Megalink target for NSRA 25 yard.

rrpc

Just looking for some input here from those who've shot on the 25 yard target: paper and Megalink.

As we all know, the rule for tie-breaking has been changed from countback to number of centre tens. This has presented a bit of a problem with the NSRA 25 yard target.

This target is an outward gauging target. In other words if you break the line between two scoring rings you get the lower score. However, the centre ten is actually a 1mm dot in the centre which must be obliterated by the round in order to score. Effectively then this is an inward gauging ring.

Megalink can't implement both an inward and outward gauging system on the one target. I've proposed a solution to Megalink which they say they can implement and I'd just like your views as to whether this is OK or not.

In order to score a centre ten, the centre point of impact of the bullet must be within 2.3mm of the centre of the target. Looking at this as an outward gauging score, the shot is not a centre ten if the outer circumference of the bullet hole crosses an imaginary line 5.1mm from the centre of the target.

With me so far?

What in essence this means is that we will have another scoring ring within the ten ring of diameter 10.2mm.

Will that cause problems for people? and of course are my calculations correct?

I figure that a 10X on this target would be a high 10.3 (about .1mm from a 10.4)

Sparks

To be honest rrpc, I hadn't thought that ISSF rules should apply to NSRA targets - ISSF don't shoot 25 (or 100) yards, so I've always thought the crowd to look to ought to be the NSRA themselves (if only to harmonise rules with the large number of 25yd shooters over there and up in NI).

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

To be honest rrpc, I hadn't thought that ISSF rules should apply to NSRA targets - ISSF don't shoot 25 (or 100) yards, so I've always thought the crowd to look to ought to be the NSRA themselves (if only to harmonise rules with the large number of 25yd shooters over there and up in NI).

Not when you're shooting an ISSF competition (and I mean that in the software sense). The issue is that the software doesn't do countback anymore for ties, so rather than try and cobble together a new set of courses of fire in the software, we should keep going with the ISSF one. The NSRA target and rules actually does have a centre ten (or X ring), the issue is that it's an inward gauging X on an outward gauging target.

Either way, it was missing from the software and now that there's a rule (that I reckon is a lot fairer than countback anyway) which uses the centre ten to break ties, we should be doing it.

Sandy22

rrpc wrote: »

Not when you're shooting an ISSF competition (and I mean that in the software sense). .

In that case why not go the whole hog and virtualise it as a 50m competition. I.e. show a 50m target on the monitor and have the software scale the rings, poi and bullet hole size to suit. (I presume the sensors are determining the centre of the bullet hole(?))

rrpc wrote: »

Either way, it was missing from the software and now that there's a rule (that I reckon is a lot fairer than countback anyway) which uses the centre ten to break ties, we should be doing it.

Yes, you should use the same tie-breaking rules as the authority whose rules you are using. Although the fairest tie-break of all would be to use the decimal score.

It wasn't me!

Sandy22 wrote: »

In that case why not go the whole hog and virtualise it as a 50m competition. I.e. show a 50m target on the monitor and have the software scale the rings, poi and bullet hole size to suit. (I presume the sensors are determining the centre of the bullet hole(?))

Is the software capable of doing that? Because that would be excellent.

Sparks

Sandy22 wrote: »

Yes, you should use the same tie-breaking rules as the authority whose rules you are using. Although the fairest tie-break of all would be to use the decimal score.

That does raise the point that while you strive to have the fairest solution all the time, what's very easy to implement on electronic targets can be next to impossible to do (or just involve an excessive amount of work) on paper targets - and RRPC is not the only club shooting 25yd in the ROI (DURC shoots it too) and ignoring the enormous amount of 25yd clubs in the UK (including in N.I.) and all their postal matches would be ignoring the one of the most practical and extensive sources of competition anyone shooting smallbore currently has access to.

The point is - if you shoot NSRA rules on 25yd NSRA targets throughout the UK and ROI (and it's not really shot anywhere else that I know of, even the targets are printed by the NSRA), and then one set of NTSA rules in Rathdrum on the megalinks and another set of NTSA rules in DURC on paper targets, then it's a bit awkward - and the idea of scoring inner tens on the paper targets for DURC matches doesn't fill me with a warm fuzzy glow because it's a lot of work for a club match. Countback may not be as fair as the decimal score for tiebreaks, or even as fair as the inner tens rule, but it's faster, easier to organise, and doesn't afford any specific individual an advantage in the match. Yes, those who finish better than they started will fare better than those who started better than they finished, but that never caused riots over the last twenty or thirty years, did it?

But then, I'm a fan of the idea of shooting NSRA rules on the 50m 3-card system and ISSF rules on the 50m single-bull targets as well, so I might be awkward there (but if we did do that, you know we'd have avoided at least one embarressing argument in the last decade or so when NI shooters who train under NSRA rules fell foul of the ISSF rules when shooting down here on NSRA targets).

rrpc

Sandy22 wrote: »

In that case why not go the whole hog and virtualise it as a 50m competition. I.e. show a 50m target on the monitor and have the software scale the rings, poi and bullet hole size to suit. (I presume the sensors are determining the centre of the bullet hole(?))

An excellent idea Sandy and one I hadn't thought of. However, I think it could just be an academic exercise when you consider all the other people using the paper targets. An exercise I'd like to try sometime though as I've always felt that the 25 yard target was harder than the 50m ISSF proportionally speaking.

Yes, you should use the same tie-breaking rules as the authority whose rules you are using. Although the fairest tie-break of all would be to use the decimal score.

And the reason that isn't implemented under ISSF rules is because Sius Ascor isn't capable of recording decimal scores in qualification rounds.

IRLConor

Sparks wrote:

DURC matches

Say what now?

There are no matches held in DURC. People compete in postal competitions there but they're typically NSRA rules. Rathdrum is really the only place in Ireland that can run a 25yd competition (the 2 lanes in DURC make it horrendously impractical) so as long as they're consistent from match to match there isn't really a problem what system they pick.

The 50m scaled down to 25yd sounds good to me.

rrpc

I did a little exercise last night; took 60 shots on the NSRA target and then changed the target to the ISSF 50m target scaled to 23m.

Scores were exactly the same. I didn't check every one of the 60, but at least half of them tallied and the total was the same.

So to all intents and purposes, they're the same target. I also checked the centre 10's and although it wasn't definite, the centre ten seemed to be around the 10.3 mark (some 10.3's were x's others weren't).

However, I don't think we'll change. Everyone is used to the NSRA one and it's used in postals etc. If there's no difference in the scores, there's no point in changing the target just for the sake of it. It's just one of those things that you could forget to set up properly in a competition and end up with everyone shooting a 50m target at 25 yards :eek: