E-Targets for F-Class
- Thread starter Down South
- Start date
Just a Hobby Woooo not with the gear I see on the mound. The demand for accuracy is very high with the same demand for longevity on a daily basis.
Yeah, I've got nice gear too. I shudder to think of the amount of money that I've spent on this hobby over the last 12 years. That said, it doesn't make it anything more than a hobby. At the end of the every match, whether I win or lose, I still have to drive home to cut the grass, and take care of all of the other responsibilities I have in life. My shooting success (or lack thereof) doesn't affect that one bit. People waste their money on all kinds of dumb stuff, this just happens to be the dumb stuff that I waste mine on.
The clubs I belong to are willing to discuss the possibility of spending $1k/firing point on electronic targets, but not $6k-$10k.
"Hobby" is now for me the operative word.
Hi Erud,
I started this project some twelve years ago, when I thought there was a market for ET technology that I at that time figured I could develop. At the time, there was only Kongsberg - and it was very expensive. But nevertheless a lot of clubs - my own in fact - purchased it (mine wasn't ready at the time). There are a lot of Kongsbergs in Western Australia.
This was before the advent of tablet and mobile phone technology as we have now. So I had to work with what I had at the time - and it is not obsolete today.
Sadly, here in Australia (and now in New Zealand) there is a lot of negative pressure on our shooting sports. Shooters are demonised and the general public panicked (we had an example of that in Melbourne yesterday). The market for ET systems such as mine is at best diminishing and in NZ I suspect it will soon be non-existent (for reasons I think everyone is now aware of). The advent of the small cheap personal systems such as SMT and Shotmarker basically hastened its demise. In some places the sport (as I know it) is growing, but mainly it's not. Like in the USA, a lot of clubs and shooters do not have a lot of money - in fact we rely a lot of grants from government entities. I suspect a lot of that is about to dry up.
For us here in Australia - two of us - I think the end of the road has come. I have no interest or desire - or the resources - to consider putting my system into the mass market of the USA. That market is at least 150 times larger than it is here. The economies of scale simply don't allow something like my ET to flourish here, so it's not (and arguably never was) commercially viable. But I have had fun putting it together - mostly. I am seriously out of pocket but not broke.
So I take heart that I was able to put something together that does in fact work, pulling together knowledge and experience I have spent nearly 45 years obtaining. I could I suppose adapt it to become cheaper but that would compromise my standards and I don't feel inclined to do that. I have what I have. And, I'm not getting any younger.
So I am now inclined to look at it as more of a hobby, as you say but in a slightly different context! I intend to look after the few systems I have out there and basically tinker around with new [software based] features and enhancements (as time permits) to make it even more physically robust - as my biggest problem is the physical treatment dished out by people who have no real sense of ownership of the hardware system (and break things...).
It turns out that instead of retiring, some of the skills and software techniques (not to mention hardware) I developed for my own purposes have been noticed and it looks like I will be heading into a new project that has nothing at all to do with ET's. It's funny how things work out!
So, in a rather long winded way, I guess I agree and understand your point about affordability and financial reality. We see it here also and it's only going to get worse. Time to move on methinks.
G.
Shotmarkers are $800 US
I hear via the grape vine GeoffR, that the Au Palma team kinda walked away with all the prizes is NZ. Congratulations to great bunch. I noticed they did most of their practicing on HEXTA expensive targets. HMM
Doug Beach
Silver $$ Contributor
I’m sure there’s a direct correlation between shooting on expensive targets, and deciphering tricky wind.
This comment rated S, for sarcasm.
Crap!! That's what I've been doing wrong. Why have I spent so much time on loading, gun and wind skills? I just could have practiced on a 8 to 10,000 dollar a lane e-target. But at that price, it better guide the bullet to the 10 ring and maybe an X here and there...
DirtySteve
Gold $$ Contributor
Has any company contacted you about selling your rights to your system? If so you can recoup some of the cost of developing it, and possibly boost the effectiveness of the other systems on the market.
Yeah! I talked to a bunch of those guys down there at the matches and to a man, they said that they owed 100% of their success to Hex targets! They said they didn’t even have to work on trigger control, shooting pace, wind reading, communication, large-format team tactics or anything after they started using the Hexta’s! Said they could take any loser with whatever rifle off the streets and put him on a Hex, and he’d be a world class shooter by the end of the weekend! I guess they actually stopped practicing altogether over two years ago and just coasted the rest of the way because the Hex targets made them just that good.
When they accepted their medals, they all dedicated them to Rusty Rick for being the best target salesman in the world, and for making all of their dreams come true. It was beautiful, not a dry eye in the house.
I'll pass on counting on proper maintenance of membranes. Heck, a ruptured membrane led to my first marriage
.How about when the pole vault record was set by some guy with a bamboo pole, in cotton shorts, and a heavy cotton t-shirt, now his record has now been buried by some carbon fiber pole, light weight clothing, hi tech shoes and a better place to land...
