looking for an expert in wind drift.

[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.