Accuracy of electronic targets

[memilanuk]

Doubling the entry fees at poorly attended matches is likely to reduce attendence even more.

Honestly... going from $20 to $30 or $35 for match entry fees, relative to what everything else in this sport costs, isn't enough to make a significant difference. The people who complain and stay home over *that*, likely wouldn't have shown up *anyway* - they were looking for an excuse.

Match fees have been ~$20 for the last 10 or 20 years. Think about how much everything else (income and expenses) has changed - and gone up in that time. And we wonder why ranges can't afford nice target systems?!?

 

[Berger.Fan222]

And we wonder why ranges can't afford nice target systems?!?

I disagree. Every range I've ever been to hosting an F-Class match has had a nice target system that obviously took considerable money and labor to install. The maintenance issues seem to be a matter of ongoing attention and labor and usually more related to electronics than manual target systems.

It is terribly elitist to suggest that target systems cannot be nice simply because they are designed and operated around paper rather than the new and unproven electronic systems. All of the paper systems I've seen on high power ranges are very nice.

If you dig into the operating budgets of most ranges, match fees are only a small part of their income, with the lion's share being memberships and/or daily use fees. And the biggest drains on their expenses in the past 15 years are related to liability insurance and legal expenses. If gun clubs could budget the same in 2015 for legal expenses and liability insurance as they did in 2000, most of them could easily afford electronic scoring systems (if they wanted to).

 

[SDDasher]

".....but several places I attend regularly have legitimate contenders for national records. I can easily see how an accuracy of 0.25", a missed shot, or the diameter of the bullet could cause a shooter to miss a national record. I would love to see one of these shooters/teams accomplish a national record, and it would be frustrating to see/hear of electronic scoring messing that up."

For a National Record to be approved, they are required to be shot in NRA sanctioned Regional, State or National matches. Given they have to be vetted I would hope any match utilizing E-Targets would meet or exceed accuracy/maintenance requirements established by the NRA.
If Lodi is going to use E-Targets for the Nationals I suspect they had to jump through some serious hoops to convince the NRA to sanction that.

 

[Bob Sebold]

Boy, This will be fun next year!

 

[r bose]

Someone above made a very good point about the match fees. I was looking on the net for a place to go shooting. The Talladega CMP Marksmanship Park is having a multi day event in December. An M1 Garand match, shooting 35 shots at 200 yards, is 50 Dollars. WOW.

My doubts remain about the suitability of electronic targets for precision shooting a mid and long range, but the CMP Marksmanship Park at Talladega (and similar facilities, if there are any) seem just about ideal for mid-range practice. $20 for half a day and $35 for all day seem like a pretty good deal for electronic scoring, no pit duty, and the amount of practice likely under the circumstances. 1/2 price for juniors.

I agree that on any given normal day the CMP Talladega range is a bargain to go out and shoot. But for a 35 shot Garand match to cost 50 dollars, don't think that won't turn away some shooters who have to stick to a budget.

Where I shoot, XTC 88 shot and 3x600 prone/fclass 66 shot matches cost 15 dollars each. A 180 shot pistol match cost 10 dollars.
If those cost were to go to 50 dollars a match, no doubt attendance would suffer.

 

[Lbart]

"snip.....
For a National Record to be approved, they are required to be shot in NRA sanctioned Regional, State or National matches.

Not really......Rule 17.1 Where Scores for National Records Can Be Fired—Scores to be
recognized as National Records must be fired in NRA Registered competition
as defined in Rule 1.6, paragraphs (c), (d), (e), and (f). National Records must
be approved by the NRA before being declared official. National Records may
not be established during re-entry matches.

 

[Steve Blair]

For a National Record to be approved, they are required to be shot in NRA sanctioned Regional, State or National matches.

[br]
Wes, Larry is correct, they only need to be Registered matches. Santa Margarita Gun Club runs Registered Mid Range matches almost every month. Here is a link to the National Record Checklist. Please note #4. [br]
http://competitions.nra.org/documents/pdf/compete/tourn-forms/NatlRecordChecklist.pdf

 

[SDDasher]

"snip.....
For a National Record to be approved, they are required to be shot in NRA sanctioned Regional, State or National matches.

