The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - First impression of Shotmarker Electronic Target

BobCat45 · September 17, 2021, 10:35 AM

Thank you hounddawg for the clarification!

We are using the Shotmarker in competition and there is no fighting it. I am very conservative - some say pathologically so - and would rather pull targets, but am going with the flow since there is no club in my area that is scoring the old way. I was even miffed when they changed which hole you put the score value disk in (scoring in the pits), because it was not how I learned it originally.

The Shotmarker did cut the time for the matches significantly, but again that's not counting setup and takedown, and calibration. For XC the 300 prone rapid is pasted over the 200 standing/sitting, and I do not see how they can maintain calibration pasting a new target like that. The 600 is a separate frame, they will probably use the 600-MR targets, which are calibrated for 600 - but when they paste on a new face, the calibration can change if placement is not exact. That part is beyond me.

Our club raised the match fees from $15 to $40 for matches using the Shotmarkers, to help pay them off. I do not think $10k per target would be within our reach, unless we cut the number of active targets dramatically, making everyone sit around and eradicating the time savings the electronic targets bring.

There was a thread on another forum about setting up a drone camera near the target and having it broadcast the image to a tablet of phone by the shooter. To me, this would be a great thing for practice / testing, but I haven't done anything about it - if it had bearings and gears I'd be all over it like a cheap suit, but electrons and radio waves are over my head right now. But they say that learning new things keeps one young, so I need to do some reading...
Your point about trusting the instrument for private practice is well made.

September 17, 2021, 10:35 AM	#4
BobCat45 Senior Member Join Date: May 18, 2004 Location: East Bernard, TX Posts: 523	Thank you hounddawg for the clarification! We are using the Shotmarker in competition and there is no fighting it. I am very conservative - some say pathologically so - and would rather pull targets, but am going with the flow since there is no club in my area that is scoring the old way. I was even miffed when they changed which hole you put the score value disk in (scoring in the pits), because it was not how I learned it originally. The Shotmarker did cut the time for the matches significantly, but again that's not counting setup and takedown, and calibration. For XC the 300 prone rapid is pasted over the 200 standing/sitting, and I do not see how they can maintain calibration pasting a new target like that. The 600 is a separate frame, they will probably use the 600-MR targets, which are calibrated for 600 - but when they paste on a new face, the calibration can change if placement is not exact. That part is beyond me. Our club raised the match fees from $15 to $40 for matches using the Shotmarkers, to help pay them off. I do not think $10k per target would be within our reach, unless we cut the number of active targets dramatically, making everyone sit around and eradicating the time savings the electronic targets bring. There was a thread on another forum about setting up a drone camera near the target and having it broadcast the image to a tablet of phone by the shooter. To me, this would be a great thing for practice / testing, but I haven't done anything about it - if it had bearings and gears I'd be all over it like a cheap suit, but electrons and radio waves are over my head right now. But they say that learning new things keeps one young, so I need to do some reading... Your point about trusting the instrument for private practice is well made.