TargetTalk

As long as target shooting is understood as a sport in which a physical projectile is hurled against a target, SCATT cannot replace an actual electronic target, because it cannot determine the placement of the actual shot hole on a target.

So if i shot 60 times to a paper target using MX02 the score on scatt would differ a lot from the real score on the paper?

That depends on how good your wind/mirage reading skills are and what sort of random dispersion your ammo suffers from...
Well, for 50m smallbore anyway. (Do you get mirage indoors at 10m?)

10m Air Rifle might be a lot closer but you're still going to get some random ballistic nonsense.

K.

This is a good place for Rick to jump in ... he does simultaneous Megalink/Scatt training all the time.

From my very limited experience, if you do the alignment/calibration of a scatt and shoot thru, you'll be within a few tenths on most of the shots (.3-.4ish), but on shots where there is a lot of muzzle movement at the shot time, it can be off buy quite a bit, depending on how the f-factor is set.

As bluetentacle alluded ... SCATT is a training system, not an electronic target system. Again from my very limited use of the tool, if all you are using it for is a target system, you are probably using it wrong. I think one of the modes for SCATT display should be maybe a very small crosshair at the center fof the display and all else black except the trace. I don't think you should be focusing on score with this tool, but the process the shooter is going thru during the shot. ($0.02)

jhmartin wrote:This is a good place for Rick to jump in ... he does simultaneous Megalink/Scatt training all the time.

Ok, I'll add my experience with live fire / scatt here.

For 10M air rifle: First you have to get the SCATT and live fire results properly coordinated. I normally do this by letting the shooter get sighted in (live fire on Megalink) then I will drag and drop the scatt result to the location of the actual shot for 4 or 5 shots. Things will generally begin to mach up pretty close after that. However, over a full match the live fire and scatt results MAY or may not begin to drift requiring a slight adjustment (drag and drop) of the scatt results.

I have found the F Cof. setting in scatt to work best at around 10 to 12 for 10M air rifle. Settings over 15 will tend to have the "wide" shot be wider than the actual result.

So, Yes, properly used, scatt can be very representative of actual live fire results. I have found that scatt results and live fire results will usually be with +/- .2 of each other with the score pretty much averaging out.

50ft smallbore is pretty close as well with the F setting around 15 to 20, although it is not quite as representative as 10M air.

I have not done any 50M, YET. I expect once I find the proper F setting, it will be close. However, shot dispersion (gun accuracy) and wind will obviously cause some issues.

Rick

I am sure this will evoke some comment. :-)


The comment about live firing on SCATT (or Noptel) has come up before. As one person alluded to above - it is NOT an electronic target!

I have tried setting up SCATT and electronic targets and it is frustrating for me as a coach let alone for the shooter!! So the two "shots" are in different places???? The big question that keeps coming up is "which one is right? And please don't come back and say the shot is gospel without then considering what the hell the SCATT was aiming at.

IMHO I cannot over emphasis the importance of separating the two for coaching purposes.

Use the SCATT for coaching aiming, hold/rest and trigger training/practice. Use live firing targets WITHOUT the Scatt for testing your newly "coached via SCATT" skills.

When these things came out they were (and still are) a coaching godsend. To be able to visualise what the shooter is seeing without using reflective mirrors and breathing in their ear was just wonderful.

Coach the approach, coach the breathing line consistency ( ie consistency as opposed to a gospel direction), coach the resting of the rifle in the middle of the target and finally coaching the trigger release and follow through. They are wonderful tools to find ways of diminishing pulse as well. I concentrate of the "Length" factor. This seems to be the magic number that measures real improvement which lead to improved live fire results.

Nail that lot and I will place any money that the shooter will see the results in live firing.

Yes, 600s are nice to shoot on a SCATT. But so is a 597 if the goal of the exercise is to improve all the above.

As far as figuring out which "f number" one should set I am of the opinion that you are shooting in lala land if you think that fiddling with that factor will enable you to "equalise" the SCATT with live result. And putting a dispersion factor into the equation is just asking for increased randomisation of the SCATT result.

Use it as a coaching tool first and foremost.

RossM... I could not agree with you more! SCATT is a coaching tool, not an electronic target. Although, it serves a useful purpose as an electronic target if you don't have a range to live fire in.

I do think it makes sense to live fire using scatt and to use the "F" settings to get the two as close as possible. Why?

When my shooter makes a good shot, I want to know what made it a "good" shot rather than a "lucky" shot. To me, during training the score on the scatt or the Megalink are simply "data points". To quote Lanny Bassham.... "first, you need to be able to shoot a 10, and understand how you shot it". The scatt helps me be able to see "why" that good shot was really a good shot. The score is really irrelevant. I am looking to see a slow straight approach line, a hold that is 100% 10 ring area, and a shot result that lands squarely in the middle of the hold.