Not really......Rule 17.1 Where Scores for National Records Can Be Fired—Scores to be
recognized as National Records must be fired in NRA Registered competition
as defined in Rule 1.6, paragraphs (c), (d), (e), and (f). National Records must
be approved by the NRA before being declared official. National Records may
not be established during re-entry matches.

Rule 1.6, paragraphs (c), (d), (e) are the ones I mentioned which would have to by definition include paragraph (f) so I fail to see the distinction. My point was about the fact sanction of the match would proceed the approval of "any" National Record by the NRA using E-Targets. I can't imagine the NRA would or will sanction any match that does not meet certain vetting requirements. If I am wrong about that then what purpose does the sanctioning or approved "registration" serve?

 

[Kodiak99317]

http://shooting.hexsystems.com.au/shooting (you can view them shoot live on Friday nites here in america which is noon in australia) is another system that you should look at if it has not been mentioned... 8 mics in a sealed drum, pretty accurate IMO

 

[XTR]

I'm skeptical of this for the same reasons some have stated, inability to see the other targets, machine gunning matches chasing the spotter, and in particular running a national championship on a system that has had less than a yr to test, and doing so at a match with hundreds of shooters who have never used the system and are seeing it for the first time, but we will see.

One other thing I've noted, WTF is the problem people have with going to the pits? Seriously, to a new shooter reading some of the grousing you'd thing you had to do the whole job barefoot on broken glass or something. If it works and it speeds things along (that's another issue, what's the rush anyway you all sound like golfers) then most folks will be happy campers.

 

[Steve Blair]

One other thing I've noted, WTF is the problem people have with going to the pits? Seriously, to a new shooter reading some of the grousing you'd thing you had to do the whole job barefoot on broken glass or something.

[br]
Particularly true when running four relays but not burdensome, regardless. Too many shooters take their other two tasks, target pulling and scoring, far less seriously than they do shooting. Perversely, these are often the loudest complainers when they don't receive stellar service while shooting.

 

[Berger.Fan222]

One other thing I've noted, WTF is the problem people have with going to the pits? Seriously, to a new shooter reading some of the grousing you'd thing you had to do the whole job barefoot on broken glass or something. If it works and it speeds things along (that's another issue, what's the rush anyway you all sound like golfers) then most folks will be happy campers.

Going to the pits is not a big deal, but I would be willing to pay extra to avoid it.

Working the pits on the hottest days of the year just isn't any fun, but on the whole, I'd rather work the pits and do a good job scoring for a fellow shooter than have their score messed up by an unproven electronic system. I take care to work quickly and accurately.

But on the whole, the (paper-based) set-up requiring 3-4 relays and pit changes does tend to slow everything down. Once the accuracy and reliability bugs of electronic scoring get worked out, I'll appreciate the speed improvements by only needing enough relays to accomodate the number of shooters and not having to slow things down for pit changes and slow target pullers. However, if a paper/digital photo method is ultimately needed to provide perfect accuracy/reliability/challengability in the electronic systems, I am certainly willing to wait for the paper targets to be swapped out between relays and spend a turn in the pits changing them out.

 

[kcomeau10x]

There is some really good info on a system in use and made by Australians. Go to hexsystems.com.au and go through all the statistical info they have posted. They even have a monitor that calls out your shot value!
Yes the systems are expensive and not trouble free but if the rest of the civilized world can adopt them, why can't we? The Kongsberg system in Norway was adopted by the military and is transported from range to range in shipping containers. Same system is used in their National matches that draws thousands of shooters and spectators because the monitors shows real-time standings. Not to mention the Swiss system used in all Olympic and World Cup matches.
If you read about the Aussies, a syndicate of clubs got together to purchase a system for use on one range where they hold large matches. Perhaps that kind of out of the box thinking is what we need here!

 

[Bindi2]

I'm skeptical of this for the same reasons some have stated, inability to see the other targets, machine gunning matches chasing the spotter, and in particular running a national championship on a system that has had less than a yr to test, and doing so at a match with hundreds of shooters who have never used the system and are seeing it for the first time, but we will see.

