Thank you for your appreciation of this type of puzzles, as Greg said.
Taking his words, and before trying to solve it...
"Three spectacular targets at the highest level of competition. That final shot defies what every other shot did."
Indeed, so true! That's why my mentor once said; shot your best and just do the maths at the end.
As, I'm the owner of these three cards, I can answer some pretty pertinent questions posted here.
Gear related issue:
Very, very doubtful.
In fact, and can't be seen because the cards were hanged overlapping the right sighters, after that last shot I did a couple extra on the sighters, and all went to the center.
So, I exclude a rifle related issue, and an over the bench gear related too, like front and rear rests.
However it has not been pointed out, but I do like to discuss... potential scope related issues.
I've seen broken reticles, faulty turrets, and big misses because of busy reticles.
If you have a busy reticle, and on the competition heat, you aim on the wrong intersection, you are going to miss. This happens more often than not.
I've been there, but not on this case, because after that mistake, all my reticles are crosshairs dot.
All the other scope issues have been ruled out on posterior shots.
Another very pertinent point, now from Bill:
"Could that round have struck a flag?"
Do yourself a favour and put all your flags below the virtual line that goes from your top bench surface to the target bottom. That way you are not only compliant with WRABF/WBSF rules, but you avoid hitting them.
What about flying tails? They are thin and light, but could it be the culprit? Ah..., I don't think it could produce such a huge deviation, but can only tell for sure looking at the tails at the end.
And no, none have been pierced.
Ammo as pointed out by Aspirin:
Those pictures are very worrying. And they came in line with Timo's thread: "ammo from hell"
Can we avoid such an issue? Well, indeed yes, just prior to feed the camera look at the bullets. At least you could ruled out what you see.
I must confess myself that I don't do it all the time. Now I will!
However, all other ammo faults are much harder to see or even impossible before shooting them. Like a match, how do you know it will ignite without trying it?
But looking at the POI of that bullet I must say, very unlikely to be a faulty ammo. Normally either they go up or down, but, so much to one side and just one line down? I don't know. And we'll never know. However the odds are against.
Shooter related issues:
We are humans, so anything can happen. And, majority of the times the misses are shooter related but dismissed by the typical excuses.
Glad some have been pointed out!
From LWZ:
"Shooter closed the bolt and the gun went off?"
This a common mistake, and denotes either a very nervous shooter, where movement control is lost to a certain degree (this is a very interesting topic, that we can discuss on a different thread), or a gear issue, namely a hard closing bolt.
Hard closing bolts have two main big issues; 1st disturbing rifle alignment and 2nd, the one referred.
Both situations excluded!
"Shooter touched the trigger prior to being properly aimed?"
and also from Trazor:
"That's the last shot of the card, coming in from the left. Finger touching trigger, on final movement ??"
Yes, it could be, but didn't happen.
In fact this is also a common mistake showing a lack of proper shooting technique. The firing finger should never be close to the trigger when moving the rifle, only when aiming starts. I still put it off, when I'm waiting for a condition, or relocating the reticle to a different POA. Don't ask how I learned... but not in this case.
Still, one missing link to be discussed... wind.
For the ease of explanation, and due to flag colours, lets consider a right coming wind, a green one, and a left coming wind, a red one.
If I rewind that last shot, I went to it with 74 clear shots. If I hit a 10 or a 9 I'll became HV National Champ. Even a good mental stamina cannot forget that. And, indeed, it surfed my mind. I learned, when something else comes to my mind that's not aiming and wind reading, to stop. And it was what I did. I stopped, recomposed, looked at the condition and waited for the right moment. I even shot an X on the right sighter before.
A little bit more about that particular windy day, and about my bench location.
Wind conditions were tricky and faulty. Not a very strong wind, but constantly changing, with progressive increasing bursts, mainly green. Red conditions were dominant, but revolving to green fast.
Bench location, later realised, was facing a breach from right, meaning no trees or walls protected.
Remember another Timo's threads, where I asked if he also suffers from strange green winds that are pulling left and down the bullets, against the "normal" left and up? I don't have an explanation for that, but some other great shooters are saying, and suffering, lately, from the very same.
The more I look at that shot the more I do believe it was a shooter error not facing a quick and strong green wind burst, coupled with that bench location, allowing the wind to produce the effect very close to the muzzle, and also coming downwards.
So, green wind burst close to the muzzle will pull the bullet far left as expected - a 6 in the target
Green winds trends are changing from up to down, and that breach allows a downward wind - one line bellow on target
I did two errors, not realising on that day, the particular tricky bench position to anticipate a potential wind coming from that right breach, and not being able to detect that green right burst.
Is this the solution for this puzzle?
I believe yes, but can't be 100% certain.
What I learned from this analysis:
. carefully study your bench position
. control what you can control
. anticipate any 1st tail flag movement
. always have fun
Hope you enjoyed this problem solving, even it might end without a solution...
Bring yours, it's fun and we all can learn.
