replacement, bolts as some DCRA conversions had their bolts replaced.

[30Three]

The old guys did not have balistic calculators to give projections of load performance at varying distances either. I bet they spent a whole lot more time on the range; and with that comes the experience of how to read the weather.

[mike16]

Freddy,

your so full of it. I recall one time,.... one time! when I dared to make reference to an NRA publication on the FF stamps on LE's and you went off on me. Not The NRA. Not the Author, and not the information stated. It seems that freddy wants to control the flow of knowleg to and from. Its not enough to suck up to you or even agree with you freddy but to simply sit in silence and be awed by your impressive citation of the tomes.

your sources are out dated, and even if they state facts that remain accepted today most people would rely on the most current information rather than books that are 100 plus years old. You would never get buy submitting a GRP for a masters if you relied on references 100 year old or lame hollow arguements like the ones you rely on to attack other people rather than the statements they make..

I hope others who read your drivel recognise that you are not impressing us with just the names of authors but gunsmiths and shooters too. impressive list of names to drop but how many of them did specific tests on water drenched rounds. so how relevent are they, and how relevent since the last 20 plus years when lubed rounds have been marketed commecially. and since the lubed round issue is a dead horse. lets just focus on water drenced rounds. The russians have developed since the late 60's fire arms that shoot while submerged, drenched enough for you? and there are silencers on the market now that function after being submerged in water. drenched enough for you? But since you 100 year old books on LE's dont metion russian developments in the 60's.. it does not apply. Since your 50 year old books on LE's dont mention all the advances made since then. those advances dont apply. and no advances apply because published data does not refference the LE specifically.

do you even hear your self?

But your right because you can quote all of these authors, gunsmiths and shooters in your 100 year old books.....on drenched rounds as decribed by they op's first post....right?....right? I will call you out right now by challenging your implication that all these authors, shooters and gunsmiths wrote on the subject of drenched rounds. I'm betting they all did not, so why mention them? for who's benifit? dont you have to rely on the reader to be a bit stoopit to believe that, as you imply, all of these people wrote on this specific subject and there for you can quote from them. I could be wrong but I'll risk calling you out on that.


Crust's discription was accurate and detailed enough that you could turn to any refference by any author, gunsmith or shooter and say Ah! Yes! so and so refferenced drenched rounds, as decribed by crusty, in his famous reveared tome of 1938 blah blah blah? I bet you wish we were stoopit enough that you could pull that off.

You do more than hint that your credentials carry enourmous weight. well thats better than quoting shooters, gunsmiths and authors except you blow that out of the water as well, the only credential that should matter and conviently does not; is your shooting and engineering experience. But you dont rely on shooting experience too much which is a good thing if you have none that pretains to drenched rounds. and your enginneering prowess? I would suspect that too because of your unsound arguements. I have read of more sound arguements from 9th graders. You play fast and loose with your slight of hand, and maybe that fools alot of idiots. but anyone who takes shooting these rifles seriously see's right through your gibberish and elusive rant.

Your refferences are too old, technology has passed you by, Just because new refferences dont mention LE's does not mean they are irrelevant or not appricable. WE are not wrong simply because you can quote some irrelevant 100 year old text based on myths and misunderstanding.

You would never make a good teacher because you covet all the sources of information you refer to.You must control not just the information but the flow of information. Your the guy behind the curtain in the wizzard of oz.

Crusty did not describe all the conditions with enough detail that we can discern what is relevent or not (excepting your own contributions).

We, none of us know, just how drenched crusty.... and so many other shooters rounds were or how full of water their chambers ware. Who shoots in such conditions that thier rounds are drenched and chambers filled with water. For a test maybe, for competition? I'll bet not. Let crusty chime in here to decribe drenching his rounds in water and filling his chamber with water. is the experiement repeatable?

Freddy, ole boy. why dont you refference your library in aserting why some rifles shot high and others did not. quoting your library of text's. that way nobody can dispute what you say or if you are wrong. You are wrong but at least you got a 100 year old library to surround and comfort you in your ignorance.

By the way,,, impressive collection. too bad its of no value to us. you?...yes....us? none at all. But thanks,,,again for reminding us of where we are in your food chain.

[Doco overboard]

I always just thought I shot more towards what I was looking at. Missed a lot of chip shots at game by shooting right over the back after sitting all day in the rain or falling snow. Once I start into a sight picture I see the rain through my sights and I'm watching it fall through my target and then right over top.

[Bill Hollinger]

Fellas, it is more than okay to disagree with another member here but please do it respectfully and without belittling or berating one another. There are some of the best and well informed here on the site and the last thing we want to do is cause anyone to be made to feel uncomfortable because of any reason.

This thread has a great deal of good information within it's posts. Let us not detract from that.