Not being able to see other targets will improve your conditional reading skills. Machine gunning is just another skill ( but can cost big time) as is chasing the spotter.
Running national and/or state events is being done else where in the world so the system works. Fear of the unknown or fear that the system will uncover weaknesses of skills needed is more the reasons the NAYSAYERS speak out. The testing has been done all you have to do is install and use.

 

[SDDasher]

One other thing I've noted, WTF is the problem people have with going to the pits? Seriously, to a new shooter reading some of the grousing you'd thing you had to do the whole job barefoot on broken glass or something. If it works and it speeds things along (that's another issue, what's the rush anyway you all sound like golfers) then most folks will be happy campers.

I went back and re-read every post and for the life of me cannot find anyone "grousing" about going to the pits to perform pit duties. Several mentioned how much faster a match goes using the new technology. Several pointed out poor pit service is negated and several gave examples of poor pit service which I might add has been a commonly heard comment long before E-Targets were even thought of having a use in our sport.
If I were a new shooter reading this I would more likely not believe a bunch of old farts (myself included) would even consider embracing the new technology.
Like many have previously pointed out without poking a finger in someone's eye, it is hoped the accuracy and security of the use of E-Targets will be properly tested before blanket adoption.

 

[Bindi2]

it is hoped the accuracy and security of the use of E-Targets will be properly tested before blanket adoption.
[/quote]

How many times do they have to be tested. The system is in use world wide.

 

[Zilla]

it is hoped the accuracy and security of the use of E-Targets will be properly tested before blanket adoption.

How many times do they have to be tested. The system is in use world wide.
[/quote]

The science is settled?
Yeah, heard that before.

 

[Berger.Fan222]

How many times do they have to be tested. The system is in use world wide.

This is commonly known as the bandwagon fallacy.

Several of the reports here have noted that the systems work well when properly maintained. The obvious implication is that there are problems when the systems are not properly maintained. Hopefully, ranges choosing to adopt these new systems will attend to the maintenance needs. Lots of ranges have neither the money nor the manpower for the ongoing maintenance needs.

It has also been pointed out that demonstrations take a lot of care is taken to show the systems in the best light. I'd be more interested in hard numbers from validation experiments where a large number of test cases are used, there is a significant sample size (> 100) of bullets within 0.05" of a scoring ring, there is a significant sample size of transonic (< 1200 fps) and subsonic bullets, and there are enough cases of clean misses, cross fires, harsh conditions, and heavy volumes of fire to represent more realistic indications of how these systems will perform.

Others have pointed out the need to program in the caliber to determine whether the edge of the bullet would catch the scoring ring.

If too many ranges accept the status quo as "good enough" then the systems are inlikely to get better. The manufacturers will just keep the profit margins high and milk the cash cow. I'd rather them add features to allow realistic challenges like taking a digital photo of a paper target after every shot to allow meaningful challenges. Perhaps the contentment now is because scores cannot be challenged, so no one really knows how often the system is giving inaccurate scores.

 

[SDDasher]

How many times do they have to be tested. The system is in use world wide.

OK when and where? Just saying something is a Fact doesn't make it a fact. Naturally those of us competeing in the US would like to see results of testing in the US. Please be as specific as possible on testing methodology and system tested as well as the hopefully independent testers.

 

[Bindi2]

Band wagon fallacy. Mmmm do your testing then make all the mistakes new chums do to learn that the guys who have been using the system for years were right and could have saved you time money and pain. The system works the human maintenance is the problem 1st,2nd and last.
There are no line challenges there is no need. If the system can not read the shot position it indicates that as a hit in a certain area. Cross fires must be observed by the scorer.
Testing is probably really saying learning to use ETs.
Costing will always be debated and new manufacturers will always keep the pressure on as new cheaper components, methodology come online.
Waiting for a newer cheaper system just means you will never get into technology.
I am enjoying current technology and will move to the next when the current one has been surpassed or needs replacing because it has worn out.