THE WIND PROBE

Gene Beggs
 

Wind Probe Systems
156 Conley Place
Odessa, Texas 79762

PH: AC 915 367-0329
e-mail: genebeggs@aol.com

My first experience with benchrest shooting was in 1989 at the Midland Shooter's Range in Midland, Texas. Charles Huckeba, Cecil Tucker, Brad Calhoun, Howard Scott and a host of other dedicated shooters were a bad influence and I was soon hopelessly hooked. By year's end, I owned two rifles in 6PPC and all the paraphernalia that goes with the game. Starting out in such fast company, I made rapid progress and figured I would soon be "Top Gun" at the Midland Shooter's club.

My first barrel, a Hart 1-13, proved to be a real hummer and I was doing some impressive shooting for a beginner. Of course, I credited this to skill, oblivious of the fact that I was just lucky, shooting in good conditions with a terrific barrel. As the year progressed, I was relegated to my proper place among the Midland shooters, near the bottom.

Disappointed, but not discouraged, I began the next season with renewed enthusiasm. With my vast knowledge of shooting and all the gadgets I had acquired, I could not understand why I was not winning matches. The reason was soon painfully obvious, I could not read conditions and was just beginning to scratch the surface of benchrest shooting.

Always the hardheaded show me type, I was slow to accept the fact that wind does indeed affect a high velocity bullet. The following experience burned this into my consciousness forever.

One evening I was observing a practice session with Charles Huckeba and Harold Broughton; they were shooting rail guns. They would read the condition, call the shot and accurately predict where the bullet would strike. I watched in amazement, it finally penetrated my thick skull.

Wind does indeed affect the flight path of a bullet.

One can read wind flags and accurately predict where the bullet will strike.

The following day I ordered a set of wind flags, learning to read those flags was a challenge I never mastered. With conventional flags, one must observe both wind direction and velocity. Five conventional flags, mirage, and wind on the face represent twelve constantly changing values. This was too much information to monitor and I became very discouraged. Regardless of how I trained, I rarely finished better than middle of the pack in a match. We all have our limitations and I figured I was just incapable of getting any better.

Never content to be an also ran, I considered quitting, but there was so much of the sport I enjoyed. The people of benchrest are among the finest and most talented on earth, I knew I would regret quitting. I asked myself, "Beggs, are you going to be satisfied with just participating or are you going to try and come up with something that will help you shoot better?" I chose the latter.

At that time, the buzzword was, "The scopes are the weak link in the accuracy chain." I did not see it that way; to me the weak link was the wind flags.

Thanks to Dr. Lou Palmisano and Ferris Pendel, we had the most accurate cartridge in the world, the PPC. We had terrific actions, barrels, stocks, rests, scopes, bullets, cases, primers, powders and thanks to Arnold Jewell, the finest trigger in the world. What we did not have, in my opinion, was a well-designed wind indicator. We were thirty years behind in that department. My mission would be to develop a better wind flag. After more than ten years of experimenting, I have developed what I believe is the answer, the Wind Probe.

Briefly, the Wind Probe is a pendulum centered, single axis, vertical shaft that rotates on ball bearings. The shaft sweeps through an arc each side of center on a graduated scale. You do not read wind direction and velocity with the Wind Probe; the probe reads those values for you and combines them into a single value, crosswind component.

My approach to anything is usually influenced by my lifelong love of flying; the search for a better wind flag was no exception. I have been a professional pilot for over thirty years and for seventeen years, was heavily involved in the sport of aerobatics. An aircraft is much like a bullet in that wind affects its flight path over the ground, they both drift laterally in crosswinds. Four things determine the amount of drift:

1. Speed of the aircraft/bullet.

2. Wind direction.

3. Wind velocity.

4. Distance covered.

It has always been my dream to have a wind indicator that combines wind direction and velocity into a single readout. At first, this seemed impossible, but after viewing the problem from a flying standpoint, I realized what was needed, a crosswind component indicator. To understand the operation of the Wind Probe, one must be familiar with this term.

