Make correction

[Gale Stewart]

Peter,
What does the software actually does when you make a correction?

a. It moves the center of the hold (crosshairs) to where you drop the shot ?
b. It moves the last shot position to a new one as if this shot was the center of the hold (crosshairs) ?
c. Something else?

And how to best use it as replacement for a sight change if say, you take the average of the last 3 shots?

 

[Ramon OP]

In my experience it works a bit like when you click on your gun for windage and elevation. Nothing changes in the current shot.

 

[Peter]

Hello there,

Good question!
By using the Make Correction feature you are effectively moving the coordinates of the last shot.
The same correction will be applied to all subsequent shots.

The most important thing with corrections is to avoid over-compensation.
Let's say you hit a 10 on your physical card, but SCATT displays a 7: here you drag the shot hole just approaching the 10, rather than placing it exactly in the 10-ring. Therefore, moving your shot to 8.5 (~half-way) would be the right move instead of dragging all the way up to the bull's eye.

Here is a time-stamped video so we are totally on the same page in regards to how one avoids over-compensating:

Also, a couple of words about the Calibration, since a successful Calibration will ensure that the correction is not even needed

What does matter the most here is:
- First, making sure that your sights are aligned with the sensor's FOV as well as possible (so your Calibration red dot is in the middle of the Calibration's aiming black or as close to it as possible).
- Taking a very careful Calibration shot, preferably resting on something (you can utilize a bench rest or some clamps even with a pistol). This way the sensor can record precisely where the target's center is in relation to your sight-line. It doesn't matter that you are "cheating" during your Calibration, as the practice session hasn't even started yet

On top of that, you can take several calibration shots and the system will take the average of those shots as your target's center.
Please note that this does NOT apply to SCATT Pro software

By the way, here is a pretty effective trick on how to align your camera-based sensor's FOV with your gun's sights
The closer you bring the two together, the less is the parallax you'll be getting at home on shorter distances

 

[Gale Stewart]

Thank you Peter,

It seems to me then that:
1- we should take a shot with a low L coefficient to make a correction as it will translate into a better correction estimate.
2- it is not a reliable way to center a group compared to clicking the sights, especially if you want to move the CENTER of a group.

Are you in agreement with the above?

 

[Peter]

compared to clicking the sights, especially if you want to move the CENTER of a group.

Could you elaborate on this, please?
Not sure what "clicking the sights" means to be honest

 

[Gale Stewart]

Let's say that you have fired 5 shots. There is a center for that group. You want to move the center of the group to the center of the target. One way is to move the sight of the gun (clicking the sights) so the two centers coincide. Another way is through 'Make correction' from the software, eliminating the need to move the sights.

My point is that Make Correction is not as accurate as moving the sight for the purpose. Am I making sense?

 

[Willi]

Hi, may I help?
I recommend to sight in the rifle, I would do it on a stable rest only.
Not clicking or adjusting the rear-site at all. Do the adjustments with the SCATT sensor by turning the little brass screws if it is off center a lot, or better still adjusting it with the SCATT software.

Willi

 

[Gale Stewart]

Hi Willi,

I am not alluding to an initial set and forget calibration, I am refering to keeping the group centered as you are shooting and assume that the group was centered after sighters. I also should have mentionned that it is of utmost importance when groups are tight (625+ in air and smallbore rifle).

 

[Willi]

I am sorry, I was thinking of dry fire only.

 

[Ramon OP]

The most important thing with corrections is to avoid over-compensation.
Let's say you hit a 10 on your physical card, but SCATT displays a 7: here you drag the shot hole just approaching the 10, rather than placing it exactly in the 10-ring. Therefore, moving your shot to 8.5 (~half-way) would be the right move instead of dragging all the way up to the bull's eye.

What does matter the most here is:
- First, making sure that your sights are aligned with the sensor's FOV as well as possible (so your Calibration red dot is in the middle of the Calibration's aiming black or as close to it as possible).
- Taking a very careful Calibration shot, preferably resting on something (you can utilize a bench rest or some clamps even with a pistol). This way the sensor can record precisely where the target's center is in relation to your sight-line. It doesn't matter that you are "cheating" during your Calibration, as the practice session hasn't even started yet

On top of that, you can take several calibration shots and the system will take the average of those shots as your target's center.

Thank you @Peter.

1 Does the half distance correction tip also apply to pistol?

2 The MX-02 calibration window disappears instantly after the shot in Professional. Is this the expected behavior? There's no way of seeing how close you are to the center.

