Eagle Eye Scoring Gauge - usage questions.....

[FireHawk]

I bought an eagle eye and it says 5.61 mm for .22.

I am assuming that's the inner circle - used as an inward gauge.

What is the size and usage for the outer circle? I am assuming it's an outward gauge at a specific size...

Also, is there a web page showing best way to use it, to find multiple hits, etc....

thnx,

[Tim S]

The visual gauges that I'm familiar with have an inner ring the size of the shot hole, and an outer ring that is the bullet diameter. Remember the hole in the paper is smaller than the bullet. However yours may work differently.

[BigAl]

What Tim said is the correct mode of operation when using the Eagle Eye scoring gauge. The separate smaller ring is for .177 Air Rifle/Pistol, as the wadcutter pellets usually used cut a "caliber" sized hole. These are usually used in situations where you would use a caliber sized plug gauge. I have not seen an Eagle Eye gauge that featured oversize rings for specialist scoring situations.

Alan

[Pat McCoy]

The info sheet that came with mine (a long time ago) said the concentric circles were 4.5mm (for airgun), and 5.6mm (for smallbore). There is another small circle set off to the side, measuring 5.0mm, for those European shooters using the 5mm cartridge.

[Texdance]

The visual gauges that I'm familiar with have an inner ring the size of the shot hole, and an outer ring that is the bullet diameter. Remember the hole in the paper is smaller than the bullet. However yours may work differently.

AFAIK, the Eagle Eye is not 'legal' for official scoring. The legal scoring devices are the Outer and Inner Plugs, whichever are stated in the rules for the competition by NRA, 4H, whatever.

However, for informal use, the Eagle Eye makes scoring accurate, fast and easy, but the user must look straight down and have a critical eye (and good eyesight at that distance - I have to remove my bifocals) to accurately set the device with the inner ring at the center of the shot hole and the outer ring at the average outer edge of the shot hole. If the scorer has poor vision and cannot focus correctly on the Eagle Eye scoring rings, they should not be the scorer.

Whenever the outer Eagle Eye engraved ring breaks into a score ring, or is flush with the edge a score ring, the shot is scored to the highest ring, even if just on the edge. If all of the shot hole is outside the higher target ring, and does not touch the edge of the higher number ring, the lower score occurs.

Is some cases, a bullet will 'keyhole', in which case scoring becomes a matter of judgment. It is best to use the edge that scores highest as the scoring edge, IMHO, unless some other rule pertains. Note: Keyhole shots happen when the bullet enters the target paper on its side rather than its nose, making an odd hourglass or keyhole shaped hole instead of a round hole.

Usually, two shots overlapping each other can be correctly scored with the Eagle Eye. Only in the unusual case where two bullets share the exact same hole will it be difficult to score. It is probably more likely that a shot flew completely off the target rather than sharing the exact same hole as another shot.

As stated above, the two centered engravings are to be used for .22 shots, and the outside ring is for .177. The Eagle Eye is best used for .22; unless they make one with the two center engravings set for .177, it is more difficult to get an accurate reading without the dual engravings.

Please note, I am a former coach but not a trained or certified scorer. I have trained myself by reading whatever can be found on the subject. I have used Inside, Outside, and Eagle Eye devices extensively over a period of two years with a student group, and four years with my own targets.

[BigAl]

Is some cases, a bullet will 'keyhole', in which case scoring becomes a matter of judgment. It is best to use the edge that scores highest as the scoring edge, IMHO, unless some other rule pertains. Note: Keyhole shots happen when the bullet enters the target paper on its side rather than its nose, making an odd hourglass or keyhole shaped hole instead of a round hole.

Usually, two shots overlapping each other can be correctly scored with the Eagle Eye. Only in the unusual case where two bullets share the exact same hole will it be difficult to score. It is probably more likely that a shot flew completely off the target rather than sharing the exact same hole as another shot.

This being a rifle board, I sincerely believe that what you have posted here is utterly wrong. In the best part of 35 years of competitive smallbore shooting I can say that when shooting at or under 100 yards I have never seen a .22 caliber bullet "keyhole" due to being under stabilised, well not when fired from a correctly functioning firearm. Actually the only time I have seen this happen was with some .303 handloads, downloaded to 1700 fps (which fortunately lowered pressures)where the idiot used 146 grain .308" bullets instead of the correct 170 grain .311" bullets. These would go through the target side on at only 20 yards.

Also after this length of time as a shooter I would expect that any reasonably competent club level shooter should be regularly (50% of the time) shooting five shot 50m groups where all of the shot holes overlap to some extent. I have also seen many hundreds of targets where without the benefit of a backer it is virtually impossible to tell which of the four apparent shot holes has the fifth shot concurrent with it. Unless it is to be claimed that all of these shooters have cheated by deliberately firing a shot off of the target, something I really doubt, then bullets do regularly go through pretty much the same hole. Usually the only way to tell is to drop a plug gauge in all of the shot holes where there can be some ambiguity. usually the plug will drop into the double hole slightly easier than it will drop into a single hole. The only way to be really sure though is by using a backer, as the second bullet will not go quite so close when it gets to the backer, as even punching a fresh hole to using an existing one will have a significant enough effect on the bullets flight that you can see it at the backer. Although I have not done the new NSRA scorers qualification, I have on the past scored for local and national postal leagues, as well as at open matches.

The Eagle Eye is useful for shooters to use to check match cards in postal competitions before sending off to the scorer, which is a situation where using a plug is not allowed. Remember though even with official plug gauges there is a degree of tolerance allowed, and you will not always get the same result if you were to use a different plug. I believe that it is important that when scoring a match it is important that the same gauge is used to plug all targets, or at least all targets shot in the same stage/distance. I have experienced a situation where two different gauges did in fact result in different scores for shooters. I was part of the range committee that had to adjudicate on the matter.

Alan

[Raymac]

Here are the specifications for the Eagle Eye scoring gauges as well as a description of how they are used.

Ray