Electronic Target Year-end Update

Electronic Target Update – December 31st



Well, the High Power Elves were busy over Christmas; cutting, screwing, clamping, gluing, stapling, measuring twice and trying to cut just once – and we now have four electronic target frames completed.  We’re halfway there! 

Mike Grannis and I plan to go to the range on either January 2nd or 3rd to calibrate the three new targets.  (We will decide which day based on weather and just what kind of a mood we are in …).  If you want to come out to help, observe, kibitz, make helpful suggestions or take a few shots – welcome!  Gripers and complainers – just stay home.

  Harrumph!  I will post a High Power email with details as we get closer. 

At the January Winter Offhand Match, I plan to have the usual 12 targets as well as the addition of targets E1 through E4 – these four targets.  You are invited to use them in the January match if you wish.  This will give me some experience in managing several shooters at a time.  If we run into uh-oh’s or aw-pooh’s, I will let the brave volunteers reshoot on manual paper targets. 

I invite folks to bring some extra ammunition.  Then, after the formal match is over, I want to do some more shooting on the electronic targets.  I want to run some rapid fire strings and I want to simulate things we see in a match like misses and crossfires.  We will shoot until everyone who wants a turn gets a chance – just stay and help me tear down.


I am excited about using these in our summer matches.  They promise to make matches run faster and …  NO PIT DUTY!

Winter Offhand Match- First E-Target Match

Well, for two months in a row we have had a good weather day for a Winter Offhand Match.  Saturday December 14 was just about as mild a day as we could ask for in mid-December; about 35-degrees, no wind and an overcast but bright morning.  We had eleven shooters show up – and at least two more sent notice that family obligations had to take precedence this month.  (That’s one reason we only count three of the five matches for season aggregate!)

By 8:50 we had a full line and no one else in the parking lot, so we started a bit early.   By 10:15 we were done and the day’s standings were as follows:

First:                Mike King        382-6X

Second:           Randy Jahn     372-2X

Third:              Mark Walters 369-7X

This was also the first time we have used our Silver Mountain Targets E-target in a match setting.  I had a high level of confidence that the target would work well, but a lot less confidence in how I would be able to run the system when someone’s score mattered.  I asked Mike King if he would be my guinea pig for the debut – since he is the State High Power Champion, I felt confident that he would do well in this first test.

Mike did very well, as the scores above show.  And, I was pleasantly surprised when the practice in my basement in how to handle things worked out nicely on the range.  In addition to just watching shot placement on the target, folks looked at how the system shows shot velocities and how it calculates the standard deviation of velocity across the string.  Once Mike finished his two strings and saved his target on his phone, the rest of us played with the target for a bit and I practiced deleting cross-fire shots and inserting misses into a shooter’s string.

When we went down-range and compared the group on the tablet to the actual group on the target, if there was any difference in the two it was hard to see and by anyone’s judgment it was much less than one-half of a bullet diameter.

Here is the actual target face at the end of the day.  Only one of the shots out in the white is Mike’s, his second sighter was out at 8-o’clock.  The others and the .308 holes were added in our after match activities.  If all goes well, I want to try to have at least three e-targets for the January match so I can get some experience in managing several shooters at a time.

Actual Target Face

It was good to see some familiar faces we haven’t seen for a while. Russ Bell came out to shoot today, he’s been buried with work and stuff for the last couple of years. Marie and Dennie Shook came out to visit and kibitz – it was good to see them as well.

Our next match will be January 11 at 9:00 AM. Come out and shoot – or just come out and visit for a while.