Mirage Shields — Not Just for Benchresters Anymore
Mirage shields really do help you hit your targets more reliably. Novice shooters may wonder “Why does that guy have a venetian blind attached to his barrel?” Here’s why. As the barrel gets hot, the heat from the barrel rises up, cooking and distorting the air directly in front of the scope’s front lens. In essense, the rifle creates its own nasty visual mirage, right in the worst possible place. You can have a $4000.00 custom rifle and a $2500.00 scope but if the air in front of your scope is distorted, it can literally move your apparent point of aim on the target relative to your cross-hairs, causing you to miss the shot.
As our friend Boyd Allen observed: “Varminters should use mirage shields. Think about it. You’ve invested thousands of dollars in a fancy varmint rifle and quality scope. You may have spent hundreds of dollars traveling to the varmint fields and spent dozens of hours loading up your ammo. Without a mirage shield on your barrel, once that barrel gets hot, you WILL get mirage effects that can make you miss a shot.”
So, we’ve established you need a mirage shield to shoot your best when the barrel gets hot. You can make your own shield from a scrap blind, or purchase a ready-made plastic or aluminum shield. Sinclair Int’l offers 2″-wide, white mirage shields in 18″ (#06-7200) or 24″ (#06-7300) lengths for $4.95. Shotmaster 10X offers a variety of Patterned Mirage Shields, starting at $6.00. These include a Patriotic theme and even Tiger Stripes:
Camo Mirage Shields for Tactical Shooters and Hunters
Though tactical shooters should use mirage shields for long-distance, slow-fire stages, for the most part, tactical shooters don’t bother. One reason is that mirage shields CAN detach if you’re crawling around in the bush. However, for many tactical shooting situations, a mirage shield IS both practical and recommended. And now, for the first time, tactical shooters can get mirage shields in camo patterns to match their rifles. These camo shields should also be popular with varminters and long-range hunters.
At the request of AccurateShooter.com, Shotmaster 10X created a line of camo-pattern mirage shields (see above). Made of 2″-wide aluminum strips, these are available in 18″, 20″, and 24″ lengths. The camo-pattern shields come complete with Velcro attachments, and start at $8.50 for the 18″ length. The 20″ models are $9.50, while 24″ shields are $11.00.
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Long range shooters use barrels up to 32 inches in length. These companies need to offer a universal heat shield that can be cut to fit the barrel length.
Editor: Norm, you raise a good point, but keep in mind that the mirage shield does not need to run the full length of the barrel, as long as it begins a few inches back from the front objective or front of sunshade.
I’ll need a mirage shield for rimfire with optics? Or it is not heated like centerfires?
Best regards
Dennis
Has anyone done a comparison of the effeciveness of these mirage “shields” vs. the traditional elastic mirage “bands” that have been used on match rifles in High Power shooting for many, many years?
They do work, and also provide a matte surface to cut the glare from what are typically bright stainless barrels too.
Editor: Dave, a while back Jerry Tierney made a superwide mirage “barrier” with cardbord and thin plastic (for stiffness). It was ugly, but Jerry said it worked much better than the “venetian blind” type mirage shield he has used before.
See: http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2007/10/oversize-mirage-shield-works-well/
Make your own: x-ray film and velcro
Well, I have been hunting varmints for about 50 years, and never used a mirage shield. Very rarely miss a shot unless a nasty little gnat flies up my nose just as I squeeze off. Mirage shields are fine at the range, or for the benchrest segment, but out in the varmint field they would be a nuisance.
By way of explanation I will mention a couple of points. Wind blows barrel mirage (and downrange mirage for that matter) away, and that for it to become a factor, several shots would have to be taken in a short enough period for the barrel to heat up a little. For varminting, the primary situation that I was addressing was when someone is at a location where a lot of shots are taken on a relatively still day.
From my conversations with prairie dog shooters, I have learned that they commonly will set up some sort of shooting table and shoot fast enough that rotating rifles is often required, to allow barrels to cool.
These varmint “safaris” are often elaborate, expensive, and involve taking shots at distances where scope image quality is a real issue. Also, I have met many shooters that did not realize that barrel mirage, not down rang mirage, was causing their problems.
Just watch scoremaster 10x, I tried to order a couple of Mirrage shilds, some time back, and they wanted to charge me a ridiculus amount of money for shipping. If memory serves me right it was $18 bucks. I contacted them, and they was able to drop the shipping to $10, and I thought that was still too high for a couple of pieces of plastic, or aluminum.
I use 1.25″ wide elastic strap material I bought from a sewing store. I used to use Velcro to keep them on, but I just use an elastic band at each end and it works fine. I use them for varmints and for F-Class shooting.
I use one out in the varmint field without problem. It definitely helps on calm days.