TargetTalk

redschietti wrote:Rob,

If you expell air when you "dry fire" is that live or dry? I appreciate the thought, just trying to clarify

I would suggest it's neither really - but closer to dry as no pellet shot therefore no shot/score. I don't know anyone that trains in that way as the gun still sounds and behaves differently to firing a pellet so just dry fire 'normally'.

I live fire my AP and dry fire everything else (bullseye & free pistols, service & match rifles). I don't know if my LP10E would trip the SCATT sensor in dry fire mode, but I haven't tried either. I know you can adjust the sensitivity but I haven't messed with it.

I'm guessing the LP10e would fire it because the LP10 does as does the morini 162e and a couple of other electronic trigger pistols I've used scatt with. I've never had to mess with my sensor but we have with others to de-sensitize them - with smallbore rifle they can get triggered by opening and closing the bolt.

Rob.

I bit the bullet and bought the SCATT. Thanks all for the discussion.

honeybadger wrote:I bit the bullet and bought the SCATT. Thanks all for the discussion.

Congrats, let us know how it goes.

Limator,

I agree with you to some extent:

I do have a Scatt, and if you are not or do not have a coach buy a beer instead.

as I believe that there are more SCATTs gathering dust in cupboards than there are in use.

However I cannot agree fully. There is a lot to learn about SCATT to get value from it and if you are prepared to put the effort in you can get the results out. There is no doubt that having someone familiar with SCATT (or Noptel or RIKA) who can lead you through the system and its use will help immensely, but you can do it on your own.

What is important is that SCATT suits your approach to training and that your initial expectations of the system are realistic. If you treat it initially as dry firing with feedback you will be OK. Once you get into it you can then explore its other possibilities.

SCATT is a great tool but as a training philosophy it doesn't suit everyone, although with application; and if possible the help of a coach\buddy\partner; most shooters will gain something from it.

Rutty

Rutty wrote:Limator,

I agree with you to some extent:

I do have a Scatt, and if you are not or do not have a coach buy a beer instead.

as I believe that there are more SCATTs gathering dust in cupboards than there are in use.

However I cannot agree fully. There is a lot to learn about SCATT to get value from it and if you are prepared to put the effort in you can get the results out. There is no doubt that having someone familiar with SCATT (or Noptel or RIKA) who can lead you through the system and its use will help immensely, but you can do it on your own.

What is important is that SCATT suits your approach to training and that your initial expectations of the system are realistic. If you treat it initially as dry firing with feedback you will be OK. Once you get into it you can then explore its other possibilities.

SCATT is a great tool but as a training philosophy it doesn't suit everyone, although with application; and if possible the help of a coach\buddy\partner; most shooters will gain something from it.

Rutty

Well said Rutty

One thing that I would add is making certain you add your session insights to your performance journal and make a reference to the saved file(s). I later go in and add those insights to the comment area in the saved file(s). My journal is on my computer so it is an easy transfer. Seems like double work but I want all my insights in my journal because I develop my training plan from it and I want them in the SCATT file so when I pull it up I can read what my insights were for that session.

So I've had it exactly one week now, and put in 4 or 5 session with it. Mixed feelings. First the negatives:

The software is more limited than I had expected (means, but no variance? No ability to run more sophisticated statistics, no ability to filter/generate stats on subsets of the data,...), and the data export example scripts don't work for me (the ones you run with cscript from a command prompt; they complain that scatt professional was not installed properly). I cannot get my text out of the comment field. You know, on the "info" page? I wrote a several paragraph summary of my last training session there, while paging through the shots. This felt like a really great way to keep my records. But I could not "copy" this text, either using Ctr-C or from the file menu. So I had to re-type it into my training log-- major hassle and completely unnecessary from the Scatt programming team.

More disappointed that the sensor didn't work well with my python (I also bought the .35 barrel insert). It would sometimes register the cocking action as a "hit", and sometimes it would not register the hammer falling! I only spent a few minutes with this before returning to AP, but I was hoping to use the Scatt to train other pistols, and wish it liked revolvers more-- this could be just a matter of adjusting the mic sensitivity, which I could test more thoroughly.

Given these negatives, I do think the system is overpriced, and I have some resentment towards the manufacturer for this. None of the missing features are that difficult to add. To be fair, I haven't taken up these issues with them yet. So perhaps I missed something.

On the plus side, I do see that Scatt gives more detailed records than what I can judge by eye. Yes, I do try to be honest with myself when eyeballing things, and after all, the target doesn't lie (so I can only fool myself so much), but Scatt records more and with finer resolution. I do see it helping me.