I have always been a mind that if ya wanna break Babe Ruths record whenever ya come to bat ya gotta use the same bat and ball that he used... (not the exact one
)
Anyway my personal record gripe for all sports...
I have always been a mind that if ya wanna break Babe Ruths record whenever ya come to bat ya gotta use the same bat and ball that he used... (not the exact one
)Anyway my personal record gripe for all sports...
Back on topic... I ran some rudimentary analysis using ShotMarker detail from the last LR match I was at to see what average times between shots were with the 'no delay' setting. To summarize, the fastest shot was 7 seconds, which I interpreted to mean it was fired about 5 seconds after the result of the previous shot was reported.
As a general trend, it looked to me like matches fired with a average shot delay of under 20 seconds scored higher than those fired with an average delay greater than 20 seconds, but it's hard to say the shorter delay accounts for that, and most of the 'cleans' were fired with an average shot delay of over 20 seconds. Should mention that conditions that day were almost ideal.
Maybe some will find this interesting, and perhaps have some thoughts on what the data is indicating.
As a general trend, it looked to me like matches fired with a average shot delay of under 20 seconds scored higher than those fired with an average delay greater than 20 seconds, but it's hard to say the shorter delay accounts for that, and most of the 'cleans' were fired with an average shot delay of over 20 seconds. Should mention that conditions that day were almost ideal.
Maybe some will find this interesting, and perhaps have some thoughts on what the data is indicating.
Crow can you call me Diffey 281 728 5246
Was told that once the match is complete, no worries about affecting system performance. Any other reasons for not allowing downloads?
Pretty sure everyone told Jade not to do this, but he did it anyway.Thank you Jade for getting this important discussion going. It has been very civil!
I think this thread demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of active f-class shooters in the U.S. agree that the "delay" is a core part of what makes High Power a unique and wonderful shooting sport. The delayed nature of scoring forces competitors to shoot through different wind conditions and removing the delay fundamentally changes the sport. So, for discussions sake, if we mostly agree that a delay should be preserved, the next question is, "What should the delay be?" I was involved in creating the precedent for 7 seconds...a funny story for some other time. But, I will say I just pulled that number out of my arse a few years back.
February of this year, I decided to get some actual data and recorded the pull times at the Southwest Nationals: see attachment. Keep in mind that the SWNs have not one, but two pullers per target and it is safe to say these are the most experienced high power competitors in the country. Yes, there were a few intrepid targets with consistent 5 second pull times. But, the average pull time was 10 seconds...with two pullers per target.
I plan to continue gathering data and and suspect the average pull time will be somewhere near 12 seconds in matches with just one puller. I encourage all of you to gather your own data on average pull times....you might be surprised just how slow people are.This is one of the key reasons why High Power/F-Class is NOT the same as benchrest. I very much want to keep the wind-reading element of our sport just like it is today because it is what makes it so challenging and rewarding.
Respectfully,
Scott Harris
PS. we are in the final stages of standing up a club in Phoenix that will use the Shot Marker system: with a 10 second delay.
The posts on this threat do not even come close to representing the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF ACTIVE F CLASS SHOOTERS IN THE US, it might represent your views but not everyone, so please stop the fake news you are showing your bias. If we need to mimic pullers as you advocate lets include the errors, the human bias, the fact that we can not get an constant pull time because you are talking averages so for every 7 sec there is a 20 second puller. We have 10 pages from 25 different people and several people many time posting about something that is just now entering the mainstream. I have been running matches at Bayou Rifles in Houston TX for 5 years, and we have implemented e targets for 2018 and on, that is two registered shoots a month 1000 and 600 the TSRA long range and TSRA mid range state championships and next month we will add 300 and across the course, all registered and all open to the public. We tested for months in 2018, and the main benefits are speed, lower man power needs, not pulling targets in the Texas heat, fair pulling times for everyone, very accurate scoring, comprehensive post shoot date and being able to shoot in the rain. This is not going to ruin F Class and this will not make us all bench-rest shooters. When you have your system up and running, when you have your own club, evaluate in the real world and get beck to us, delay is not the end of F class it is not the crossing over to the bench-rest side it is just a choice. Because the variables between clubs and venues is so massive now, Ben Avery, Raton, Bayou they alone have differences to many to name, why the fight over a delay or is it because the perception someone that might have set a national record on an e target has some advantage over you because you don't shoot on e targets regularly. If you chose 10 second delay great if other clubs choose something different than support their choice, both are within the rules so they both can be right. If the rules change than the clubs should change to fit the NRA rules.
Don Diffey
Medic505
Gold $$ Contributor
Do you have data to back that claim? Or threat for that matter.
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