Assume we are flying/shooting with a direct headwind or tailwind; there is no crosswind component. If wind direction is from three or nine o'clock, crosswind component is the full value of the wind velocity. If velocity remains the same, but direction shifts toward the nose or tail, crosswind component decreases. Any change in wind direction and/or velocity affects crosswind component.

The first prototype was a rather comical affair, about seventeen feet in length, consisting of telescoping aluminum arrow shafts. The first two sections were doubled for stiffness and the shaft was attached to a mount driven into the ground. Painted flat white and adjusted to point directly at the target, the point came to rest about three feet above ground level. It looked forever like the trajectory of a bullet and was quite sensitive. Initial tests were very encouraging; I could not wait to try it in a match.

The debut of the Wind Probe came the following weekend at the monthly club match. I took a great deal of ribbing from the other shooters as I began setting out my "fishing poles." Undaunted by such comments as, "Hey Beggs, we are shooting today, not fishing," I proceeded to win both yardages and the grand aggregate against the best shooters in the club!

The sale of aluminum arrow shafts increased dramatically in the Midland area following my upset victory, several shooters wanted a set of the new secret weapons. Anything that could produce such a dramatic improvement in my shooting had to be a terrific idea. I was so proud, I really thought I had something. I had something all right, a big problem; an out-of-control seventeen-foot aluminum whip that would beat the you know what out of everything within reach under certain conditions.

During practice sessions, with wind direction between ten and two o'clock, with velocities greater than twenty miles per hour, the probes would sometimes get out of control and rise above the line of fire. Murphy's law rules; the first use in a big match was the NBRSA Nationals in Phoenix. You guessed it, strong quartering head winds with gusts to thirty mph. The probes flailed about, beating Hell out of everything within reach, sometimes rising almost vertically. The referees removed them all leaving the range littered with aluminum shafts. All efforts to restrain the devices failed, and I finally abandoned the idea. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

The project lay dormant for about a year; a year in which I tried once more to use conventional flags. As before, I concluded, there had to be a better way. It finally occurred to me that maybe I should mount the probes vertically. Instead of swinging horizontally, why not have them swing left and right like the needle on a speedometer?

The hole in the bearing housing of my conventional flags was about the size of the arrow shafts used for the first prototypes. It proved to be a perfect fit and had a setscrew to secure the shaft. I clamped together a makeshift mount and slipped one of the shafts in place. (Yeah, I had a good supply on hand from the previous fiasco.) A brass weight was attached to the bottom, a white plastic ball at the top and voila! I carried the thing out into the yard to see how it worked and was amazed at how sensitive it was; it worked great! If I had stopped there, I would have saved myself a year of frustration, but in my infinite wisdom, I decided to incorporate a second axis. Later, I realized the second axis was unnecessary and detrimental.

After many hours of machining, five units were completed. There was no time for testing and the first use of the two-axis Wind Probe was at the Buffalo Shoot, big mistake!

The two-axis Wind Probe worked like the stick in an airplane, even my friend, Arnold Jewell, a long-time professional pilot, was intrigued. Proudly, I began setting them out and soon realized I had a problem. The white balls began weaving and bobbing like drunken sailors, they were impossible to read and were a distracting nuisance to everyone. Obviously, further development was needed.

The next stage of development eliminated the fore and aft axis and a graduated scale was placed behind the main shaft. The Wind Probe then looked and functioned as it does today. With the basic mechanical form established and principal of operation proven, there remained one big problem, oscillation. The probe was not giving a true picture of what the wind was doing; it overreacted to gusts and showed let-ups when there were no let-ups. With a four-inch styrofoam ball atop the shaft and a brass counterweight at the bottom, there was a surprising amount of inertia. When the probe took a hit from a gust, it would overshoot, developing excess energy in the counter-weight, resulting in overshoot in the opposite direction; it was a vicious cycle.

