DAA - Now that is interesting and it brings something to mind. While I was working for a land surveyor(gota be careful about how I describe my position on a survey crew you know /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ). Frequently we shot distances and more importantly angles at much longer distances. We had to deal with mirage and other such problems that shooters have to deal with. But for mirage we simply shot the average. The math prooved that this was more that acceptable and very repeatable in different weather and different light conditions.
I am considering that the differance must be attributable to the conditiond that the bullet encounters on its way to the target. Light/heavy air, air rising from heated/heating ground something or other else that we don't know about. I don't know but all of the answers so far are very interesting.
I can't help but to wonder how much thi sort of effect plays a part in the various posts that tell of shifting "0's", real or unreal scope problems and other posts like that.
These types of shooting competitions interest me because they actually closely imitate what you will encounter in the field. No time for sighting shots, just a simple situation of sitting down, finding a shooting position, taking your best guess and shooting away. Yes many of us have range finders and wonderful things they are. However I am finding that even with the very best predetermined range scope settings long range shooting is much more of an art than a science. Great fun isn't it?
