Sound adjustments, inner zones

In my last post I said I would discuss some findings from adjusting the sound parameters of the EcoAims VIS500, so here we go.

I had always been interested to know how things are moving whilst I am shooting with the different aiming devices. Whilst the EcoAims training software allows you to view the position according to the VIS500, I had reason I wanted to ideally use Scatt. Here are some of my reasons:

1. Scatt is familiar to many shooters, they know how to use the software, they know what its accuracy is like, etc.
2. It is always nice to have something independently confirming what is going on, it helps confirm how accurate the VIS500 really is.
3. The EcoAims training software is not particularly accessible with a screen reader. I am not really sure how much information I could get out of it. Also Scatt have some examples of writing software to handle the data from Scatt files, so as a software developer may be I could do other things to process my shooting data.

One problem though is that the EcoAims VIS500 uses the IR LED near the target and this is a similar frequency to the IR used by older Scatt devices, so the two systems would be likely to interfere with each other. However as someone at my club has a Scatt MX02 which is purely optical and needs no IR target, so we gave it a go and I was pleased to find that yes you can use a Scatt MX02 with the EcoAims VIS500 without any issue.

Now my assistant could see exactly what was going on whilst I was shooting, time to observe. The interesting thing which started to come up was that there were occasions when I might get my hold nice and steady, but just in the 8 ring of the rifle target. Yes when I did this normally I would take the shot and get an 8. I just did not seem to be identifying that the tone was not quite right. Using a headphone amplifier with two headphone outputs, my assistant started to listen to the sound as well whilst I was shooting. We reached the conclusion that there just seemed to be something about the tone there which was making me think may be I had a 10 when I did not.

The VIS500 has two zones, one where it produces pulsing tone and one where it is constant. You can adjust the size of these zones and also whether the pulsing is inside or outside the inner zone. Regardless of which zone you are in, the tone still varies in pitch to indicate how far you are from the centre, so in the past I had almost ignored this feature just having it pulsing outside and leaving the size at the default size.

However needing something to make it clearly different between a steady hold in the 8 ring and a steady hold in the 10 ring, it was time to adjust the size of the zone setting. We adjusted the zone to be of a size so that if I am in the 8 ring it will pulse and if I am in the 9 ring or better then it will be constant. Not being sure what the number means in the EcoAims software, we did some testing with the rifle on the bench, with my assistant observing the position on the Scatt and also listening to the tones from the VIS500. Initially we tried setting the parameter to 10, but I was still occasionally getting that 8 ring hold, so we shrank the zone a little more and set the parameter to 8.

Having made this change, I have been told my hold now is a lot more in the middle and never in the 8 ring, or if it is then I am identifying it quickly and not taking the shot. I guess this really should not have come as a surprise as I have seen elsewhere that may be you need a significant tone change as you approach the middle of the target. Wim mentions something similar in a post on the Kedok blog.

Does this mean I am being converted to an inner tone idea and will I start to love the VIASS? Well yes I am now seeing value in having two distinct zones, but I still feel the VIASS has got this slightly wrong. My problem with the VIASS is that once you enter its inner zone area you only have a single tone and no indication of position in the zone or the movement. With the VIS500 and from what I understand of Kedok, the tone will still vary in pitch and give you a sense of the position and movement of the rifle within that zone. Also when you still have this positional information, it means that it is slightly less important to match the zone size to the shooter's ability and may be the VIS500 and Kedok are more suitable as club equipment which may be used by a number of shooters.

Position training

Yesterday I mentioned how I am going through a process of rebuilding my shooting position and I said there were a couple of interesting things which have come up. Today I will mention trying to find the correct position and approaching the target correctly. Both of these things are really important to do correctly, if the position isn't stable or if you need to force the rifle onto the target then you will probably find you will be fighting for the rest of the shot.

