It sometimes seems like I am just bashing my head against a brick wall trying to explain how a cross winds affect projectiles. Even after Jim Tyler wrote an article in Airgun World explaining how pellets are affected by a cross wind, there are still writers in the mags who are spouting the old theories about the wind blowing on the side of the pellet. There have been a few recently. One was explaining how the wind pushes on a pellet, causing the downwind drift. No it doesn't. Another was explaining how on a spinning pellet, the cross wind will be causing the spin to be cutting into the wind or being pushed by the wind depending on the wind direction, giving different drift values left and right. Absolute rubbish, it is simply a factor of the normal spin drift curve combined with the straight sight line, which makes it appear that wind drift is different depending on which direction the wind is blowing. In reality, it isn't. It strongly suggests that neither writer actually understands how a pellet reacts and is affected by a cross wind. Now it is not necessary for any shooter to know the details of how cross winds act on pellets to be successful, but, if you are writing in a magazine which will be read by new or young shooters, then surely you should check what you are writing is not misleading readers.
Also, one has written that if you shoot pellets horizontally and drop a pellet at the same time, they will all hit the ground after the same time to a first order. That is OK, but then he says that there will be small differences due to secondary effects such as Magnus. Yes, there are small differences, but they are nothing to do with Magnus. Magnus it seems is taken to be a strange inexplicable thing which can be used an explanation for something you cannot explain any other way due to the fact you don't know the real reason. Unless you have a pellet which is grossly over stable, the only thing Magnus really affects is the dynamic stability.
I am not naming the writers involved, they are not the only ones, so it would not be fair. They are just two I have seen recently, but surely it cannot be that difficult to find out the real mechanism for down wind drift or the forces involved in simple trajectories, even from the forums if nowhere else (but not on Utube).
Rant over.
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by ballisticboy
It sometimes seems like I am just bashing my head against a brick wall trying to explain how a cross winds affect projectiles. Even after Jim Tyler wrote an article in Airgun World explaining how pellets are affected by a cross wind, there are still writers in the mags who are spouting the old theories about the wind blowing on the side of the pellet. There have been a few recently. One was explaining how the wind pushes on a pellet, causing the downwind drift. No it doesn't. Another was explaining how on a spinning pellet, the cross wind will be causing the spin to be cutting into the wind or being pushed by the wind depending on the wind direction, giving different drift values left and right. Absolute rubbish, it is simply a factor of the normal spin drift curve combined with the straight sight line, which makes it appear that wind drift is different depending on which direction the wind is blowing. In reality, it isn't. It strongly suggests that neither writer actually understands how a pellet reacts and is affected by a cross wind. Now it is not necessary for any shooter to know the details of how cross winds act on pellets to be successful, but, if you are writing in a magazine which will be read by new or young shooters, then surely you should check what you are writing is not misleading readers.