It also makes it easier for me to train indoors. I don't like using real pellets inside, partly because my wife would not at all be happy (even though I follow all safety rules to excess, but she is not necessarily rational on these matters) and partly because, well, misfires are possible, and lead dust, and blah blah.

None of these worries with Scatt. I can also print an appropriately sized target, as I don't have 10 meters indoors.

Still figuring out how to get the most out of it. At the moment I am working on getting a consistent aiming path and improving my hold (% time in ten). Scatt also showed me that I shoot much better when i slow down.

And it is gratifying when I drill ten shots in a row into the ten ring (average 10.5, actually). Never done that before! the "proof" is on my training log: http://yotg.net/2013/10/03/training-3-o ... erfect-10/ (proof is in quotes because one can fake computer files). That round felt really really good.

i'll probably post some specific questions to the forum later, if I want help interpreting the Scatt numbers, knowing what they indicate I need to train and what some specific drills would be for those areas. Until then, like I said, it is the aiming path and consistency of hold.

Limator wrote:I do have a Scatt, and if you are not or do not have a coach buy a beer instead.

I will certainly take your advice! Thanks for the suggestion!

I have used my Scatt on every gun I own, various air pistols, sport pistols, center fire pistols, etc, pistols with and without electronic triggers. Even the quiet click of the Pardini electronic trigger is detected by the Scatt's piezo. It doesn't use a microphone, it uses a piezo, which is much more reliable than a microphone for measuring vibration. So make sure your sensor is connected firmly to the barrel or frame. And play with the piezo sensitivity slider. It'll work.

Yes, data export is a bit of a pain. The included scripts do work, just takes some fiddling. It all depends on your level of programming expertise. Not sure about the CTRL+C issue for getting the comments out, guess I never tried that before.

As for price, I know a friend who made something that functions similarly to the Scatt himself, so it certainly is possible to make it instead of buying it.. The question at the end of the day is, do you want to be a developer, or do you want to train shooting. If you are serious, and it sounds like you are, you won't find yourself with too much spare time to do both. Especially if you have a day job, and a family.

About what the Scatt gives you, it gives you stuff that even experienced coaches may not see. Once your hold and delivery gets to a certain level, it becomes increasingly difficult to eyeball diagnose issues. That's where the Scatt comes in. And while you can have a lucky shot in live fire (by throwing a shot into the 10), there are no lucky 10s via the Scatt. There is no cheating it, if you fling a shot into the 10, it'll be obvious to anyone who looks at the data recorded.

As for metrics that are important, I would say in descending order of importance:
- aim breach gap
- percentage holding in the 10
- trace length

Aim breach is a great indicator of quality of trigger release. Percentage holding in the 10 gives your quality of aim. And trace length is quality of hold in general.

-trinity

trinity wrote: ,

As for metrics that are important, I would say in descending order of importance:
- aim breach gap
- percentage holding in the 10
- trace length

Aim breach is a great indicator of quality of trigger release. Percentage holding in the 10 gives your quality of aim. And trace length is quality of hold in general.

-trinity

I agree totally with trinity on this, these are in my opinion the most important things to watch. I will add one more that I feel is important. "shot time"

As for the value of a scatt? I expect the person who speculated there are a lot scatt systems sitting in a box gathering dust is correct. However, in my opinion our scatt is one of the most valuable training tools we have.

No, I am not an experienced coach. I learned to use ours by trial and error and there are probably things I still don't know about it that I would use if I did. My daughter trains on the scatt every day, 5 to 6 days a week. As her day to day coach I would feel blind without it. Part of the time she trains scatt only, then she also shoots live through the scatt in conjunction with a megalink target. When we started doing live fire through the scatt is when I learned that just watching scores / groups do not even begin to tell the entire story!

If all you are going to do is use it as an electronic target, I guess you could justify it in the long term by saving ammo..... but that is going to take a while unless you are training with Tenex.

I have developed many drills to work on specific parts of the shot process and use the scatt to monitor and focus on improving things one step at a time. If you want to get good use out of your scatt..... Get on the web, and find scatt traces from world class shooters in whatever discipline you are shooting. Then go to work figuring out how to make yours look like theirs. Then when you get there, figure out how to make yours look even better!!

If you are just going watch the pretty lines and say, "I don't know what this means" take the other posters advice and go buy a beer instead. ;-) If you are willing to take the time and effort to figure out how to use it, it will become a very important part of your training process.

rmarsh wrote:I have developed many drills to work on specific parts of the shot process and use the scatt to monitor and focus on improving things one step at a time.

