Accuracy of electronic targets

[memilanuk]

The delay will be a disaster for cross fires the scorer will not know who fired first.

Just like now, if 2 hits show up the shooter gets the high score and continues. That's not a problem for me.

If your shot is the bad one how do you know what alteration to make.

You don't. It's part of the joy of the match - the shooter whose target was crossfired on gets the benefit of the doubt - they get the higher scoring value. But they have to guess whether that was their shot in the X-ring, or out in the 7 ???

It's only a 'disaster' if you're intent is to machine-gun the target without reading the wind...

 

[Bindi2]

The delay will be a disaster for cross fires the scorer will not know who fired first.

Just like now, if 2 hits show up the shooter gets the high score and continues. That's not a problem for me.

If your shot is the bad one how do you know what alteration to make.

You don't. It's part of the joy of the match - the shooter whose target was crossfired on gets the benefit of the doubt - they get the higher scoring value. But they have to guess whether that was their shot in the X-ring, or out in the 7 ???

It's only a 'disaster' if you're intent is to machine-gun the target without reading the wind...

When you only get 2 sighters and it happens then or you think you missed a wind change and make the wrong call on the wrong shot you drop down the ladder very quickly no joy in that. Without a time delay and a scorer doing their job properly you know whose shot is whose. No penalty no doubt to the cross fired target.
Having been in this situation scoring at a State Championship event as the scorer on a cross fired shot from a novice to a Inter state Team shooter it could have been messy and down right game changing. Some advice for novice ET shooters listen to others with a little more knowledge than you before you try to change the ETs or make strong decisions they have already been there you haven't. A little help can make life a lot easier.
Machine gunning or fast decisive shooting has its place and traps you just have to know when too and when not to. Some people can do it many cant.

 

[JohnMill]

Sorry to tell you Berg but no one will be able to sell you on the system. You will have to sell yourself by trying it. I shot on it at the Lodi demo and it was great. I saw around 30 shooters give it a try ( or 2 or 3 or 4 trys). The guys that looked worried at the beginning were the 1/2 doz or so world class Palma coaches that were there and they were smiling(as much as those guys ever smile) at the end of the day. The only problem I saw/experienced was the calibration done by a novice (me) and that disappeared through repetition.
I set it up and shot on it at my home club in a club demo and it was made to function perfectly.

JohnMill

 

[Warren Dean]

I am a little reluctant to weigh in on this because deer hunting starts in Wisconsin soon and I will not be able to respond, But here goes. First, I have been told there will be a built in delay of I believe 7 seconds. Second, I have shot on them and can tell you they are more accurate than the average puller could ever be. Third, they will not be tried for the first time at the nationals, we will be shooting on them all year. If you want to find out about them come to any match this year and try them out. Also if you want to see the neighboring targets you can. Those of you that want to see these targets do not shoot with an 80 power scope! You can not see much other than you own target with those scopes. Cross fires are handled the same way you would with a puller. The scorer has to know you did not shoot! No difference.

Sooner or later someone will have the nationals with the first electronic targets. The first one will be the first one. I bet its Lodi. All the bugs, if any, will be worked out long before they ever get shot on in a match. Some of you guys need to put on your big boy pants! I think after you use them you will be very pleased. No shotgunning, all will have good pit service, and you can capture you numbered shots with a terminal velocity if you want.

When it comes to relying on pit pullers who do not sometimes do a good job, versus the shooters who get good pit service, you are at a disadvantage. At the Berger nationals I was lucky enough to get great service the entire match. Look at the results! This just takes one more excuse from everybody who shoots like shit. Is that what is bothering you? Let me know as I have plenty of other excuses you can use.

Come to a match, try them out. Then you can bitch if you want to.

Well said, Bob.

Whiners will always make excuses for shooting like shit and that will never change. Let 'em whine...I'm looking forward to the electronic targets.

 

[BradY]

Bindi2 and I have shot on them for years now- week in and week out. There are always those that hate change. And funny thing is not one person has stopped going to the range each weekend and participated. The thing is ET's have been a great thing for shooting- but as we have said you will only get out of them what you put in. Good luck.

 

[SWRichmond]

As I said very early in this thread, I would love for these things to work, be accepted, be reliable with the kind of maintenance they are likely to get at a shooting range, be widely available at an attractive price point, and be cost effective over their lifetime.

I also want to say very clearly that if you need to insult people to try to make your point, you never really had a point to make at all.

It is undeniable that adoption of electronic targets will change the sport, and that once adopted there will be no going back. How will the sport change?

