Pete,

I'd try a bandsaw on high speed. Or a good 'sharp' knife.

How many flags in 200 yards?   One of the best slug shooters back when I started said divide the range into quarters and put out 3 flags, any more gets confusing. Theory says you will get a good average over the range you are shooting. Works for me. That shooter won many championships and records. Has since retired from slug gun and now shoots shotgun.

Ed

Ed,

  Yeah. I suppose it can get kind of confusing if you have to many flags. Right now I put out three for 200 yds., but would like to try more just to see if more are really needed. Won't know unless I try it.

PETE

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That makes sense to me; and the transition area.

Here in the mountains of Virginia one has to drive a number of miles to find a range long enough.  A 100 yard range is about it unless one will drive over 50 miles.  Opposite problem when I was in Iowa, where one had to drive a number of miles to find a place with a good back-stop.

I have always felt that it takes at least 4 trips to a range to figure out where the wind flags should go. Gaps in treelines burems ect cause the wind to do strange things. I have seen some ranges that depending on the direction of the wind the flags had to be placed differently to tell you what was going on with the wind.

40 Rod

Cat,

  Boy you do go back a long ways here if you remember Brownells being up town. Only was there once, but have been at the new place out on Hwy. 63 more times than I care to remember. They have expanded the lobby from what it used to be..... but not by much!

  Thought you'd like to here the names of places you were familiar with. 

PETE

Forrest,

  Around here the only steel we hit are the Buffalo Shilouettes at an NCOWS match. They either fall over or don't, so there's no problem with whether you came close. A spotter would be nice so you'd know which way to hold or adjust your sights, but that's not the way the game is played. Other than that we punch holes in paper and with a decent scope you will see all your holes. In any case spotters aren't allowed in any of the matches I've shot in.

PETE

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Glenn, you will be very pleased with these. I own 5 of these and 5 of the Harris flags advertised on benchrest.com

The plastic material used in their construction is the best. As you know there are several grades of this stuff and the lower quality found at most sign shops does not weather well. These do. Mine are 4 years old, have been set in rain,and snow for 2 to 4 days at matches and have never warped. Indeed, I have a Harris Flag marking the site where I buried my shooting partner (my dog)  at the range 3 years ago and I ocassionally have to borrow it when I've left my flags back home. Wilbur Harris shared a lot of info with Charlie when he first got into making flags. Both flags are fully adjustable for balance and Charlie's double vaned flags have stripes on the inside surfaces so reading angle is easy. Both breakdown for easy packing and are quick to assemble and disassemble - no excuses for not taking them with you to the range!

  I use Wilbur's for certain ranges and Charlies for others. One thing I like about the Harris flags is I can place one at legal height (below bottom of target) and offset the rest by a foot or so to the left and 3 inches  or so lower all the way back to the bench. Set up like this I can usually pick up the furthest 3 in the scope and the 2 closest and most important ones with my left eye. When the front ones indicate a favorable condition, I consult the 3 in the scope for confirmation or adjust for value and touch off the shot.

  The Hood's can be set up like this as well but sometimes I feel the double vanes are too distracting and I spend more time looking when I should be shooting and miss a good condition or fail to observe a fatal change in condition.

  If you can only afford, 3 flags, I'd recommend keeping them simple ones, like the Harris Flags, and learning how they react to varying conditions. I keep one in the backyard where I can see it from the livingroom. I will periodically look out at the flag, glance at the trees and grass and to correlate the effects. I've found this has improved my ability to read real world conditions in the field without flags.

  Another tip, if using surveyors tape as a flag tail, go with the 3 mil thickness tape. Lowe's and Home Depot usually sell the thinner 1 and 2 mil tape. The heavier tape will drop faster to indicate a let up in the wind and will not react as wildly as the thinner stuff when the wind resumes. 

  One of the most accomplished bench rest shooters, Ed Watson, uses an unusual flag design that rarely lies. His flags are not much bigger than a pack of cigaretts, long edge parallel to ground and one short edge pointed, about 1/8 " thick, balsa mounted on pins about 1/32 dia. on top of music stand tripods weighted down on the bottom legs. The legs can be pushed into the ground to level the flag pole (very important to balance the flags so they are not gravity biased and swivel freely). The tails are multi strand , almost pinky thick yarn, knotted every few inches. These tails seem to give a more accurate indication of wind pick ups and let ups than either surveyors tape or grosgrain ribbon. By varying the number of strands , they can be tuned/weighted to the prevailing wind strength.  As many as 6 of these flags can be positioned so all appear in the scope without obscuring the target. 

  The balsa vane itself is more of a visual indicator of direction as the tails actually weigh more and serve as the rudder for the wind to push against. This is just opposite of the vane function of other designs.

  In other designs, the wind has to overcome the mass of the vane plus tail plus metal mounts and structure before the flag moves. I believe subltle but important condition changes have already occurred before the flag can react. Add some turbulence from a daisy wheel and the situation is not improved. Since Ed doesn't sell these flags, they are a homemade, yet simple and inexpensive, proposition! The hard part is finding suitable steel pins and making the mount from stand to pin. --- Tom

Tom,

  I'll second what hst says. Appreciate your first hand accounts. We'll be picking up our flags tomorrow.

  From your descriptions it sounds like our maker and yours have pretty much the same idea as to how flags ought to react and what makes them work the best. He has available the knotted yarn, or you can buy your own, and he likes it almost as well as another type he makes up. This is slightly stiffer/heavier material than surveyors tape and holds it's shape so end doesn't flap around when the breeze is more than a coupla mph. If you would take a cross section of it it would look like a "U".

  One thing I've noticed is that flags can be to sensitive. Probably for calibers like the .22 RF the more senstive the better, but there seems to be some indication that flags can react to quickly. I've heard, but haven't tried the idea out yet, but some will set their flags up with two tails of surveyors tape and will then wgt. one of them down with a bullet. This way you can see the slightest wind pickup and then use the heavier section for holding off.

  What I'm planning on doing is to use the wind indicator part of my Kestrel to make up a set of small drawings showing the different positions of the surveyors tape for the different amounts of wind.

  There are a lot of tables out there that will tell you how nuch you need to hold off for a given wind amount, but so far I haven't seen any that will show me what that wind amount will look like on MY wind flags. So, I'm hoping with that info I can get a little better handle on how much to hold off.

PETE