3 cheating with the pistol will change the angle of your pistol sights in regards to your eye and target. Considering the previous point I don't understand how this could work.

Thanks a lot for the tip about taking multiple calibration shots. I had no clue that the system makes an average. Great news! What I've noticed is that if I recalibrate during the match the corrections I've made so far are discarded.

 

[rlporter507]

If you notice in Peters video, he is calibrating the rifle about at shooting height. I had calibrated off the bench, much lower than shooting standing, and the calibration was off. When i re calibrated at shooting height off the stand, it was pretty much dead on.

 

[Modena]

If you notice in Peters video, he is calibrating the rifle about at shooting height. I had calibrated off the bench, much lower than shooting standing, and the calibration was off. When i re calibrated at shooting height off the stand, it was pretty much dead on.

I noticed this also - I calibrated, sighted and "dragged" the shots to centre with the rifle at just above knee height on a bench, when I started shooting standing I was getting a different hit point. This was Air Rifle at 9.6meters.

 

[Peter]

Let's say that you have fired 5 shots. There is a center for that group. You want to move the center of the group to the center of the target. One way is to move the sight of the gun (clicking the sights) so the two centers coincide. Another way is through 'Make correction' from the software, eliminating the need to move the sights.

My point is that Make Correction is not as accurate as moving the sight for the purpose. Am I making sense?

Thanks for the explanation, it makes sense now!

When training with SCATT you shouldn't make any adjustments to your equipment.
Therefore, keep the sights as is, so you don't throw them off and then need to "click" them back into place at the range.
You want SCATT to adjust to your sights, not vice-versa.

Generally speaking, this thing works similarly to how you are describing it in regards to the group of shots moving centers but here you are not moving the whole group - you are making changes by using just the last shot (that's why you don't really need to shoot a group to begin with).

By using this function you are effectively setting a vector and some distance to the last shot (which was assumed to be the center before a correction is applied). I've highlighted the vector and the distance that we apply in the screenshot below so you can see it better.


So with the Make Correction feature you are effectively moving the coordinates of the last shot.
The same correction will be applied to all subsequent shots.

 

[rlporter507]

I have an older serial port scatt, the one with a black control box. You have to manually aim the sensor with the set screws. I bench the rifle, and get it close, then our juniors move the sights to get shots center. Usually not more than a ring or 2. I understand what Peter is saying, but our juniors are not afraid to turn sights. they have been trained to know how many clicks per ring to get to center on there rifle, and usually it only takes a few sighters to get back in the center. I recently upgraded to a Ws1, and it makes life easier to calibrate, one shot, a move on the screen if its far off, then the junior moves the sights from there. And HP shooters know where their at on the sights all the time, and their NWO. Our coaches will adjust our juniors sights while they are on break, when there not looking. Point I'm making is, sights are made to turn!!

 

[Gale Stewart]

Thanks Peter, nothing better than a graphical explanation (illustrated vector).

 

[Peter]

Thank you @Peter.

1 Does the half distance correction tip also apply to pistol?

2 The MX-02 calibration window disappears instantly after the shot in Professional. Is this the expected behavior? There's no way of seeing how close you are to the center.

3 cheating with the pistol will change the angle of your pistol sights in regards to your eye and target. Considering the previous point I don't understand how this could work.

Thanks a lot for the tip about taking multiple calibration shots. I had no clue that the system makes an average. Great news! What I've noticed is that if I recalibrate during the match the corrections I've made so far are discarded.

1) Make Correction works the same way regardless if it's a pistol or a rifle

2+3) That wasn't set up like this back in the day when we first designed the Calibration mode. However, an overwhelming number of shooters pressed us to change it into an instant switch to sighting shots so they don't have to waste time on extra clicks coming back to their laptops.

In general, looking at the Calibration's window during your shot is quite a detrimental habit one can develop. This white circle you see in the Calibration window is NOT the center of your target per se (at least it's not always the center). It represents the overall FOV of your sensor. Therefore, you are not required to hit the very center of that white area and definitely shouldn't cheat to achieve it. It's better if a user just hits somewhere in the sensor's FOV and then applies a correction after several sighting shots, compared with him cheating his way through the Calibration and then you can't even figure out what the discrepancies that follow are caused by due to the cheating factor...