With the problem identified next came the search for a solution. First, a ribbon was attached; hoping this would dampen oscillations, no such luck. Next, the four-inch ball was replaced with a six-inch by one-inch styrofoam disc. The flat-sided disc, placed parallel to the line of fire, showed a slight improvement until wind direction switched to twelve or six o'clock in which case the probes slammed back and forth like windshield wipers.

To minimize weight, the styrofoam disc was replaced with a five-inch thin plastic circle. The disc was painted black with a day-glow orange center, the idea being, to use the disc as a visual reference relying on a ribbon for aerodynamic drag. This configuration was a vast improvement, but there was still some bounce and overshoot. As conditions worsened, the probes became very difficult to read. I finally concluded that a dampener was needed.

The first attempt at dampening involved lubricant on the ball bearings, reasoning that STP or something similar would provide drag without increasing friction. STP did not work, if anything it made the problem worse. The bearings were then packed with wheel bearing grease, which provided a noticeable amount of dampening, but proved sensitive to temperature changes. The fix would not be that easy. Due to the time and expense involved, I had long avoided what I knew was the ultimate solution, a self-contained, controlled-bleed, fluid dampener.

After several months of experimenting, a nifty little aluminum hub emerged containing both the ball bearings and an internal rotor with fluid chamber. Success at last, it worked great! The probes remained very sensitive, but there was no over reaction or bounce.

Many shooters have difficulty accepting the simplicity of the Wind Probe; they are fixated on reading the wind when they should concern themselves only with the result of the wind. The value displayed by the Wind Probe is the result of wind direction and velocity.

The following are important points to remember when setting up the Wind Probe.

The bearing shaft should be parallel to the bore of the rifle.

The line of probes should be straight.

The graduated scale is adjustable and should be squared-up after everything else is in place.

 

The most frequently asked question is, "How do you read those things; they are a good velocity indicator, but they don't tell you anything about wind direction."

Oh yes, indeed they do! As previously stated, one does not read wind direction and velocity with the Wind Probe. The probe displays crosswind component.

"Don't you think those things are over engineered? Do you really need ball bearings? Why not just drill a hole through the shaft and put a bolt through it?"

Believe me, I wish it were that simple. That would work if you always had steady, direct crosswinds, but that is rarely the case. Without ball bearings, friction increases in direct headwinds/tailwinds, making the probes stiff and unresponsive. It is very important that the bearings be as friction-free as possible.

"Okay, I understand how the probes work in crosswinds, but if wind direction is exactly twelve or six o'clock and the probes are all centered, how do I detect pickups and letups?"

It has been my experience that the most difficult and risky condition to shoot is when wind direction is from twelve or six o'clock. I prefer to shoot in at least some degree of crosswind.

If wind direction is from twelve or six o'clock and velocity is light and variable, the probes will not react. Under such conditions, a lightweight ribbon will be the first thing to move.

The Wind Probe evolved in West Texas where we seldom have light winds.

Questions about the probes have always involved wind direction, angle of the wind. There are those who insist that vertical dispersion results from direction changes even though crosswind component remains the same. To a certain extent, this is true, but the concern is overstated. If we have a twenty mph wind from one o'clock or thirty degrees right of the nose, crosswind component is ten-mph. If wind velocity remains twenty-mph, and direction switches from one to five o'clock, crosswind component remains ten mph, but we then have a seventeen-mph tailwind component. Lateral drift remains unchanged, but the shot will strike slightly low due to the tailwind. How much lower? Not much. Although headwinds and tailwinds affect vertical point of impact, the effect is small compared to horizontal drift. I think everyone will agree, benchrest matches are won and lost on horizontal spread. If the rifle is properly tuned, vertical dispersion is always less than horizontal.

Ask ten shooters what effect headwinds/tailwinds have on point of impact and you will get ten different answers. Fortunately, we have a great way to resolve the question, the sighter target. To determine where a shot will strike, fire a carefully aimed sighter, noting the position of the probes.

Wind Probe Systems
156 Conley Place
Odessa, Texas 79762

PH: AC 915 367-0329
e-mail: genebeggs@aol.com