SCATT MX-W2 - Initial impressions for highpower practice

[Highpower]

I ended up buying a MX-W2 and have used it for about a month now. Thought I would share some of my initial impressions.

I have only used the unit indoors, at 10 meters and 15 meters.

The TL;DR; version - it works great and I have learned several things about my shooting in a short period of time.

More detailed version:

- Lighting the target is important, in my initial setup I had quite a lot of outdoors backlighting coming in which seemed to throw off the sensor. After reducing the backlighting and increasing the light shining onto the target I have not had any issues.

- Calibration is quick but not always 100% accurate. I have some sessions where after calibration the shots will be obviously off in the same direction. To counteract this I take 2 - 3 sighters after calibration and use the 'make correction' to make the final adjustment if off. This works well and does not take long.

- Attaching the sensor to the service rifle is quick and straightforward using the provided mount. I attach it to the barrel.

When I bought the unit I thought I would use it mainly for practicing offhand but where I have learned the most so far is shooting prone. I thought the repeatability of my sight picture was solid and it turns out that it is not. What I thought was consistent center holds turned out to be a mixed bag of holds with a favor towards high left. Seeing this I have been able to improve the consistency of center holds. Similarly I have learned that my trigger control is worse than I thought (S2 values too high).

 

[Davidf92]

Thanks you for sharing the benefits that you have found with the help of your Scatt in such a short time. I suppose your experience of getting a Scatt for mere practicing then unexpectedly learning something is far more common than one would think.
The way I see it a Scatt is not a coach in that it won't tell you what to work on first, nor show you the way, but far for more than a simple mirror as it gives you insight, numbers you can understand and generally speaking self analysis support. And that's a great thing.

 

[SRA]

I ended up buying a MX-W2 and have used it for about a month now. Thought I would share some of my initial impressions.

I have only used the unit indoors, at 10 meters and 15 meters.

The TL;DR; version - it works great and I have learned several things about my shooting in a short period of time.

More detailed version:

- Lighting the target is important, in my initial setup I had quite a lot of outdoors backlighting coming in which seemed to throw off the sensor. After reducing the backlighting and increasing the light shining onto the target I have not had any issues.

- Calibration is quick but not always 100% accurate. I have some sessions where after calibration the shots will be obviously off in the same direction. To counteract this I take 2 - 3 sighters after calibration and use the 'make correction' to make the final adjustment if off. This works well and does not take long.

- Attaching the sensor to the service rifle is quick and straightforward using the provided mount. I attach it to the barrel.

When I bought the unit I thought I would use it mainly for practicing offhand but where I have learned the most so far is shooting prone. I thought the repeatability of my sight picture was solid and it turns out that it is not. What I thought was consistent center holds turned out to be a mixed bag of holds with a favor towards high left. Seeing this I have been able to improve the consistency of center holds. Similarly I have learned that my trigger control is worse than I thought (S2 values too high).

Highpower, would you mind explaining how the S2 values equate to trigger control? I just picked up a MX-W2 and am climbing the learning curve.

 

[Highpower]

SRA, sorry for the delayed reply. Here is a good explanation:

S1 and S2

Let's look and compare two key data-points SCATT provides: S1 and S2. The first one, S1 represents the average speed of your Aimpoint during the set control interval (1 second before the shot by default), and the S2 tracks your acceleration in the last 250 milliseconds. ⠀ Aside from the actual...

forum.scatt.com

.

 

[CharlesD]

- Calibration is quick but not always 100% accurate. I have some sessions where after calibration the shots will be obviously off in the same direction. To counteract this I take 2 - 3 sighters after calibration and use the 'make correction' to make the final adjustment if off. This works well and does not take long.

If using live fire, zero the rifle first with live shots, then adjust the zero on Scatt. To avoid changing your sight settings (which would affect your zero on the target), the calibration/zero on Scatt can be adjusted by clicking on the last shot 'hole' and dragging it on the Scatt screen towards the position of the actual shot. The advice is only to drag it half the distance as Scatt tends to over-correct.
An alternative means of adjusting the Scatt zero (and the only way if you are dry firing) is to come on aim several times without firing and note the position of your mean aim point each time you come on aim. When (after 4 or 5 times coming on aim without firing) you do fire a shot, drag the shot 'hole' in the direction that would take your average aim point towards the centre of the target (but about half the necessary distance). Repeat this sequence until, each time you come on aim, the mean aim point settles in the centre of the target. Scatt is then aligned with (zeroed on) the centre of the aiming mark as you are seeing it through the sights. If your aim is a little off centre, Scatt should now show your aim where you see it.

 

[CharlesD]

I ended up buying a MX-W2 and have used it for about a month now. Thought I would share some of my initial impressions.
I have only used the unit indoors, at 10 meters and 15 meters.