I pay a lot of attention to 3 numbers on scatt. Trace length, triggering, and shot time. I seldom even look at the score. How the shot approach is made, the size of hold and location of the hold are of course of major importance as well. Other than that I look at the 10 ring area % and 10.5 ring area %. I do not concern myself much with the actual 10 ring or 10.5 ring area as that has much more to do with how well you have the shot centered in the scatt than the size of the hold.

When my shooter has slow hold (trace length of under 12mm), deep 10s are more frequent. So, the questions have to be asked.... What is she doing when she has a really slow hold, of say 9 or less? Why are some shots 9 or 10, some are 15? Why do some sessions average 10, some 13 or 14? Those are the things I am constantly searching for the answers to. Minor changes in position? What did she have to eat & when? What time of day is it? etc...... When she has one of those "perfect, it don't get any better than that" shots, I am looking at what made that shot happen? How can I help her make those more frequently. When we have one of those less than perfect shots.... what can I pick out on the scatt or other cues that can predict those shots and stop them before they happen?

Maybe I see on scatt that the hold was great, the trace length was good, maybe 11 or so, but the shot went wide. The scatt will tell me if the triggering number was high or if maybe she just settled in the wrong place. Two very different reasons for the same wide shot. One can indicate a possible trigger control issue, the other may indicate improper sight alignment....... which by itself can have several causes....

Those are just a small sampling of what I am doing daily in looking at scatt results and trying to figure out not only what they mean, but how to maximize the good results.

Yes, the scatt is very useful as a coaching tool by itself. However, I think it becomes much more valuable when combined with live fire on an electronic target. Unfortunately, I think most people with a scatt never put the effort into really learning what all the data means.... and more importantly what to do with it after you have it. Even more unfortunately....... there are no books or resources to help coaches and shooters figure it out. Maybe someday, someone out there will write a really good book on the subject!

Thanks for very deeply analysed answers! I'm thinking of buying one and the first reason is, of course, to (maybe) be able to understand what I'm doing wrong when i release a bad shot. I shoot 10m air pistol and i was thinking i could record all my live fire training sessions with MX02 and get the idea of score where i go. That's the reason i asked how accurate it is, if i shoot 565 and Scatt shows me 575 it is not really accurate. But judging from your answers the difference is nowhere that big at least not on an air pistol.

@rmarsh:

We are on the same page!!! Believe me. EVERYTHING you say about learning is spot on. I love my shooters experimenting and finding out why.

Nuff said.

Maybe someone can enlighten me:
I have long held the belief that my USB SCATT system (or NOPTEL) doesn't actually measure where the sensor is pointing, but instead it registers where the sensor is located in space.
So if you raise the sensor from your calibrated zero but point the rifle into the center, SCATT registers your POA as high, or if you shift your position left so does your POA.

The system works because the sensor is on the end of a long pointy thing which is assumed to be fixed at the back (the butt) or the middle (the support hand). If this pivot point shifts, so does the system's zero.

I'm guessing that SCATT USB is measuring the path difference between the sensor and top/bottom and left/right signals from the target frame - not angle to the target.

I wonder if the MX-02 would behave the same...??? I suspect it might be better since the "camera" (if that's what it is) registers where it is pointing rather than it's location in space.

As always, I may be incorrect in some or all of this...

K.

KennyB wrote:Maybe someone can enlighten me:
I have long held the belief that my USB SCATT system (or NOPTEL) doesn't actually measure where the sensor is pointing, but instead it registers where the sensor is located in space.
So if you raise the sensor from your calibrated zero but point the rifle into the center, SCATT registers your POA as high, or if you shift your position left so does your POA.

<snip>
As always, I may be incorrect in some or all of this...

K.

I don't believe it does do that and don't see how the opto-electronics of the system could be set up to do that. I use it with pistol more than rifle and we shift around a lot more than rifle. My shooters will often sit down mid sequence on scatt and when they get back up they will standing in a different place. I have never noticed any shift in POI so I don't believe it measures the way you suggest. But I don't use the shot value as such because it's one of the least important parameters.

There's a lot of good information above and people are absolutely right that it will not absolutely match up shot for shot. The problem with people wanting it to is an error in training philosophy. Many people 'train' by just shooting rather than training specific elements, so their outcome measure is naturally score. To use scatt or other system properly you have to remove score. One of the simplest ways to do that is to remove the bull or just shoot repeatedly on the same card on the system, thereby obliterating the middle.