[CINDERS]

#33 Mike in my shooting experiences I have had rounds go high from having moisture on them the thing is it is not consistent enough you can wind for it and it was considered by the fraternity that one should endevor to keep the rounds and action as dry as possible however here is one that actually happened as I was the shooter.
I was shooting in pouring rain literally we were at 500m (full bore) myself and Dave Basten both shooting, the rain was so bad that the bulls eye through my peep sights was just a grey smudge but I was keeping my rounds/action covered it was a 9 round burst 2 x sighters 7 scoring for a possible 35 with 7 V bulls (35.07).
I fired a 35.06 was asked on the last shot (which was wrong) if I wanted to scrub the bulls eye sighter I had kept to try for the 35.07 as I was sitting on a 30.05 with 1 shot remaining I declined fired the last round with a front tunnel that looked like a rain drenched window and got up soaking wet with a 35.06 saying to the scorer a 35.06 is better than a 33.05.
After all these years I am inclined to believe that the supersonic pressure wave at the meplat vaporizes the droplets and others on the periphery of the waves are pushed aside so they never get near the projectile to touch it so do not affect its accuracy the only thing that may come of it is denser air due to temperature drop which is elevation anyway.
It may however be different at the longer ranges when the round is in transonic or subsonic but it would have to be bucketing down I feel to have a significant affect on the bullets flight at those transitions.
Anyway thats what happened on that day for me.

[Surpmil]

The Textbook of Small Arms 1929 mentions how tests showed that a rifle with a perfectly clean and dry chamber and cartridge case whose barrel was simply slid into the receiver without any threads or other attachment, could be fired, and if the case and chamber were a correct fit to each other, the barrel would not move out of the receiver.

If such a combination was fired with the slightest amount of oil in chamber or on the cartridge - effectively practically the same thing obviously - the barrel was blown violently out of the action.

The point being that almost all the backwards force of the explosion was contained by the walls and base of the cartridge case due to its adhering to the chamber walls when expanded by the explosion of the propellant.

It is an old book, but anyone who's read it will realize that it was written on the back of vast experience, observation and direct experimentation.

The TBSA also goes into barrel vibration and it's effect on bullet "jump". After reading that section I don't doubt that a great change in case adhesion could well have a great effect on barrel "whip" and therefore on bullet placement.

Obviously, very old rifles with very old dry stocks would be quite likely to move with increased humidity, depending on the qualities of the wood grain-we all know wood "moves" as the grain dictates don't we?
That is obviously a separate issue from whatever variations in MPI changes in case adhesion and bolt thrust may cause.

Common sense would indicate that where the bolt is compressed by the backwards movement of the unadhering case, vibrations are going to be different from when the case does not move in the chamber and it would strange if such different vibrations DID NOT have an affect on MPI.

And Frederick303, I congratulate you on your restraint and the quality of your posts. As I've said before, I've always found them worth reading.

[muffett.2008]

Well, finally Cinders, some one has dared to mention the effect of the projectile contacting raindrops.
This should really get them going.
Yes, the pressure wave at the meplate should in theory disperse the droplet, however, the bullet travelling at supersonic speed has just come into contact with an incompressible droplet, round at the bottom and tapering to a tail at the top.......travelling also at terminal velocity.
So how many droplets does it take to disrupt the pressure wave and cause a vertical deviation, realising the projectile shape is basically a boat does it commence to aquaplane on subsequent droplets?
There has been some pretty complex equations done by some very clever people, slow motion and time lapse pic's taken of bullets hitting raindrops and subsequent effects, basically agreeing that there is deviation.......the distance varies depending on range and velocity, specially as the projectile becomes subsonic. Or depending on the projectile shape, round nose being less effected than spire point.
I don't remember the OP stating that the rounds were wet, that's an assumption made by subsequent posters, so why are we blowing this so out of proportion.
There are some very basic points to remember here, when it rains it also gets dull, hence we attempt to allow more light in to compensate, basically aiming higher(Light down Sight down), so if we have not adjusted our sights to compensate, when the light improves our group will return to it's original POI.
The effect on the projectile in rain where the target remains visable(short range) the effect will be minimal.
The effect on the projectile in heavy or oblique rain will effect the flight, but it also effects the shooter, so the actual effect of one factor over another is indeterminate.
So have some fun with that little lot.

[Strangely Brown]

It's a basic premise of shooting that wet ammunition and/or chamber will make the rounds go high; however what about the effect of wind?

RT Ellis Post #7 is on the money with his post regarding the effect of wind. A strong wind from directly behind you will also move your point of impact up. This happened to me the other week at 500 yards.

You don't see many of those small beer towels on pub counters around Bisley these days, ........probably because so many keep getting nicked to cover up the actions of target rifles to stop the rain getting in!

[Badger]

Ok, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm exhausted ...

I know now how it feels to watch a dog chase its tail ...

Lots of great participation and diverging viewpoints, but some folks still need to read about our Forum Etiquette policy they agreed to under our Terms of Service Agreement" they electronically signed when they joined.

Regards,
Doug