The electronic targets at Talladega CMP range

First topic message reminder :

Yesterday the CMP held a rimfire and pistol EIC match at the new range in Talladega.  Dane Hogle and myself made some inquiries about the match.  Specifically how the electronic targets worked.

It has come to our attention that the targets were scored using the center of the bullet hole, not the edge as prescribed by the rules.  This information came from an email written by COO Mark Johnson to Dane.

This is a clear rule violation.

5.10.1 Scoring Individual Shots
All shots shall be scored according to the highest value scoring ring that is hit or touched by that shot. A shot hole where the outside edge of the shot hole touches or is tangent to the outside edge of the scoring ring must be scored the higher value.

Scoring targets using the center point of the bullet hole will cost shooters match points and even worse, cost them precious leg points.

Electronic targets may very well be the future of our sport. The problem that many of us have is the way certain people at the CMP and NRA are trying to implement them before they are truly ready to be used.

Clarence, Thanks.

My wife reminded me this is why I retired. I was a Purchasing Manager responsible for $400MM. Software was one of the categories and time and time again we spent money because we had to have new software with the new capabilities of X and they usually found out in order to get X they would have to change or add a new business process. So what did they do - they tried to work around it only making things more difficult and in the end not fully utilizing the systems capabilities - this drove me NUTS. Obviously it still does!!!

- Dave

It would be real easy to lose 2 points out of 30 rounds if they didn't use the correct program. The 3 shooters that shot 248s in the LEG match have a legitimate complaint. If they have minimum scores to get LEG points that should also be addressed in any new E-target new rules. I would bet big bucks those 3 shooters would have shot 250+ on paper targets. How many shots does the average shooter put just outside the line but almost 1/2 the hole is over the line? A lot of them.

Len


There is a sticky in fundamentals " show us your clean targets" Joe, Don and David posted clean targets that would have scored 98, 99, and 99 with this MM setup.

I think if they used the overlay properly, the issue might be a 9mm shooter getting credit for a .45 bullet, which might inflate the scores.

Having spent the past 30 years supporting hardware and software, it is not unusual for an end user to misunderstand how a new system works. I hope that is the problem with the CMP responses that we have seen.

I Feel this "E" target change is nothing more that a way to increase the bank account of a few individuals. There will have to be an "Approved System" Adam mentioned to me as to what they have to go thru to run an International Match at Benning. It cost a small fortune to get the targets calibrated before the match and that same team of "experts" must be there during the entire match! There is only one "approved" system for International shooting!
 I hope as Jerry said the "E" target system has been supposedly scrapped! Would be nice not having to change targets, bother scoring or putting up with break downs but I'll bet a rebuild of the entire target turning system at Perry will not cost any where near replacing them with "E" targets!

Frank

Well I got an acknowledgement and the question on bullet diameter will be clarified with KTS.
http://forums.thecmp.org/showpost.php?p=1310382&postcount=106

It sounds like the CMP is following up on everything and just maybe there needs to be a little more training done.

- Dave

For what its worth here are the results. Not everyone shot bad.

https://ct.thecmp.org/app/v1/index.php?do=match&task=edit&match=12214&tab=results

Interesting.  One non-distinguished score above the 250 threshold out of 40+ competitors.  Something must have held the scores down; weather? or what?

Dr.Don wrote:Interesting.  One non-distinguished score above the 250 threshold out of 40+ competitors.  Something must have held the scores down; weather? or what?

It wasn't the weather,  it was beautiful. I was on range 1 with my rifle,  though.
Mike B

jmdavis wrote:Guys,

My opinion is that they know there was a problem, but they don't want to invalidate the results. Chances are some silent correction will take place before the next match. I hope so anyway. Just changing the rules, is not a means of problem solving. It is a means of CYA.

The overlays mentioned on the CMP board are one for 22 and one for 45. If that is true, 9's got a bonus. On the rifle side, it may be that the .30 cal guys got shafted. I wish that I could have been there to shoot and see for myself.

