The Glory of the Bisley Imperial Meeting

Sitting in the departures lounge of LHR's Terminal 2 well in advance of my departure time - I always like to be early when travelling with Winona* in case of any of the risks which may crystallise - my social media feeds are filled with posts on the Imperial Meeting just completed. I feel much the same each year; that this year was in some way special; in some way better than the equally-perfect ones which have gone before.

Let me say this, then. This year was special in a multitude of ways, and it was perfect as a unique collection of experience, but yet could have been even better and I look forward to next year, the year after, or some future meeting topping it.

I shot well, but perhaps not as quite as well as I could have done. After all, I didn't win that elusive Bisley major and my final range in the Kolapore was a bit sub-par. The weather was interesting, having started off a bit on the cool and damp side, but soon came fine; even too fine towards the last few days. I got to spend a great deal of time with many of my friends, but it's never enough. How could it be with such people as ANRW, DAR, AMcC, CmcC, CJW, VW, SIF and so many others? How could it ever be?

Mistake not my intent. Above and beyond this was the quality of the experience of shooting at Bisley and the competition, which will have created memories that will keep us going until the next time. Jim took another Grand Agg, DC took another Queen's Prize, ANRW rounded out a solid meeting with his first St. George's Challenge Vase,  Welsh shooters took podium places in a number of major competitions. For me though, there is only one story and it's one that I'm still not sure how to react to simply because it hasn't made it through to me yet; big things take time to think through.

Wales won The National Match.

The winning team. Photo copyright Bob Oxford and reproduced on Gun & Run with his kind permission. 

Sure, England handicap themselves by their selection policy**; the conditions were easy; none of these facts matter to me or anyone else that matters because they are outweighed by the positives. We always struggle to get a quality team of 20 shooters together but this year contrived to pick the right people at the right time, with the result that our normal 98-ish bottom score magically became a 102, a sizeable majority hit 104s, and our normal one or two 105s suddenly blossomed into a round three-quarter dozen clean scores.

It is the one rifle match I never expected to win during my career. And so, it is all the more valuable and memorable and treasured as a result.

* My rifles have each had names: Rifle #1 was Marilyn, rifle #2 was Nariko and my current squeeze is  named Winona. Kudos to anyone who can spot whence the name originates.

** Although a more cynical person could argue that this is in itself a strategy to secure a long-term supply of talent and deny the other nations shooters who could compete for them; however that's an argument for another day, and possibly even a bit too cynical a view for my taste.

Range Report: CWG Trial 2

The British Commonwealth Rifle Club open meeting usually features some pretty stiff competition, not least because to become a member of the club you must have shot on an international team; however a majority of serious shooters also take part as by tradition the ammunition used comes from the same batch as that year's Imperial meeting.

The short range on day 1 was dominated by tricky winds and rain, with scores not up to their usual standard; although this didn't seem to phase any of the six people on detail 1 who managed to slot in 50.9s in the West Indies 300 yard shoot. Unfortunately I lost one out the top to a bit of early nerves, but held the rest in for a slightly loose 49.5.

A bit nervous at the start. Long time, no live fire.

Similarly, the first of two shoots at 500 yards, the India, was not all it might have been; I made a bold change at the start of the shoot and wound myself out to the left and was a bit more circumspect later on in the piece, only to lose one out right when I under-called a big change. Two down seemed to be a little off the pace, given the conditions, and I was already a shot behind.

Better elevation, but got the wrong end of the bracket twice.

We would revisit 500 yards after lunch in the Africa which went somewhat better. My position felt tight but relaxed and the rifle rested cleanly on target, with the result that the one shot I did help slightly clipped the lefthand edge of the vee-bull. My compatriot CJW managed to take the top slot with a superb 50.10 but I was pleased with my own 50.8. My hold had settled down after the very slightly shaky start in the morning.

Bring it.