Time: most shooters will be able to shoot faster, taking better advantage of a condition which isn't changing rapidly, and having more time to read wind and decide when to shoot. Scores will increase overall. Wind reading skill will become less important, as shooters will have much more time to wait (when necessary) for a condition they recognize.

Time: matches will on average go faster, probably a LOT faster. Shooters will spend a lot less time on the line. It wouldn't surprise me to see a 30 minute LR match take 10 minutes or less. No pit changes. Shooters will have a lot less time to eat, drink, bathroom, relax between strings, etc. Rifles will get hotter and stay hotter. Equipment will change to take this into account. It is known that rapid firing of hot loads causes more rapid throat erosion. Equipment will change to take this into account. Will the number of matches scheduled for a single day be increased? Will a weekend-long match become a one-day affair?

Velocity: if the velocity readouts become known to be correct, they will provide additional actionable real time information to shooters which was previously unavailable. Shooters will take advantage of this. Scores will increase overall.

Precision: It is being stated that the target you see and are firing at is only an aiming point: "the acoustic centre maybe somewhere else other than the dead centre. This does not matter as long as the acoustic centre is constant because the monitor is showing the shot from dead centre of the acoustic centre there fore alterations are as normal. Just get your mind around acoustic hit not physical hit." If I am interpreting this correctly, this means that the thing you are aiming at and the thing which shows the score are two very different things. They do NOT correlate exactly in space. Holding 9 ring at 3 O'Clock on the thing you aim at (the physical target) would NOT NECESSARILY produce a 9 ring hit at 3 O'Clock on the electronic score display in a no-wind condition. So every time I shoot, I need to remember where I shot and then correct it for the spatial difference interposed by the electronic display, make what is now a two-stage correction, aim again and fire. It DOES in fact matter very much, in spite of what is being stated above. The argument is being made that you adjust and / or hold this difference out in the course of firing sighters. Yes perhaps. Does it drift? Do you even know if it does, or are you blindly trusting it? What is the manufacturer's allowed drift over what period of time? Has anyone asked? What is the variation of drift over time among 30-35 units performing at the same time?

If this is one more thing I have to "get my mind around", then it is a change.

I realize the technical questions are questions properly asked of the manufacturer(s). But I am nearly certain that you guys who come here and insult us for asking questions have never considered many of the points above. Or have you? Do you know anything about electronics, calibrations, drift? Answers then, gentlemen?

Do you want to talk about software? Does anyone here own any piece of electronic gear which actually does everything it said it was going to do when you bought it, every time? ANYONE?

My point is simply this: we need to think this through, and do it right the first time. I am not adverse to change, I am adverse to the thoughtless and careless adoption of tech, because cleaning up after people do that is what I do for a living, and it has been my experience that a lot of people do it.

Putting a computer chip in everything doesn't make it better, but it does make it more expensive, harder and more expensive to maintain, and much more likely to fail. Those are facts.

 

[XTR]

....
Precision: It is being stated that the target you see and are firing at is only an aiming point: "the acoustic centre maybe somewhere else other than the dead centre. This does not matter as long as the acoustic centre is constant because the monitor is showing the shot from dead centre of the acoustic centre there fore alterations are as normal. Just get your mind around acoustic hit not physical hit." If I am interpreting this correctly, this means that the thing you are aiming at and the thing which shows the score are two very different things. They do NOT correlate exactly in space. Holding 9 ring at 3 O'Clock on the thing you aim at (the physical target) would NOT NECESSARILY produce a 9 ring hit at 3 O'Clock on the electronic score display in a no-wind condition. So every time I shoot, I need to remember where I shot and then correct it for the spatial difference interposed by the electronic display, make what is now a two-stage correction, aim again and fire. It DOES in fact matter very much, in spite of what is being stated above. The argument is being made that you adjust and / or hold this difference out in the course of firing sighters. Yes perhaps. ....

It took me a minute to get my head around this one. Here is the way I understand this. If the acoustic center is offset 3" left and 3" up on the target you are holding on, and the target face you are holding on is square, then once you take your sighters and get squared up on what appears as your center on the screen then your holdoffs in all directions will track correctly on the acoustics. It is like a duplicator making another stock 2 feet over from the one you are tracing, the scoring will be correct from the center of the acoustic reading and your hold on the paper.

Now, here is the rub, matches with 2 sighters, especially convertible sighters and no wind zeros. The convertible system rewards having a good no wind zero and making a good initial wind call on the target you see. (I personally really enjoy shooting under fullbore rules) If the acoustics are not centered, two sighters may not be enough to get your scope settings and the target in synch, and if the offset is great enough I could see it causing shooters with good no wind zeros to lose points on a crossover when they made the correct call for what they see.

