|
Clarification
Guys:
Need to clarify something about my views of ammo temp vs velocities and 'practical' ballistics as, like most threads, this one is taking on a life of its own.
My first post said that I saw no 'practical' effect from changing ammo temp of issued M-118 Special Ball from about fifty degrees to about 120 degrees F.
Most certainly, velocities went up. Most certainly a zero would change -- probably by about a minute of angle. Rick has seen the effects of this and so have I. OK -- so it is a fact that a change will probably occur.
The bottom line for me is this -- is the change enough for it to effect hit probabilities? That is when I start terming things 'practical ballistics'. Why? Because I believe Ph must be considered with the environmental conditions that the shooter is firing in, target size and its own conditions, shooter and observer ability. In the conditions I talked about concerning our chronographing loads at Yakima, the shooters were good (not perfect), the targets were steel E's (same size and stationary) going from about 300 to 800, but the environmental conditions were rapidly shifing winds from about ten to twenty MPH, very bright sun, and dust / weeds blowing to some extent. The result was that this particular change in ammo temp -- although it most certainly had an effect on zero -- did not change hit probability due to other conditions.
Why go through this with the shooters? Because they get filled with shit at Ft. Benning and via the internet and instead of focusing on factors that make a difference in their true performance, they try to bullshit themselves and others with factors that don't have a bearing on their performance at that particular time in their development.
The interesting thing about being able to run such courses is two fold for me. First, I am not required to waste my time instructing the doctrine that Benning must instruct by their own training regulations. So I can focus time and resources on important issues -- such as reality for example. Second, I have a test bed of shooters -- most of whom are at the same level of total performance by the time we get into field firing and scenarios -- so evaluating cause and effect is easy and is relatively accurate in results.
Why go through all of this? Because I know there are other fellows reading this who have more experience and practical knowledge than I have and their observations confirm or deny things and perhaps bring forward ideas and concepts that perhaps I had never thought about.
Gene
|