The couple hundred of us who showed up recently for the Civilian Marksmanship Program Western Games rifle matches at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility near Phoenix discovered a new wind doping indicator: portable johns. The 50mph dawn winds had knocked them all over; the direction they lay clearly indicated the winds coming from 12 o’clock – straight from the targets. We set ‘em back upright, but the wind soon had them prostrate again.

“Ya think they’ll cancel the match?” a guy from California asked me.

“Yeah – it’s supposed to get windy later,” I said helpfully.

I’ve seen crosswinds at shooting matches so fierce that some competitors literally aimed at the target to their right or left and let the wind push their bullets into their own targets. But this was the first time I’ve seen a match canceled by wind.

The wind has a surprising ability to blow bullets off-target. The further away the target, the further off-target the wind pushes the bullet, so in long range competitive shooting sports the ability to “dope” the wind separates the winners from the wannabes.

Wind flags on the range help indicate the wind’s direction and velocity so that shooters can make sight changes (“windage” adjustments) to stay on target. When you shoot from 600 and 1,000 yards, watching how the wind lays down the mirage (as seen through the spotting scope) helps top shooters fine-tune their wind doping.

Match officials ended up canceling the match that first day, not because the high wind impacted shooting, but because it made handling the heavy 5’x5’ woodand- canvas targets a bit dicey. The next day the winds were still 25mph with gusts to 38mph, but some Sonoran desert target fairies had visited during the night and replaced the heavy target frames with sheets of cardboard. Though one of the targets blew away during the day, the lightweight targets weren’t a safety issue, so the matches were on. Yay!

I earned silver medals in two M1 Garand matches and I finished third in the next day’s leg match to earn four points toward my Distinguished Rifleman’s badge, so I was feeling pretty cocky. But the three days of Creedmoor Cup Highpower matches that followed took the wind out of my sails. In the team match I started off at 600 yards with two misses when my wind doping failed miserably and the 69-grain bullets from my AR-15 blew completely off the target, causing my team to finish dead last.

Some of us need instant lessons in humility, I guess.

Shooting really picks up at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility (BASF) after the desert furnace shuts down for the winter. In addition to long range and highpower rifle shooting, there are rifle and pistol silhouette matches, action pistol, mounted (horseback) cowboy action shooting, shotgun sports and archery. Arizona Game & Fish Department owns BASF and runs the Main Range, but various shooting clubs operate the other ranges for their own disciplines. Go to www.azgfd.gov and click on the BASF link to find out who’s shooting what, when.

For regular open shooting, the BASF Main Range, archery ranges and shotgun ranges winter hours of operation are:

Monday – Closed
Tuesday – Closed
Wednesday – 8 am to 8 pm
Thursday – 8 am to 8 pm
Friday – 8 am to 3 pm
Saturday – 8 am to 8 pm
Sunday – 8 am to 3 pm
All day shooting for adults is $5, under 18 is free.

Hearing protection, spotting scopes and targets are available. “If weather appears unstable, please call ahead as we frequently experience range closures because of high winds,” reads the information on the website.

No foolin’?