Although the winds seemed to die back, they did have the capacity to surprise back at 600 yards. I pursued a strategy of shooting to the mean wind and trying to avoid firing in the lulls and gusts. My group was solid and I only lost one right at the end; I backed off a quarter as the wind appeared to be dropping, which proved a poor judgement call and cost me both the possible and the win. I ended up four off on the day, in 7th place.

A bit unlucky to finish on an inner, but could have been worse. A bit later and it could have been a magpie.

The Sunday morning dawned still, and there were expectations of high scoring. These were proved right on the first detail of the Falkland Islands at 900x, but the flags started to lift towards the end of the shoot and when the second detail got down, there was a very fickle lefthand wind with some big gusts and drop-offs. I shot reasonably well but couldn't quite keep up with the bracket of 4 to 8 despite recognising halfway through that I was constantly lagging the changes. I was unable to get ahead and finished with an OKish 48.5

Decent shoot, just not quite up to speed with the wind.

The odd wind conditions continued during the second 900x shoot of the morning. Fortunately my shooting was getting into the groove and I had more of a handle on the wind, and while I was unlucky to lose my 5th out left my 11th to count only stayed in by virtue of being a waterline shot. There were no 75s and I missed out on the tie shoot by a single vee-bull.

Happy with this. Got unlucky with shot 3, but lucky with shot 9. Honours even.

A long break before the shoot at 1000 yards afforded me the opportunity to have a decent lunch and a brief snooze in the vam before heading back up to Stickledown. The lazily flapping flags convinced me that this was going to be relatively straightforward; however as the previous details had found, the wind would pick up to a more typical value before ebbing back. The shifting winds, combing with a slack shot over which I took too much time, meant I lost 4 points; far from a disaster, but a little off the pace.

Shot 11 spoiled the look of the thing; I held on too long, but otherwise I'm happy with the shooting.

My consistent, if not exceptional, shooting won me 4th place in the BCRC Open but took me the top slot in Trial 2. This is heartening, as I'm still on the upswing but haven't yet hit top form, and with the Imperial Meeting making up trials 3 and 4, things are looking positive. A bit more SCATT and some livefire before everything kicks off next Friday, and hopefully I'll be able to make the most of my squadding.

SCATT troubleshooting; the collected wisdom of the UK Fullbore Facebook page

When you've sorted out all your setup issues and got into a routine of using SCATT or another shooter training system to support your training plan, everything seems easy; however just occasionally things will go tits up and you'll have some sort of problem. It may be that you've upgraded your laptop; it may be that you've moved house and things don't seem quite as easy as they were in your previous place; it may be just that the damn thing won't work. The point is that technology which was once a boon has now become a pain in the arse.

There is hope at hand. I and others like me have made many of the stupid mistakes so you can either avoid them or fix them pronto. With this aim in mind, I present a troubleshooting guide to SCATT with thanks to Charles Dickenson, Paul Wheeler, Bob Oxford, Christopher Hunter, Mark Bridges and all the other folks from the UK Fullbore Facebook page who have contributed to the SCATT threads.

ISSUE: Optical sensor and/or target don't register properly when plugged in:

• Try unplugging the SCATT cables and plugging them into different USB ports.
• Unplug everything, shut your computer down and start again from the beginning.
• Go to the SCATT website and download the latest drivers. Reinstall the drivers, restart the laptop and try again.
• If neither of these work then you may have a broken SCATT. Contact SCATT for technical support (support@scatt.com) and send off your SCATT to be repaired.

ISSUE: Cannot find SCATT device:

• Are you using Windows 8? If so then you may need to upgrade your firmware, see below.
• Check all your SCATT cables are firmly plugged in.
• If SCATT is plugged in then unplug the USB cables and swap USB ports.
• If swapping cables doesn't work, restart your computer.
• If restart doesn't work then reinstall drivers and plug one USB cable in at a time, watching for error messages.
• If neither of these work then you may have a broken SCATT. Contact SCATT for technical support (support@scatt.com) and/or send off your SCATT to be repaired.