Rob.

Val, You may consider this to be a minor difference or a play on words.... but I consider it to be of great importance.

You mentioned getting a scatt to try to figure out why your "bad" shots are "bad". You sound like a self coached shooter. I suggest you rather work on figuring out why your "good" shots were "good"! That sounds minor, but it is a major change in attitude.

I always focus my shooter on the good shot, what the trace looked like, asking what she saw, how it felt.... etc. I do not talk to her about the "bad" shots. Yes, I as the coach look at those bad shots and try figure out what to do to prevent them. I never talk to her in those terms though. I will look at what she did differently (or what I think she did differently) between a good shot and a bad shot. I use that to emphasize certain things, or develop drills designed to eliminate a bad habit or instill a new good habit. But, I NEVER tell her "look at that shot..... the triggering was terrible, you jerked the trigger, now make sure you don't do that on the next shot"! If a triggering issue is what I keep seeing on scatt, I will have her work on drills that are designed to help triggering, rather than tell her that her triggering is bad.

In general, I think that is one of the biggest mistakes shooters and coaches make with scatt. They focus on trying to fix what is WRONG. Whatever you are shooting.... rifle / pistol etc... Google or ask around and find a very good shooter(s) that you can get sample scatt files from. A world class shooter does things for a reason, you can learn much from looking at their scatt traces and learning to make yours look like theirs. If you are already a great shooter..... look at your traces. There are those that make you smile! That one was PERFECT! How many of those do you have? One out of ten? One out of twenty? Focus on those perfect shots, what did you do? How did you do it? Focus on those and slowly that one out of twenty will become one out of ten, then two out of ten........

As for the question of how changes in position affect scatt. After having used both the USB version and the new MX2, I think the MX2 is less affected by changing position. I have always noticed that with the USB version, when my shooter took a break and got back into position that I would have to re-zero the scatt. I am talking air rifle here. The difference might not be much, but it would almost always be noticeable. Now that we are using the MX2, I don't really notice that issue. The MX2 uses a camera that detects the black dot of bull and calculates a center, so I would expect it to be less affected by minor changes in position. Maybe I'll get around to doing some experiments to see if that is really the case.

I think we have gotten way off the OP's topic, but a good discussion anyway!!

One of the things that I do not know if SCATT takes into consideration, is shooter sway. Can either system differentiate between an angular error caused by the shooter rotating the rifle (or pistol) around some fixed point, be that the butt or supporting hand, and a lateral displacement caused by the shooter swaying in position.

This becomes an issue most when training at shorter distances than the actual match is fired at. If the rifle is moved laterally say 2mm then the resultant displacement will be a constant 2mm regardless of the actual distance being used. If however it is an angular error then a displacement of 2mm at a training distance of say 5m for an actual competition distance of 50m would need to generate an error of 20mm.

Unless the sensor system used has some sort of split phase detection system in it (similar to the way most DSLR cameras do AF) that can effectively measure changes in angle as well as position the system will have to be programmed to either treat the error as angular or lateral, but won't actually know.

The above is not actually an issue if you are able to use the system to train at the actual distance used in competition, as then any measured displacement of the target in the sensor will be the absolute error anyway.

Alan

I got Mx-02 for trial use, i think i'm gonna send it back tho. Been playing with it for couple of days. I'm not really happy with it's accuracy. For example, calibration shot 10.8 and several sightings which were all corrected i end up getting scores like 7.9 which in real was 9.5. That just is intolerable.

In the middle of training session it tells me that i shot 7.9 which in pistol match stands for 7 and big mistake. I start to look at the data and wonder what i did wrong? Nothing for real because 9.5 ain't that bad.

No matter how many times i tried to calibrate it i kept getting inaccurate results like that. And also series of ten shots were like 89 in Scatt 94 for real, 5 point difference?!

I also started to think there's something wrong with it, because in calibration mode when i take the sensor calibration shot the screen just disappears and the software go to the sightings mode... so there's no way to see in software where my initial calibration shot landed.

How is the accuracy of Scatt USB version? If i'm dry firing are my shots landing at the right place or might it show me 7.9 even i shot 9.5 in real?