Note: I concur with most of the other points in your post, and for the record, I too am in the cleanup business.

 

[Warren Dean]

So what about the calibration procedure that measures the delta between POI and POA on the target and then adjusts the computer's acoustic center accordingly?

Silver Mountain has it and I would bet that all the others have similar procedures.

Thinking the system would make a shooter aim at a point that doesn't correlate to the same point on the scoring systems plot is ludicrous.

The Chicken Little types are really getting up my nose on this thread....

 

[XTR]

Warren, my comments stem from a discussion I had with Bob at Phoenix last month. I don't know what the calibration procedures are, but the point of that discussion was that you are shooting and correcting to what you see on the screen, not necessarily what is on the target.

 

[Bindi2]

swrichmond you aim off or wind off exactly as you do at a paper target. Believe it it works just the same because your rifle is zeroed to the acoustic centre after sighters. Think of acoustic centre as fixed mirage then forget about it. The wind reading skills actually improve because the results are seen in real time only flight time before the result is shown. That real time result does generally increase shooting speed but also allows longer hold. No there is no drift the acoustic centre is fixed by the construction of the target. Each target is not relying on any others in the group to function. If the main control box on the lead target is damaged the whole system shuts down. The target is removed from the system and another put in its place or the next target inline is switched to be the lead and one is abandoned until repaired. Inline box damage is just unplugged and shooting continues less that target. There was no insult tendered or intended we have been doing this and answering the same QUESTIONS continually for some years. You are not the first nor were we our system has been running nearly 7years. The only malfunctions in that time have been due to lack of maintenance and lack of knowledge in the first instance on what and how often maintenance had to be done in certain circumstances. There has been two instances off a shot hitting the wiring or electronics and knocking the target out and a heat issue from the sun which shut the system down which has been solved.
Shooting has continued. The only thing shown on our monitors are the shots for that shooter the X by Y in mms and the group centre nothing else you are more on your own than using paper hence the better conditional reading skills. Aiming marks need changing from time to time as do the range centres when distances are changed. There is plenty of time. The scorers job is much more critical and if not done properly will cause trouble.

 

[sparker]

As a sling shooter, I appreciate good target service in a very physical way. In that regard, I believe electronic targets and scoring level the field. Anyone who has had target service from Marty Mayo will tell you that it is highly unlikely that any electronic scoring system will provide faster target service. Marty is the gold standard that we should all aspire to in terms of target service.

Scott Parker
Bakersfield CA

 

[JohnMill]

So how or where did anyone get the idea that the center you see on the screen must be different from the center of the physical that you are aiming at. That is someones boogy under the bed nightmare. The center of the physical target is layed out as near as humanly possible on the center. this is then translated into computerese (calibrated) for the program which displays it on the shooters screen. What kind of black magic suddenly switches the center.
It has been explained in great detail for 8 pages. There are no new drawbacks. Just go shoot it. Find out where the next SMT demo is and go. Wrangle an invite.

 

[memilanuk]

Actually... that was something that came up during discussion when we were testing an SMT target Wednesday.

For the LR target, where anything 'on paper' counts as at least a six (for sling), or a five (F-class), the target center needs to be the same as the acoustic center, and pretty close to center. Sometimes the physical paper center isn't always perfectly centered either; anyone who's had the joy of trying to assemble a four-piece LR or MR target face, attempting to line up all the rings given the variations of each segment, and having to then paste a new repair center over *that* just to cover up the mis-matched lines... knows what I'm talking about.

But for something like the MR-63FC or MR-65FC where the center of the target typically gets chewed to shreds, obliterating the center aiming point after only one or two shooters... would it be feasible to *intentionally* offset the center of the e-target, so that the center aiming mark remains intact throughout the day without requiring *any* trips to the pit to re-center the targets? Typically these targets have a wide 'visible miss' band outside the 5 ring due to the nature of their construction; it should be possible to have the entire area described in the rules available while offsetting it say... six inches or so to allow the center to remain visible regardless of how many shooters fire on it.

This is another one of the things that came up during the NRA competitor meeting at the 2015 USA FCNC - how to address the centers getting shot out of the targets for the Mid-Range Nationals, and how often they'd need re-facing.

Just spit-balling an idea here... curious if any of you 'veteran' e-target shooters have seen or done anything like this.