I would be interested to hear your experiences if you ever try it outdoors. The difficulties that people have had getting MX-02 and MX-W2 to recognise targets have usually been solved by a combination of lighting and enlarged white surrounds to the aiming mark. Most outdoor targets at any distance over about 50m have relatively little white around the black aiming mark - typically not much over half the aiming mark diameter of white on either side of the black. I would love to hear if anyone gets MX-02 or MX-W2 to work on Highpower/fullbore targets at any distances over 100 yds.

 

[Peter]

Most outdoor targets at any distance over about 50m have relatively little white around the black aiming mark - typically not much over half the aiming mark diameter of white on either side of the black. I would love to hear if anyone gets MX-02 or MX-W2 to work on Highpower/fullbore targets at any distances over 100 yds.

Upvoted on this one for sure - one of the crucial things to know in advance before taking your SCATT MX-series to the range.

Due to this, I'd also highly recommend three things:
1) grabbing a stack of white office paper and an industrial-grade stapler/staple gun with you

my collegues and I have recently held an offline competition at one of local exhibition.
Two targets set up, a 300m ISSF one and this one below - a silhouette for 100 meters

300m ISSF got slapped on a huge white board and worked right away
Here we had to deal with a more yellowish wooden board and a non-round target (which demands more white around it due to uneven edges).

Unforunately, I got busy with some stuff and forgot to take that "after" picture with the office paper aroundthe target
But here is a quick Ms.Paint illustration Nothing complicated really


2) Grab that set of Iris diaphragms that we supply with the trainer kit
By the way, I've noticed some misunderstandings here and there in regards to what diaphragms actually do.
So if the sun is behind you and is going super strong which results in your target becoming too whitened-out and overexposed to the point where the camera can't find that black bull whatsoever - that's where the iris comes in handy

3) However, the Iris won't be able do much in case the sun is directly in front of the camera, effectively blinding it.
We are in fact developing a blueprint for a new "sunshade" accessory-attachment to deal with this particular scenario.
Until then, the rule of thumb is just to pick a range or a specific timeframe at the range where you where the sun is behind the shooter

 

[CharlesD]

Upvoted on this one for sure - one of the crucial things to know in advance before taking your SCATT MX-series to the range.

Due to this, I'd also highly recommend three things:
1) grabbing a stack of white office paper and an industrial-grade stapler/staple gun with you

my collegues and I have recently held an offline competition at one of local exhibition.
Two targets set up, a 300m ISSF one and this one below - a silhouette for 100 meters

300m ISSF got slapped on a huge white board and worked right away
Here we had to deal with a more yellowish wooden board and a non-round target (which demands more white around it due to uneven edges).
View attachment 1879
Unforunately, I got busy with some stuff and forgot to take that "after" picture with the office paper aroundthe target
But here is a quick Ms.Paint illustration Nothing complicated really
View attachment 1882

2) Grab that set of Iris diaphragms that we supply with the trainer kit
By the way, I've noticed some misunderstandings here and there in regards to what diaphragms actually do.
So if the sun is behind you and is going super strong which results in your target becoming too whitened-out and overexposed to the point where the camera can't find that black bull whatsoever - that's where the iris comes in handy

3) However, the Iris won't be able do much in case the sun is directly in front of the camera, effectively blinding it.
We are in fact developing a blueprint for a new "sunshade" accessory-attachment to deal with this particular scenario.
Until then, the rule of thumb is just to pick a range or a specific timeframe at the range where you where the sun is behind the shooter

Interesting about the 300m ISSF target. In the UK we usually have the 300m target on a 48 inch square target frame with sides of 48 inches (1.219m). It has a 560mm diameter aiming mark (= 7.0 MoA), so the black covers about 46% of the width of the target (27% white on either side) and the whole target subtends about 15.4 Minutes of Arc (MoA). For US Highpower targets, at 600 yds the aiming mark is 36 inches diameter on a 72 inch square target frame (50% - 5.73 MoA black in 11.74 MoA target width). At 1000 yds, the aiming mark is 44 inches diameter on a 72 inch square target frame (61% - 4.20 MoA black in 6.88 MoA target width). While it sounds as if the MX-series should work on the 300m target, the question is whether it works on the 600 and 1000 yds targets, where the white subtends a smaller angle and the black aiming mark fills a larger proportion of that smaller white. With targets that size, there is no option for making the area of white any larger, and you get the added problem that there are usually other targets in close proximity. I would love to hear of anyone who has managed to get Scatt MX-Series to work on targets at distances beyond 300m.

 

[Peter]

I would love to hear of anyone who has managed to get Scatt MX-Series to work on targets at distances beyond 300m.

Would need some USA-based enthusiasts to chime in for this one, I believe
I mainly talk to EU folks, CIS, and India so not much user-tested data on my hands when it comes to long-range events

 

[ClairePeters]

Hello, congratulate me guys, I won gold among beginners in semi-automatic rifle shooting. I'll find a photo and attach it

 

[SRA]

Congratulations ClairePeters. May there be more in the future for you.