I have heard many people say that if you learn your shooting position enough then you will feel when it is not right. I understand some of this, but the biggest problem for me is that until you have learnt the position and know how to feel what is going on, then how can you train it? The real problem being that I cannot use some of the normal training tools, like watching yourself in a mirror or videoing your shooting and observing. In fact the only way I can detect what my body is doing whilst shooting is by how it feels, but we have established that is what I am trying to learn. At this point the only solution I seem to have is to have someone sighted observe me whilst shooting and for them to comment on what they see happening.

Similar applies to the path I follow as I lift up the rifle and approach the target. Again sighted shooters may use techniques like having a laser pointer attached to the rifle and to get it to follow a specific line. What makes it worse is that if I don't find the target then the audio aiming system gives no clue as to which side of the target I am pointing and so I don't even know which way to adjust next time I try.

I feel that needing to have someone sighted observe and help with these tasks is probably limiting my ability to train the position and target approach. Some time ago it was decided I needed to sort out my trigger action and so I took my rifle home for a couple of weeks and did some trigger training every day for those two weeks. The difference that two weeks made was amazing and I am sure that something similar for position training would be benefitial too. If anyone has any ideas on how I could do position training independently then that would be great if you could share those ideas.

In my next post I intend to discuss some findings I have made about the EcoAims VIS500 and the audio parameters.

Rebuilding the shooting position

Well it has been longer than I intended again since I wrote anything here, other things in life just keep coming up and getting in the way.

We are now well into the winter season of shooting competitions. For this winter I have decided to really commit to just using the EcoAims VIS500 and learning everything I can about how it works, including any peculiarities it may have.

If you want to track my progress in the competitions over the winter, I am competing in the International Home Range Cup being organised by Patrick from Austria, results and information here and also the Cambridgeshire Target Shooting Association 10m air rifle league results here.

Unfortunately after the summer with the air pistol, when I picked up the air rifle again something was just not quite right and after a very bad first round in the Cambridgeshire it was time to revisit everything about my shooting and rebuild the position, hopefully getting a better one in the process. Thanks to the support of some members of my shooting club, we have increased the amount of training I am doing and with the work on the position the scores are improving and I think there is still space for more improvement to still come.

Much of what I have done is probably what all shooters should do from time to time when attempting to improve their shooting, but there have been a few things which have come up which are quite interesting. Over the next few days I will write some more posts on those specific things.

Thoughts on best achievements

Back between 2003 and 2007 I studied physics at university. Last week I had a phone call from someone writing on vision impaired people and physics. You are probably thinking, what has this all to do with shooting? Within the conversation with the journalist he mentioned that he had done a web search and seen that I also do shooting and he asked the question of what would I describe as my best achievement in shooting. This question has come up before when talking with people about VI shooting, so may be it is time to also answer it here on this blog.

I am going to pick three which have particular significance to me, although there are others which also mean something to me.

1. Back around the late 1990s and early 2000s the British always had a team go over to the Dutch Open Championships. In 2000 it was my first time in being selected to go with the team and first time I had shot in a competition in another country. It was the biggest thing I had done in shooting at that point and I definitely had nerves. Dispite feeling that pressure, I won the supported competition (standing, shooting from a support rest). Since then I have done things which are a greater achievement, but this probably is where I really started getting that competitive thing in shooting and the hunger to push further.
2. Next we jump forward to 2014 and the IPC Shooting VI demonstration event in Suhl in Germany. Whilst the number of shooters participating were only a few, we had all been selected as top VI shooters for the demonstration event, so I was competing against the best. Also we were using unfamiliar equipment as IPC Shooting wanted to run it with the equipment they wanted for the future. The equipment was the EcoAims Biathlon equipment, fortunately things have been tweaked since there to make it better for target shooting and also the plan is to still use actual air rifles. I think the first time I had ever used the system was in the practice the day before competition. So I was really pleased to win that competition and the trophy is one I really value.
3. Finally but not least is the first medal I won in the Cambridgeshire postal league competition here in the UK. Why does a UK postal league competition, it was not even the first division, have more significance to me than some of the international achievements and medals? Well this competition is a standard shooting competition against sighted shooters and also using the smaller air rifle target. So due to the number of shooters who take part and also because of the smaller target, I had absolutely no room for silly mistakes and to be able to successfully compete against sighted shooters helped me gain an idea where my shooting is against more than just the VI shooting community.