I think I am not the only person who would appreciate your sharing some of these drills. Would you be willing to post them to the forum?

honeybadger wrote:

rmarsh wrote:I have developed many drills to work on specific parts of the shot process and use the scatt to monitor and focus on improving things one step at a time.

I think I am not the only person who would appreciate your sharing some of these drills. Would you be willing to post them to the forum?

LOL! Honeybadger, (love your screen name by the way!) 10 seconds after I posted my comments, I thought, "how long will it be until someone wants me to post my drills"!

The really short answer is "no". I have tried to write down some of the drills we do and found that while it is easy to talk to someone and describe them, it is a much different task to write them down. By the time I describe the background of why you want to accomplish a certain thing, what to look for on the scatt, how to do the drill.... etc. A simple drill turns into several pages.

However, I am not unwilling to help. I am not one to "protect" my information or knowledge. If someone wants to know how we train, who builds our guns, etc., I am always happy to help with any knowledge I have or describe things that have worked for us. So, the approach I will take is more the "teach a man to fish" rather than "give him a fish". I will describe the process I go through to develop a "drill" and hopefully from that you will be able to develop your own.

To do this I will take one simple example and expand on it. You can then use that to build other specific drills. The example I will use is shot approach. (We are rifle shooters so this is rifle specific. I don't how much this applies to pistol shooters). Also keep in mind I am dealing with general / common techniques. Not everyone does it this way.....

Shot Approach: In air rifle the approach to the target (bull) should be to come down at 12:00. On scatt this should be shown as a straight line (ideal) at exactly 12:00 and take 2 to 4 seconds. The approach should then stop at the center of the "10" to no more than 1/2 ring above the center (never below).

(OK, that is what we are trying to accomplish)

Drill: Once in position, get NPA set so you are on the 10 ring, both horizontal and vertical.

Let your breath out slowly and allow the sights to "sink" to the 10 ring. Your entire focus should be on this function only.... Control your breath to smoothly sink, keep the line in the center.

When you get to the 10, establish a hold for just a second or two, take a breath and approach again. Over and over and over and......... you get it.

After a few sessions of this, you will begin to see your approach begin to be much more smooth and more centered. Make this a part of your training routine until you have a really good approach. Then you can move on to something else. You will notice now if your approach starts to get sloppy and you need to go back for a refresher.

---------------------------------------------

Ok, that was a very simplified version of that drill, but I hope you get the idea.

To develop a drill, you have to break a part of the shot process down to as small a part as possible and work on THAT. Doing the drill I just described, in 30 minutes a person do can dozens, even a hundred or more "approaches". In addition, all your attention is focused on the approach which is training your subconscious. If you just try to improve your approach as part of a normal "shot" it is fairly ineffective. Too few repetitions and it is difficult to focus on a specific thing when you are shooting (even scatt). Our ego is too worried about where that shot is going to give full attention to just the approach.

One other quick example; we do a follow through drill. The goal is to keep the red line (follow through trace) completely inside the hold area. The focus of the shot is not score, but simply follow through. Amazingly, (or not really) the score takes care of itself.

If you will just look at some really good scatt files and start trying to break them down into individual parts, approach, hold, shot time, trigger release, follow through.... I'm sure you can figure out drills that fit you and the way you train.

The problem with drills is not figuring out how to do one that is effective. The problem is DOING them. Drills are boring repetitions of a small part of the process. There is often no "shot" to give you satisfaction of pulling the trigger. You can have drills for everything, but if you don't spend time doing them, they don't do you much good.

Sorry this is still pretty long, and may not have been what you were looking for, but I hope it helps. If you are at a match and see my daughter Elizabeth on the roster, look me up. I will be happy to sit down over a cup of coffee (or bottle of water if you are a shooter!) and describe more of the training drills we use for scatt.

rmarsh wrote:To develop a drill, you have to break a part of the shot process down to as small a part as possible and work on THAT.

If you will just look at some really good scatt files and start trying to break them down into individual parts, approach, hold, shot time, trigger release, follow through.... I'm sure you can figure out drills that fit you and the way you train.

Thanks for sharing. You get the basic concept across quite well, and as you say developing a drill is pretty straightforward once you have the concept of what you want to focus on.

I'll take you up on your offer for some good conversation if I ever find you at a match. I'm also getting my daughter into rifle, but she has a number of interests... teenagers...

You asked about my screen name. It's my totem animal. Glad you appreciate it!

rmarsh wrote:

honeybadger wrote:

rmarsh wrote:I have developed many drills to work on specific parts of the shot process and use the scatt to monitor and focus on improving things one step at a time.