By the way, that tip with multiple Calibration shots doesn't apply to SCATT Pro.
I'll edit that post not to confuse our Pro software folks

 

[CharlesD]

There is a simple trick to speed up the calibration and zeroing (at least with Pro software):
After the calibration shot, come on aim and hold it for a few seconds. Instead of firing a sighting shot, take another breath and, while doing so, look at and make a note of where the aim settled. Do this 4 or 5 times before firing the first sighting shot. This should give you a clear indication of where Scatt thinks the rifle/pistol is pointing when you think it is pointing at the middle. Once you have fired the first sighting shot, adjust the zero not on your sights, but by dragging the shot hole in a direction and by the appropriate distance that would move the centre of your aim points (from the non-firing shots) into the centre of the bull (similar to the graphic in Peter's post 4 above this one). On your next sighting shot the mean aim point should be very close to the middle. One or two more sighting shots should be sufficient to confirm the accurately aligned zero.
Note that if you change the zero at all (by clicking the sights OR by dragging the last shot) after you have started your Match shots, while it may improve your score and your 10.0, 10.5 and Accuracy of Shooting values, you will invalidate some of the metrics that Scatt measures, notably Diametrical Dispersion (group size), Stability of Aiming and Elliptical Factor for Group. When training, to see improvements in performance, these latter metrics, together with 10a0 and 10a5, are all more important to monitor than score, 10.0 & 10.5. Changing the zero during the match shots will make it very difficult to monitor performance improvements. It is therefore helpful to get your zero accurately established during your sighters to avoid the temptation to adjust your zero once you have started your match shots. The tip above should help you achieve this with the minimum of sighters.
Stability of Aiming is in part a measure of the stability of your hold, but is also affected by how well your eyes discern what is a 'good' aim. The less precisely you 'see' your aim as accurately in the middle, the higher the Stability of Aiming figure will be. If the Stability of Aiming figure is larger than the diameter of the bull, you are unlikely to score a possible very often. The Stability of Aiming can be affected by the size of foresight ring you use. Many people find that a foresight ring that appears to be 2-2.5x the diameter of the aiming mark gives the best results, but I am sure plenty of people will disagree! To those people I will just say: try a different size foresight and see whether or not it improves your Stability of Aiming figure.

 

[TimRB]

Another easy way to tell where SCATT thinks the rifle is pointed is to turn on the sound generator in tools/options. Listen for the highest tone--that's where SCATT thinks the center is.

Tim

 

[Davidf92]

Hello,

As a medium-level pistol shooter (in the 535-545 score range) I do well understand clicking my sights. As probably for all competitors, training and match experience helps me better adjust, mostly along a match if I feel physical or eye fatigue or difficult range lighting.
With all this understanding I have never found the Scatt correction feature (at least in the "Expert" software) to be as effective as it should be. Let me illustrate that:

On the range if I fire a rather tight 5-shot group, then I click for instance 2 zones to the right, my next 5-shot group will indeed be centered 2 zones to the right. This is because the sights adjusting mechanism of my pistol actually moves the number of clicks per zone that is documented (e.g. 5 clicks/zone). Most important is to clearly understand that clicking is independent from the position on the target. The same clicking will produce exactly the same shifting whether you are well-centered or far-off, it is just a straight distance shift.
Well, corrections using my Scatt MX-W2 with the Expert software never reproduce that although they should. It is simple to experiment: Starting from scratch after a not too careful calibration, suppose I shoot a tight group far-off, like in the 8 at 2 o'clock. If I make a correction that would center that group on the target (thus a vector of 2 zones) my next group should be well-centered. With my real pistol it will. With the software it won't. Most of the time the next shots will be very far over the desired correction, and more importantly the actual correction won't be exactly in the direction (vector) it should.
In general, the further the correction to make, the bigger the excessive amount of correction and direction divergence. Contrarily, it is very hard to reproduce a 1 or 2-click adjustment, the actual correction seems usually insufficient and has to be repeated. I would consider that a half to 3/4 zone correction is the closest to what it should be in amount, although vector direction is still inaccurate.

This makes me really doubt that the correction feature is a simple vector shift, as Peter (admin) says. Maybe it is intended to be so but to me it doesn't give the corresponding result. Could there be some kind of software flow around here?

 

[Peter]

suppose I shoot a tight group far-off, like in the 8 at 2 o'clock. If I make a correction that would center that group on the target (thus a vector of 2 zones) my next group should be well-centered.

A vector of just 1 zone is the way to do this in your example, since the new digital breach (a.k.a. where you drag the shot to) shouldn't be exactly where you call the shot - but rather approaching that result - if we are to avoid the system overcompensating (which would force you to apply another correction to fix the first one).

I've attached a time-stamped video to provide a better illustration.
Here we initially hit the 1 ring, then call bull's eye and drag the correction to the ~6-7 ring rather than 10
Half-way is the way when it comes to corrections