Progress with air pistol

Back at the start of March once the British championships were over I took the decision to take a break from the air rifle and really give some time over to the air pistol. Over the winter I had been getting the feeling that postal competitions had slightly taken over my air rifle shooting and were determining what I was prepared to do in my training. The main problem being that I was focusing on keeping the score best for the immediate rather than being able to try out things which might work out better in the long term but with a short term negative impact on score. As I have not done much more than prove the concept with the air pistol until the start of March, I felt focusing on the air pistol would be a good break as I would have no expectations of what I should be able to do and so would not be constantly comparing what I achieve against expectations.

Back at the start of March I was probably getting scores around 90 average for 10 shots, may be low 90s on a good day. Then about a couple of weeks ago something seemed to click with me.

Yes that is a 578 with 60 shots and this week was also similar at 575.

So what had clicked? After all I have not adjusted much since originally trying the air pistol. I cannot be certain, but one thing is that I have become very aware of sensing the position, it is very different to sensing the position with the air rifle. With the air rifle if something is not quite in the right place then another contact point probably will not line up and so you know very quickly something is not right, but with the air pistol there are so few contact points that you really need to feel it internally. Also to help with the position I have placed an elastic band around the support bar of the support stand to provide me with a reference point when checking the placement of the pistol on the stand after loading.

The other thing to come out of spending so much time with the air pistol is that may be I am starting to get more familiar with the VIASS. Back with the rifle I found myself continually comparing it with the Swarovski, both in the sound it makes and also in the scores I achieved and due to needing to shoot postal competitions I would keep changing it back to the Swarovski so that my competition cards would be as good as possible. With the pistol I don't have the choice, the Swarovski won't fit and until the start of March I had no previous pistol scores to compare.

So now where with the air pistol? Unfortunately here in the UK supported air pistol is not widely adopted and there are no competitions. Development of supported air pistol, both for VI shooters and also for anyone else who may find shooting air pistol without a support stand, is one task. Also at my club we are going to see what we can find out about supported air pistol in other countries and whether there is any postal competitions I could compete in. In the meantime I am enjoying shooting the air pistol without the pressures of constantly thinking about shooting competition cards.

Using an air pistol

It has been a long time since writing anything here and probably time to catch up on a few things I have been up to. So yes I have been using the VIASS, but I have also had a good go with the EcoAims VIS500 aiming device. Whilst internationally these may be where things are going, there is still part of me missing something from the Swarovski sound and I think it is that continually smoothly changing tone which just seems to give a bit more detail on how the gun is moving. However I think the VIASS may have found itself a very nice home sat on top of an air pistol.

Shooting an air pistol is something I have always wanted to do for quite some time. It just seems a bit crazy that when I need to use public transport to get around, such as to the airport when going to an international competition, I have so much equipment to carry around. How nice would it be to only need to take something as small and light as an air pistol.

Thanks to the efforts of club members at my shooting club talking nicely to Walther and the generosity of Walther, I now have an LP400 air pistol and through the use of a sight raising block to extend the dovetail rail backwards a bit we managed to fit the VIASS to the top of the air pistol and yesterday I had my first go with it.

It was great to actually shoot an air pistol and has opened me to a quite different discipline of shooting. One thing we are slightly concerned about is that for someone with no sight orientation to the target and finding it may be difficult. So as it also was my first time we got out a support stand and I was doing supported air pistol, although I do hope may be in time we can find some other solution to help with locating the target without using a support.

