Paul,
That is wonderful news. South Africa has certainly lead the way on this vital issue.
Can you provide any particulars on True Score? Who is the developer? Can anyone purchase a copy? An instruction manual? What type of paper? I know, too many questions, sorry. I am a supporter of electronic scoring and would love to better understand the inner workings. This may better help all of us around the world.
Do you have a personal opinion on why it has been so well received in your country and has established a trust with the shooters?
Steve,
When we introduced electronic scoring it was not without resistance. People will always differ from each other as is our right I suppose. When the like of Paul and I joined Benchrest we were surprised to see the extent to which some shooters were prepared to go to argue for a point up on the score. Never down, always up. Some our early experiences 4 years ago when we joined were most unpleasant to witness. We came to shoot and not to win arguments. So two things happened:
James Mitchell from our club, equally unimpressed with these arguments, decided to write a scoring program. After some testing and changes to the program we were able to introduce it at provincial and club level. Sure there were some shooters who believed that the human eye and the plug are better but after a couple of competitions they accepted the system. Since then we have scored our last two Nationals and both were without any arguments.
The second thing that we got right was to stick to the rules. If you want to challenge a score than stop complaining to everybody and lodge an official complaint. In the case of electronic scoring we will take the target in question and plug every hole. You then live by that result whether it is more or less. To date we have had one such challenge and the plug scored two point less.
I have been following this hot potato since the Nationals in Phoenix. My targets were also scored with Orion. I would choose it as is any-day over manual scoring. In Plzen in 2013 it sometimes took 3 day to get the results because of human errors that are not consistent.
Imagine there was ever only one method to determine the position of the hole on the target. To what can it then be compared? Nothing!!! But this is not the case so now we have several methods of scoring and as Garrett stated "Any system can only be validated by the accuracy seen within each system"
All these systems use physically different methods to determine where the hole is located with respect to the closest higher score line on the print. So it would be physically impossible that they all give the same score. What about the human error even if it only pertain to the simple arithmetic errors that sometimes creep in?
Go with Orion and give it good soak test. In the case of True Score we were very fortunate that Bill Collaros and his team were prepared to soak test it at their Nationals in February. Below are the results/statistics/comments of their efforts. I am under the impression that they are doing a second National Championships later this year with the same methods of test.
One last comment. Placing a target straight onto a cardboard backer is not good. These boards types are not solid and will have an effect on the hole that is made by the pellet. If the target is not totally flat onto the backer the hole will also be different. Scores will be effected. Sorry, that were two comments.
Gert
As per Brett Wilson's report on TrueScore:
The Air-rifle TrueScore system is very good, it is a little slower than the Rimfire due to the way the program is set up to look for diagrams with two shots and 17cal holes. A large number of 22cal holes the program questions if there are 2 shots. It is not a problem and only a little slower. Overall the system is many times faster then the scores having to plug every hole and in my opinion while not perfect it is more accurate.
Of the 1800 shots scored
89 shots (4.94%) were scored different between the 2 systems.
50 of those 89 (2.78%) I have determined to be Too Close, Either system could be correct
34 of those 89 (1.89%) I have determined TrueScore to be correct / Manual Score incorrect.
5 of those 89 (0.23%) I have determined Scorer to be correct and TrueScore incorrect. In all cases TrueScore is wrong the hole in not round for some reason, affecting TrueScores ability to find the centre of the hole.
Note: In the shots that I have called Too Close there is a slight bias towards harder scoring (Lower Score) of about 80% to 20%.
I have included a power point presentation showing every shot that was scored different between the two systems and what the difference was. I have also identified what my thoughts to which system was correct if it was too close, “Too Close” “TrueScore” or a comment on the Hole if TureScore was incorrect.
After I finished the Air-rifle I followed the same procedure for the Rimfire Sporter class.
The Results were
Of the 2050 shots scored
107 shots (5.22%) were scored different between the 2 systems.
52 of those 107 (2.54%) I have determined to be Too Close, Either system could be correct
48 of those 107 (2.34%) I have determined TrueScore to be correct / Manual Score incorrect.
7 of those 107 (0.34%) I have determined Scorer to be correct and TrueScore incorrect. In all cases TrueScore is wrong the hole in not round for some reason, affecting TrueScore’s ability to find the centre of the hole.
Note: In the shots that I have called Too Close there is a slight bias towards harder scoring (Lower Score) of about 65% to 35%.
I have included a power point presentation showing every shot that was scored different between the two systems and what the difference was. I have also identified what my thoughts to which system was correct if it was too close, “Too Close” “TrueScore” or a comment on the hole if TureScore was incorrect.
In Rimfire, overall TrueScore is much faster and the scores in my opinion while not perfect are more accurate then Manual Scoring.