Val wrote:I got Mx-02 for trial use, i think i'm gonna send it back tho. Been playing with it for couple of days. I'm not really happy with it's accuracy. For example, calibration shot 10.8 and several sightings which were all corrected i end up getting scores like 7.9 which in real was 9.5. That just is intolerable. We use scatt with air rifle, have never tried it with AP. I suggest using an offhand stand or other rest that will allow you to do your calibration shot and sighting shots from a rest the approximate height of your normal hold. When my daughter first started shooting on scatt we did this. Her hold was simply not good enough to really know for sure where she was at on the target. The calibration ring is just that... it just gets close, you do not need to know where in the circle it lands. The old USB scatt shows you, the MX2 does not, neither matter. Other than a rest, you need to shoot groups for your sighters, then make the drag and drop adjustment on scatt. Unless you are really good, moving individual shots around will have you chasing your tail.

In the middle of training session it tells me that i shot 7.9 which in pistol match stands for 7 and big mistake. I start to look at the data and wonder what i did wrong? Nothing for real because 9.5 ain't that bad. As has been discussed earlier in this thread, you should be looking at improving your shot process from the scatt trace, not trying too hard to make scatt match up with the real score.

No matter how many times i tried to calibrate it i kept getting inaccurate results like that. And also series of ten shots were like 89 in Scatt 94 for real, 5 point difference?!

I also started to think there's something wrong with it, because in calibration mode when i take the sensor calibration shot the screen just disappears and the software go to the sightings mode... so there's no way to see in software where my initial calibration shot landed.

How is the accuracy of Scatt USB version? If i'm dry firing are my shots landing at the right place or might it show me 7.9 even i shot 9.5 in real?

We have both the USB and MX2. Used the USB for live firing with a Megalink target for almost a year. Just got the MX2 about a month ago. I cannot tell the difference between the two. The only noticeable thing is during the calibration shot, the ring on the USB stays up with a little blue dot in after you shoot, on the MX2 it just automatically goes away.


Val, I'm not trying to convince you one way or the other, I have no connection with scatt. I just see it as a very valuable training tool. I think what you are seeing is one possible issue with using scatt for live fire with an electronic target. There will be differences!!! As I stated in an earlier post, I do not really look at score on the scatt. The score is what shows up on Megalink, that is the score that would COUNT if the session were a real match. What I am looking for on the scatt is the consistency of approach, hold, triggering........ etc. When you start trying to make the scores match up you are asking for frustration.

One other note..... When I see shots that are way off in scatt from the real shot on Megalink; it is usually shots that had a fast muzzle movement at the point of triggering. The scatt tends to "toss" those shots further out than they really go in the real world. Since there is much more muzzle movement in AP than AR, I expect this issued is much more noticeable in AP. One way to experiment with this is to lower the "F" number in scatt settings to see if you can get the shots a little closer. More importantly, just don't worry too much about making them match up!

rmarsh, thanks for the fast and good reply!

If i change the idea of training philosophy and i use scatt only for dry fire training and nothing else. When i'll do my calibration shots as a dry fire shots there's no way to make any corrections to the readings and it might not show right at all? How to compensate that?

Another point, if your shot lands somewhere else on scatt than in real, who says the trail on scatt is your real trail?

One thing to bear in mind with scatt is that it can be very sensitive to lighting. So you may need to try different sources of light to get the optimum response from the system. I have always used halogen spotlights both on target and for ambient, but mine is the old serial interface version. If you try a few different lighting options and it is still poor then agree that it doesn't sound particularly useful.

Rob.

Val wrote:rmarsh, thanks for the fast and good reply!

If i change the idea of training philosophy and i use scatt only for dry fire training and nothing else. When i'll do my calibration shots as a dry fire shots there's no way to make any corrections to the readings and it might not show right at all? How to compensate that?

Another point, if your shot lands somewhere else on scatt than in real, who says the trail on scatt is your real trail?

I think scatt was originally designed and intended to be a dry fire training system rather than a dual dry / live fire system.

The only thing I can tell you in answer to your questions is that scatt is intended to show the movement of the gun during your shot process. That is the "trace". As far as I can tell and believe..... the "trace" is a very accurate representation of the movement of the gun barrel. The exact spot the shot lands is a "calculated" projection of a real projectile. Since it is calculated it is subject to error.

Use the scatt either in with or without live fire to be able to see your SHOT PROCESS not your score!

Rob is correct that in some cases lighting seems to have an effect on the scatt. I have found the MX2 to be a little more sensitive to low levels of lighting than the USB version.

Yeah, it seems so. I have doubled the lux amount in the target and I'm getting better accuracy now. If i round up every .6-.9 i get similar results in scatt and paper.

Another good thing is that otherwise uttermostly boring dry firing training is not so boring anymore :)

One last comment about matching up scatt & live fire. This morning my daughter shot a 10 shot air rifle string of 104.8. The scatt score was 104.9. Pretty close!! It doesn't always work out that close but it does happen!