There are may be a few things which I will need to work on. Whilst the sight raising block did hold the VIASS in place, it was only just long enough and could do with being a bit longer. This is all due to the loading port lever coming up in front of the VIASS and so enough space needs to be there for loading. Unfortunately with the EcoAims VIS500 the clamp being at the rear end of the aiming device means that it probably would be very difficult to fit that to the air pistol and still be able to load.

It is a discipline I would like to develop for VI shooters and so over time I will hopefully draw up a set of rules we could possibly consider using for IBSA shooting competitions. Also the maker of the VIASS tell me they have an adapter to fit the VIASS to a Steyr LP10, so I think this really is a discipline which could be developed now.

The big question is will I achieve what I thought may be possible with air pistol and have less equipment to take to a shooting competition, or will this just be yet another piece of equipment I need to carry around with the air rifle. I have been doing the air rifle too long to possibly just give it up so I suspect the latter may really prove to be the truth.

New aiming device, VIASS Pro, is it the future?

With the announcement that Swarovski are discontinuing production of the ZE-B618 acoustic scope, a new aiming device is needed. Whilst I feel that the real future is to have a system like the Scatt MX02 or the aiming system for the blind made by Wings Group which works with the standard ISSF target, at an international level in the sport there seems to be a preference to go towards using systems which have an infrared LED placed near the target. One such infrared based infrared device is the VIASS Pro. Based on having seen one and the features it has I decided to buy one, below is my view of what the VIASS pro is like.

Swarovski: The benchmark to beat

Before discussing the VIASS, it is probably worth quickly recapping the Swarovski to make it clear what the benchmark is. The general principal of the Swarovski is that it contains a light sensor mounted within a telescopic sight, and when it detects more light the higher the tone it produces. We suspect that it may be averaging light over a certain area and it has also been suggested that it may do some centre weighting to bias the signal to light in the centre of its view. Precisely how the electronics work is not known for certain, but we have strong reason to believe it is an analogue system, which has the advantage that the tone changes smoothly. As the tone varies continually it has no concept of a tone relating to a specific scoring ring on the target, it is for the shooter to evaluate when they believe they have the highest pitch tone and that it is as steady as they can achieve. The system has very little customisation available, there is a small screw adjuster behind a plastic cap at the back of the scope to adjust the frequency of the tone it produces and there are adjusters to correct the mean point of impact. Its a very simple device, but it works very well with scores of over 90 on the smaller rifle sized card being achievable, I think it has sufficient resolution to allow one to shoot a 10 on the rifle sized card, it is just being a good enough shooter which limits that. The Swarovski has been in production for a long time, I have heard people say as early as the 1970s or 1980s. The quality and reliability of the Swarovski is good and it is not unknown for them to last well over 10 years.

VIASS: The newcomer

Now to the VIASS Pro, the new comer, in fact so new that there is no online shop and you need to place your order via email and make payment through bank transfer. In these days of the online shop with next day delivery and automated order updates, it was quite noticeable the contrast in ordering the VIASS, although really it wasn't a problem. Rather than include photos here, I will let you visit the VIASS website for pictures, an audio sample of its output and full specifications.

The first thing I noticed when picking it out of its box is how light it is in comparison to the Swarovski. According to its specifications it only weighs 190g, which is less than half the weight of the Swarovski. VIASS even suggest you could use it on a pistol, although you would need to find a pistol with a dovetail to accept the scope mount. Much of the weight saving I guess is due to the use of plastic rather than metal. Whilst saving weight, this leads to my first concern with it, how stable and secure the components are mounted and how it will last over time. Hopefully if one looks after it, providing the plastics used are good quality, it should be able to last without issue.

Unlike the Swarovski which uses standard telescopic sight mounts, the VIASS has a clamp mount built in. Again may be it saves weight and might be cheaper to produce, it does mean that the gun you use will need to have a dovetail and can accept a clamp which is the full length of the scope. On my Steyr I fitted it to the rear rail but the rear end of the clamp still hangs off the end of the rail, this though should not be an issue as there is plenty of clamp holding it in place. However as the scope is shorter than the Swarovski and so on my Steyr is all behind the loading port, may be it will mean it will interfere less with loading mechanisms than the Swarovski did.

