Not really about competition per say, but if you are interested in an electronic target system, I just got an e-mail from Silver Mountain Targets. They are having a Camp Perry Special price from now to 12 August 2018. Buy a Solo system for $850, a $130 savings from the normal $980. http://silvermountaintargetsusa.com...-Camp-Perry-National-Match-SPECIAL-p111895506
Camp Perry Special?
- Thread starter Lbart
- Start date
What facts do you have, that the Shotmarker is better than the Silver mountain target... Do you own both of the products or have experience with both of the unit's?
Mike Plunkett
I have "experience" Mudeat is spot on.
Good for you Farmergreg... I have a lot of experience with the multi target Silver mountain target, but none with the Solo target system and none with the Shot marker system. I'm going to be purchasing a single target system soon. In saying that, with all due respect... I prefer hearing from individuals have the experience with a product before they start claiming that it's inferior to another product. And even less from individuals that don't put there names on the post and in their profile... Instead of telling everyone where you're from in the country, one is from "Earth" and the other is just a "Male"
My point is... Don't get on here just to put down someone's product!
Mike Plunkett
Wow!
Search my posts. Put a review in on the shotmarker thread.
Maybe you should read up before inserting your foot in your mouth?
Cordially!
Greg
Greg,
Thanks for making my point! From what you've said, is that you have experience with the Shot marker unit... Which is great! But have you or Mudeat had experience also with the Solo unit from Silver mountain target? If not, how can someone give a fair comparison between two products!
All I'm saying is don't bash something or make a statement about a product unless you have tried it out first!
Thanks,
Mike Plunkett
Greg,
I went back and read your post on the Shot marker review... My apologies for not paying closer attention to the post I read on your review. In your post it didn't mention the names of any other targets except for the Shot marker.
I do apologise for jumping the gun!
Thanks,
Mike Plunkett
FWIW I shot with a Shotmarker for the first time last weekend over 3 days of Palma/LR shooting. Found it intuitive to use and seemed accurate. When it placed a shot about 1/4" away from a white line that is where the shot was. We definitely need to use it some more but we were fairly happy with the instant feed-back it provided. At 80º the tablet battery lasted about 7 hours non-stop usage. Had no problem obtaining readings to 1000 yds.
It's a keeper I think, plans are to buy more.
It's a keeper I think, plans are to buy more.
Mike:
I posted my review on the shotmarker thread which was started by another member and wasn't supposed to be a bash thread.
I didn't mention the other personal e-target by name. But how many brands are out there?
We've been shooting the two brands side by side.
Apology excepted!
Greg
Hi Mike, I do hope that you consider SOLO. Obviously I think it is a great product, however I can objectively say that if you shoot on a range with more than three or four neighboring targets (electronic or not) on which shooting is happening when you are using your e-target, SOLO will outperform. And the bigger and busier the range, the bigger the SOLO advantage. I have made some performance claims which will make me look like a fool if I am wrong; before doing so I have made darn sure that we really do have a performance edge.
If you are curious, the main reason SOLO is more expensive is our sensor design. In engineering a "consumer" type product you need to cut manufacturing costs everywhere you possibly can. We spend most of our manufacturing dollars on our sensors and if we possibly could cut costs there we would. The retail price of a replacement SOLO dual sensor is $120 and a Shotmarker one is $40 - though as far as our acoustic performance goes, by my side-by-side measurements of Shotmarker vs. SOLO our sensors are at least 7X better, so I think our engineers can sleep soundly at night.