 

[daniel.chisholm]

memilanuk, here is what we did in New Brunswick, only at 300m, to avoid getting the target centre shot out and useless to a scope shooter:


In New Zealand they came up with what I think is an ever better solution:

 

[Ringostar]

I went into the test with the concerns that others are having. When I asked questions, and understood what people are starting to learn here. We can't see the bullet holes on target, so we adjust by where the spotter is placed and what the scoring disk reports. With ET's we still don't see bullet holes, so will hold or adjust by what the monitor reports to us. I wasn't able to make it to this years nationals, but know many shooters were questioning the idea of shooting 300yds for midrange. The concerns were the little X ring getting covered by pasters half way through a string. Once it's covered you are depending on the target pullers judgement whether it is an X or 10. ET's will be fare calling the score, and the rings will remain visible for hold offs longer.

 

[C Valentine]

I have not had the opportunity to shoot on the things yet. But, from what I gather about the e-target is that I WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO SEE THE SHOT MARKER OF THE PREVIOUS SHOT RIGHT THERE IN MY RIFLESCOPE...BUT ONLY BY GLANCING SIDEWAYS TO VIEW IT ON THE E-TARGET MONITOR. I consider this a disadvantage from our current paper target system where I can concurrently easily/timely gauge an aim point when using a "chase the spotter" technique :-[ :-\, if I should choose to use that technique, in contemplating an aim point for a follow-on shot.

Danny Biggs

Danny, this is one of my concerns as well. I have an electronic system that I use for practice and I miss that spotter! I don't normally "chase" the spotter, but it is one more piece of information we can see through our scopes, without coming off the rifle, that will be lost with E-targets. There are indeed a lot of advantages to E-targets, but this is one huge disadvantage in my mind.

 

[aj300mag]

I have not had the opportunity to shoot on the things yet. But, from what I gather about the e-target is that I WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO SEE THE SHOT MARKER OF THE PREVIOUS SHOT RIGHT THERE IN MY RIFLESCOPE...BUT ONLY BY GLANCING SIDEWAYS TO VIEW IT ON THE E-TARGET MONITOR. I consider this a disadvantage from our current paper target system where I can concurrently easily/timely gauge an aim point when using a "chase the spotter" technique :-[ :-\, if I should choose to use that technique, in contemplating an aim point for a follow-on shot.

Danny Biggs

Danny, this is one of my concerns as well. I have an electronic system that I use for practice and I miss that spotter! I don't normally "chase" the spotter, but it is one more piece of information we can see through our scopes, without coming off the rifle, that will be lost with E-targets. There are indeed a lot of advantages to E-targets, but this is one huge disadvantage in my mind.

When we shot our demo at Midland (MI) I placed my Galaxy S5 directly under the forearm of my stock and in front of my left arm. I had no issues viewing my target, didn't have to look left or right at a monitor.

Don't have a clue where this POA/POI offset came from. In my experience it is untrue.

 

[Immike]

There ya go, that's just what I was waiting for. Our point of aim with the report is all that matters. We will adjust regardless of the holes in the paper that we can't see anyway. I have no doubt this is a good thing by what the Aussies say. I might get to eat lunch every day this time! This thing is going spoil us. Lol

 

[C Valentine]

AJ, being a geek, the idea really excites me, especially after having had several experiences where I could have taken naps every time my target went down. I wish I could see one of these professional systems in action! From what you said, I take it you can link in to the system with your own notebook or device and put it where you are most comfortable? That would be great! What do you do about glare on your Galaxy screen....have you found a glare shield that actually works? When the sun is out, I can't see squat on my laptop, my iPad or my IPhone! We have a covered bench firing line at Bridgeville but the prone line is not covered and in the summer it is in full sun. I saw a thing called a Hoodie the other day, but not sure it would help.

 

[Bindi2]

The POA to POI came from a poster that wanted to put a test in place to check the accuracy of ETs. As I said in a previous post the acoustic centre may not be in the dead centre of the aiming mark but will be dead centre on the monitor. How do I know this we have a target that this is the case. The scores are correctly recorded on the monitor the holes in the aiming mark are a little off dead centre. Shock and horror was expressed by some but when asked if the resulting score was wrong admitted no, or because they can not see the holes did it matter no, were they going to build a new target to replace this one at their cost no. They shoot on that target without complaint because it works they have the choice not to if they don't want to.
We glue our aiming marks ( different sizes for different ranges) to coreflute then Velcro these to the target. The centre of that also has a replacement on coreflute with Velcro which is replaced as required as the range is contested so all shooters have an equal as we can make it as near new target to shoot on not shot out or patched over.
When I shoot on paper I ask for the smallest spotter they have in the pit as the normal range size can cover the X ring and a sizable amount of the 6 ring making aim off or wind off difficult. The monitor shows this without hindrance instantly. Placement of the monitor so the head dose not leave the rifle to see the monitor is possible.