ISSUE: SCATT device found, but no crosshairs or blue dot appear when I fire a calibration shot on the calibration screen:

• Are you pointing the rifle at the target? You may be pointing high (this is a common problem because the adapter which clips the optical sensor to the barrel has an incline on it which may be a bit aggressive if your barrel has a taper on it, as most fullbore rifles do).
• Check that the infrared sensors (look like clear/white LEDs but don't shine) above and below the target aren't obscured by anything. If they are, then remve the offending item.
• Check you've not got your long range elevantion on the rifle. Put your 300y elevation on maximum (I set my rifle to have about 10 minutes BELOW by 300y elevation on my adjustable foresight but this may not be an option for you).
• Try aiming the rifle above and below your aiming mark to see if you're still not on target.
• Are you using Windows 8? If so then you may need to upgrade your firmware, see below.
• If none of these work, then you may have a broken SCATT.

ISSUE: I've been using my SCATT and then it suddenly stops registering shots:

• Chances are that it's just a dodgy connection. Save your shoot, close the SCATT software, check all cables are firmly plugged in and start again. If this happens frequently, then it may be worth replacing your cabling.
• Also try increasing the sensitivity of the piezoelectric sensor which registers the click of the firing pin hitting its stop in the bolt when a shot is fired (decrease the number in the slider at the bottom of the calibration screen).

ISSUE: I've been using the SCATT just fine but I've started getting echoes, where the screen is showing two shots on a single trace, one in white and one in purple:

• Check all cable connections are tight
• Lighting or other sources of infrared (such as heat lamps, radiators etc...) can cause this, so try different lighting (or even a different room, if possible) LED bulbs seems to be the best light sources for avoiding this.
• Try decreasing the sensitivity of the piezo sensor (increase the number in the slider at the bottom of the calibration screen)
• If nothing works then your optical sensor is probably starting to go. Send it off to get it repaired or replaced

ISSUE: I've upgraded everything to Windows 8 and nothing works any more:

• Borrow a computer with an earlier version of Windows and go to the SCATT website. Download and then install the firmware in your SCATT. Then use your Windows 8 laptop as normal.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Apparently SCATT do not like you doing this without speaking to their technical support, so you do this at your own risk. Do not blame me if you brick the best part of a grand's shooter training system.

ISSUE: I keep getting weird spiky traces, with my shots getting flung out into the white:

• You've got a terrible flinch! Eliminate this possibility by firing a couple of shots with the rifle held on a bench (e.g. A Black and Decker workmate).
• Can be lighting. Try changing light sources as described above.
• Shiny flooring can also be an issue. Put something nonrefelective midway between the target and the optical sensor.
• Having more than one SCATT in the room at the same time can sometimes cause interference. Use the Tools -> Options -> Firing Point menu item and select different firing point numbers for each device. Failing that, put barriers between the SCATTs midway between optical sensors and targets. Otherwise, you're going to be limited to one SCATT being used at a time.
• The lens at the front of the optical sensor can work loose and wobble when a shot is fired. You may be able to hear rattle if you shake the sensor. Youll get massive spikes in the trace, flung shots and/or a big change in the point of impact between shots.  The lens is held in place by a threaded plastic grommet which screws into the body of the sensor. You can carefully tighten this up using a thumbnail, which will solve the issue.

Please, if you read this and think that I've missed something; let me know! I'll try and keep this up to date occasionally, so it can be used as a repository of the latest knowledge.

A final note: Troubleshooting your SCATT can be a stressful experience; you're all ready to do some training but are frustrated by damn technology. If you do get your SCATT working after having some issues, take 2 minutes to stop and reflect on whether you should now train. If you're stressed or frustrated then it may not be the right thing to do. Stop and think. If you're calm and can focus on the task in hand, go ahead, otherwise it may be better to take 5 minutes to bring yourself back into the right frame of mind or even cancel SCATT training and go do some cardio or core strength exercises instead.