Why do we spend so much on our sensors, and where does that money go? Our core sensor elements (piezoelectric) cost more than 20X as much as those used in Shotmarker ("MEMS" devices, commonly used in cellphone). "MEMS" sensors are a really cool technology and SMT engineers have been aware them for years and have of course tried to figure out if they could be used in an e-target; think how brilliant it would be if you could use a sensor element costing pennies to make a low cost e-target for the consumer market. However by design MEMS sensor are extremely sensitive, and as you dig into the problem you realize that this is an intrinsic aspect of the way they are manufactured. You might think that with enough work and cleverness one could work around this, for example somehow shielding or attenuating the signal physically, before it reaches the sensor element, or manipulating/processing the signal electronically, however I am not ashamed to admit that we have not been able to - and our hardware engineers are *really* smart guys. And as a testament to the size of the problem, neither have all of the worlds' cellphone manufacturers either. Literally every cellphone on the market sounds absolutely horrible on a windy day - can you imagine the competitive marketing advantage a cellphone maker would have if they could solve this problem (wind noise)? And yet with tens of millions of dollars to spend on R&D, Apple Samsung etc haven't been able to solve this problem. Our SMT engineers are humble enough to know what sorts of problems we have a fighting chance of solving, and where the best course of action is to back off and use a more expensive technology. Sorry for such a very long way of saying why we spend so much on our sensors. Short version: we had to, in order to build a e-target that doesn't just work on a range all by itself, but also works well on a real range environment with many neighboring targets.
Some facts and some opinions...
We ran a XC match recently using both Solo and ShotMarker. The “dropped shot”
percentage for each target was about the same at 2%. My data says Solo is no better than ShotMarker at rapids. Neither one is perfect.
Signal strength of Solo was only 2 bars at 600. I’m concerned what it will be at 1000. ShotMarker was 5 bars. Need to try both at 1000.
Both systems seemed to report the value shots very accurately.
ShotMarker hands down has better documentation.
We will be running a midrange “beta” match on Aug 11 using both systems
Ken
We ran a XC match recently using both Solo and ShotMarker. The “dropped shot”
percentage for each target was about the same at 2%. My data says Solo is no better than ShotMarker at rapids. Neither one is perfect.
Signal strength of Solo was only 2 bars at 600. I’m concerned what it will be at 1000. ShotMarker was 5 bars. Need to try both at 1000.
Both systems seemed to report the value shots very accurately.
ShotMarker hands down has better documentation.
We will be running a midrange “beta” match on Aug 11 using both systems
Ken
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I have been using my SOLO at 1,000 yards for the past 6 weeks. Never a problem with signal level. Don't let the number of bars/balls fool you at 1k I have 1 ball all the time. All shots show up on screen. The balls are just an indicator it doesn't mean you don't have sufficient signal level for the distance you are shooting. I am sure Daniel can explain it better then I. I am happy to have only 1 blue ball when using a SOLO 
Blue balls......hehe
Glad to hear your system is running well
Ken
Glad to hear your system is running well
Ken
jkl
Silver $$ Contributor
Regardless of what is the best, I can speak for the tireless support Dan and Wayne gave us in Phoenix. I know that Wayne has moved on but we ordered some new style antennas a 2 weeks ago and delivery was spot on. There are 15 G2 targets at Ben Avery that are privately owned and Desert Sharp Shooters has a server. One G2 is the new 8 sensor style, the rest are the original 5 sensor targets. I would hate to tell you how many practice rounds have been put down range. I have had mine for over 2 years. We don't shoot matches but we have had all electronic practices. Pair firing and three to a mound are my favorite way to shoot.
The first Solo target was at the the range Saturday. It was a 1000 yard practice and it seemed to work flawless. I wasn't shooting on the target but we had 7 SMT G2 targets running with the server and everything worked together well.
SMT support was priceless when we were trying to learn the system, most of the problems were user caused but SMT always rescued the dummies from themselves.
I also own Adams thrower and trickler for the FX-120 and he makes a great product.
John
The first Solo target was at the the range Saturday. It was a 1000 yard practice and it seemed to work flawless. I wasn't shooting on the target but we had 7 SMT G2 targets running with the server and everything worked together well.
SMT support was priceless when we were trying to learn the system, most of the problems were user caused but SMT always rescued the dummies from themselves.
I also own Adams thrower and trickler for the FX-120 and he makes a great product.
John
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