My only experience with e-targets is for air gun. But I'm pretty sure that the system took bullet diameter as well as center impact into consideration.

I may be out of date on this .... but I distinctly recall when the shooting of AR's in XTC competition was a new thing (late 80's) that scoring was changed and new scoring plugs were created so that .22 holes were scored at .30 cal. diameter. The thought at the time was that the .22 shooter should not have to shoot closer to the center to achieve the same score. They were trying to encourage more shooters and thought that 'leveling the field' for the smaller bullet diameter would bring in those who had no .30 cal. experience.
The new plugs had a .22 shank so that holes were not 'moved' by inserting a .30 plug into a small hole but when looked through they had a 'mask' that showed where the edge would be had the bullet been .30.

Not saying that I agreed with the whole idea but did the rule return to scoring by outside edge regardless of caliber in my absence?

Bruce

Dr.Don wrote:Interesting.  One non-distinguished score above the 250 threshold out of 40+ competitors.  Something must have held the scores down; weather? or what?

I think it was that the shooters were not ready to shoot 250 scores. There were 20 distinguished shooters on the line. 15 of them broke the 250 line and 4 of the 20 got very close. This match was a good test of the 250 rule. There may have been some points lost because of the programing but the top shooters still made 250. Did you notice it took a 281 to get a 22 LEG?

Len

OldMaster65 wrote:

Dr.Don wrote:Interesting.  One non-distinguished score above the 250 threshold out of 40+ competitors.  Something must have held the scores down; weather? or what?

... Did you notice it took a 281 to get a 22 LEG?

Len

Our regional too - a 281-8X, followed up by a 280 & a 276

- Dave

It has been clarified the Service Pistol EIC match was score based on the .45 mask, so the 9MM shooters got an advantage.

All future matches each shooters caliber will be entered!

http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?p=1310850#post1310850

- Dave

Text in the link
"For clarification on the issue of how shots are scored, Mark Johnson is correct; the shots are calculated from the center hit. The scores have an added calculation, which has been clarified for us by KTS. The following explanation came from Kongsberg Target System:

“In our system, as in most other electronic target systems, we calculate the centre point of the hit, this can be read as the shot coordinate on the monitor. But, when we calculate the shot VALUE a gauge is added in the calculation. For the match on Sunday, 5.56 mm gauge were used for the .22 cal pistol program (in the morning), and 11.43mm were used for the big bore program (in the afternoon).”

The EIC Pistol match held in Talladega on Sunday June 7th used a gauge of 11.43mm, this is the gauge of .45 caliber.

KTS is currently working on a system that will allow each shooter to tell us the caliber of pistol they are shooting, and have it calculate accordingly. However, during the match on Sunday this was not an option in the software, so all shots were scored with a .45 gauge.

-GitM"

One should expect the .22 scores to be higher since no one is distinguished and you have a number of High Masters and Masters shooting for the badge.  And that's ok. 

I still see the whole cut score as an experiment. We know that it has had a negative affect on several matches like PR, the Atlantic Navy, and now Talledega, where the top 10% were not the top 10%. They were more like the top 2%. We will have to see what if anything CMP decides to do about it. I imagine if they see a falling off of attendance they will adjust. Perhaps the same goes for lower numbers of distinguished as well. More people are shooting and that in itself is a good thing. 

Right now there seems to be three groups involved in this. One group is mad that you don't have to shoot hardball. One group is unhappy that there is a cut score. The third group is waiting to see what happens. Maybe there is another group that is happy with all of the changes, but I haven't met any of them. 

I'm in the third group. My 45 scores are not even at the 220 level with the wad gun, so I wouldn't be competitive regardless of cut, right now. My best 22 score is 270 in the NMC of a 900 with irons and 284 with dot. I'm working on the irons.

That is good news from CMP. They will fix the problems.  Some 9mm shooters had a bonus, but no one should have lost points.