The .22 LR and the Wind: Lag Time, Explained

New shooters assume a faster bullet fights the wind better. At rimfire speeds it often doesn't — and the reason is lag time. This is our own short explainer of the concept; it is not a copy of anyone's article.

Wind drift is about lag time, not speed

Picture two identical bullets fired at the same instant at the same target: one flies in a vacuum and never slows, the other slows against the air. The one in the air arrives later. That extra time — actual time of flight minus the vacuum time of flight — is the lag time, and it is what the crosswind acts on. As an equation:

Drift = Wind speed × (T_flight − T_vacuum)

It isn't a rule of thumb; it falls out of the physics. The wind doesn't push the bullet sideways so much as the bullet's slowing down gives the wind time to work.

Why more velocity can mean more drift in rimfire

Faster isn't automatically flatter into the wind, because a faster bullet often sheds a larger share of its energy to drag over the same distance — a bigger lag time, and therefore more drift. A high-velocity hyper load can leave the muzzle far quicker than a standard-velocity match round and still arrive with a larger lag time (and often a lower BC), which is exactly why it can drift more, not less. Ballistic coefficient matters here too: a higher-BC bullet holds velocity better, shrinks the lag time, and drifts less.

What it means on the line at Long Gong

Chase consistency, not muzzle velocity. A good standard-velocity match lot with a solid BC and a tight velocity spread will usually beat a hot load into a Maine crosswind. And because a small change in wind speed maps to inches of movement at 200–300 yards, the shooter who reads conditions honestly — and holds off the reticle rather than trusting a number — is the one who keeps ringing steel.

Want the deep, physics-heavy treatment with field-test data? There are excellent published pieces on rimfire lag time and wind drift — search them out and read the originals. This page is a plain-language summary written for the Maine Long Gong knowledge base.

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