I think I am not the only person who would appreciate your sharing some of these drills. Would you be willing to post them to the forum?

LOL! Honeybadger, (love your screen name by the way!) 10 seconds after I posted my comments, I thought, "how long will it be until someone wants me to post my drills"!

The really short answer is "no". I have tried to write down some of the drills we do and found that while it is easy to talk to someone and describe them, it is a much different task to write them down. By the time I describe the background of why you want to accomplish a certain thing, what to look for on the scatt, how to do the drill.... etc. A simple drill turns into several pages.

However, I am not unwilling to help. I am not one to "protect" my information or knowledge. If someone wants to know how we train, who builds our guns, etc., I am always happy to help with any knowledge I have or describe things that have worked for us. So, the approach I will take is more the "teach a man to fish" rather than "give him a fish". I will describe the process I go through to develop a "drill" and hopefully from that you will be able to develop your own.

To do this I will take one simple example and expand on it. You can then use that to build other specific drills. The example I will use is shot approach. (We are rifle shooters so this is rifle specific. I don't how much this applies to pistol shooters). Also keep in mind I am dealing with general / common techniques. Not everyone does it this way.....

Shot Approach: In air rifle the approach to the target (bull) should be to come down at 12:00. On scatt this should be shown as a straight line (ideal) at exactly 12:00 and take 2 to 4 seconds. The approach should then stop at the center of the "10" to no more than 1/2 ring above the center (never below).

(OK, that is what we are trying to accomplish)

Drill: Once in position, get NPA set so you are on the 10 ring, both horizontal and vertical.

Let your breath out slowly and allow the sights to "sink" to the 10 ring. Your entire focus should be on this function only.... Control your breath to smoothly sink, keep the line in the center.

When you get to the 10, establish a hold for just a second or two, take a breath and approach again. Over and over and over and......... you get it.

After a few sessions of this, you will begin to see your approach begin to be much more smooth and more centered. Make this a part of your training routine until you have a really good approach. Then you can move on to something else. You will notice now if your approach starts to get sloppy and you need to go back for a refresher.

---------------------------------------------

Ok, that was a very simplified version of that drill, but I hope you get the idea.

To develop a drill, you have to break a part of the shot process down to as small a part as possible and work on THAT. Doing the drill I just described, in 30 minutes a person do can dozens, even a hundred or more "approaches". In addition, all your attention is focused on the approach which is training your subconscious. If you just try to improve your approach as part of a normal "shot" it is fairly ineffective. Too few repetitions and it is difficult to focus on a specific thing when you are shooting (even scatt). Our ego is too worried about where that shot is going to give full attention to just the approach.

One other quick example; we do a follow through drill. The goal is to keep the red line (follow through trace) completely inside the hold area. The focus of the shot is not score, but simply follow through. Amazingly, (or not really) the score takes care of itself.

If you will just look at some really good scatt files and start trying to break them down into individual parts, approach, hold, shot time, trigger release, follow through.... I'm sure you can figure out drills that fit you and the way you train.

The problem with drills is not figuring out how to do one that is effective. The problem is DOING them. Drills are boring repetitions of a small part of the process. There is often no "shot" to give you satisfaction of pulling the trigger. You can have drills for everything, but if you don't spend time doing them, they don't do you much good.

Sorry this is still pretty long, and may not have been what you were looking for, but I hope it helps. If you are at a match and see my daughter Elizabeth on the roster, look me up. I will be happy to sit down over a cup of coffee (or bottle of water if you are a shooter!) and describe more of the training drills we use for scatt.

Super nice drills ! I got the idea, thanks.

Thanks for explaining how to break the process right down. I am sure that many will benefit from your example.
As you have said, training basics requires a considerable amount of will power and determination that it will all come together good.
Training with Scatt on an air pistol does affect the balance considerably and it is therefore sometimes not re-creating the true shooting conditions as your muscles will be reacting to the change in weight and balance. The Scatt will still give consistent results, but it is just something to be aware of.

scat useful for trainers and professional athletes. It's a wonderful tool. But you can reach 560-580 score in a practice session without using scat. But to match the exercise score in every game requires the ability to mentally and emotionally tough. I personally prefer to pay sports psychologists to train mentally and emotionally than buying the tool.

v60i wrote:I personally prefer to pay sports psychologists to train mentally and emotionally than buying the tool.

In an ideal world, if there is such a place, you would be able to use every tool in the box. A good sports psych is just another one of those tools.