Power is provided through a mini USB port on the top of the device. I possibly question placing it up there, it just doesn't look like it will help stability of the rifle. However in use it did not seem to cause an issue. The scope is supplied with a USB battery and 30cm cable, obviously the intention is that you will mount the battery on the rifle although you could use a USB extension cable and put the battery in your shooting jacket pocket and save weight on the rifle. I am not keen on the supplied battery, it has a push button to turn it on and off, but the status is only indicated by LEDs which is not good for those with no sight, but there are plenty of other USB power packs out there. The headphone socket is on the right hand side of the scope, should you let the cable hang down you may find they get caught by the loading lever or hang over the pistol grip. I did a little cable management on the rifle to keep the cables out of the way.

Now everything is rigged up, to the controls. All controls are at the rear of the device. The manual is not very descriptive for those with no sight and you will need someone to explain which is which. Here is a description for you. On the back of the device there are three small rotary controls, the left one being slightly higher than the other two. The left most rotary control is the volume control and you will find four buttons around it, one above, one to the left, one to the right and one below. These four buttons are the arrow keys which are used for adjusting the point of aim. These buttons are so designed that to do multiple presses you need to release and repress the button for each adjustment, this means you will not accidentally adjust it more than you intend. Each adjustment is confirmed by a beep in the headphones. The middle rotary control adjusts the main aiming tone frequency and there seems to be a good amount of variation available. The right most rotary control adjusts the pitch of the frequency of the tone for the centre region. These controls allow you lots of flexibility in how you have your sound set up, the centre tone can be lower than the lead in tones, it can be the same as the highest lead in tone or it can be higher than the lead in tones. When you have your tones set up as you like them, you can remove the rotary control knobs so they will not get accidentally changed. I probably will not remove them as they are fiddle to refit and I don't think they will be prone to accidental adjustment.

At the very bottom of the control panel there are three buttons, at the moment the left most button which is labelled F1 is the most useful, it adjusts the size for the centre tone between a rifle and pistol sized target. I have been told this will be adjustable with the computer when the software is released. The middle button is labelled F2 and will change the training software between rifle and pistol targets, and the right button labelled F3 will change the training software between sighting and competition. Again this needs the software to be released before it can be used. I do hope the software will come soon.

So how is it to use when shooting. When the device is turned on but not pointing at the target it does not make a sound, only once it starts detecting the infrared LED does it start producing tones. This whilst reducing the hand movement you need to do between shots, as a long time Swarovski user I kept finding myself automatically reaching for a on/off switch which does not exist on the VIASS. The next thing to notice is that as a digital system the transition of the tones is stepped rather than being a smooth variation. With other digital systems I have not liked this stepped tone, but with the VIASS whilst I would say it is not quite as nice as the Swarovski, it did not seem to distract me in my shooting.

You may have noticed me refer to a tone for the centre region. Yes that is right the VIASS has a different tone indicating the center region. The frequency of the tone does not vary within this center region and if set too large will mean that you will not be able to achieve the best accuracy. Equally set it too small and you will be able to hear very small movements you may not be able to stop and so may lead to you over trying and taking too long on a shot. The VIASS website has a sample sound. The sample sound is configured with the centre region being a lower tone than the lead in tones. This to me feels slightly odd that you need to increase the frequency of the tone and then suddenly it will drop when you get to the very middle. However remember you can adjust the frequencies of the tones and so it need not be that way round.

Something which did surprise me was that the mental load on trying to aim with the VIASS actually seemed less. Also it seemed like I may be was finding the target a bit easier and quicker than with the Swarovski. There could be two reasons for this. As the VIASS makes no sound until it finds the infrared LED and there are not many other sources of infrared it means that it will only start making tones when you find the target. With the Swarovski you could find a slightly brighter patch near the target which causes a slight raise in tone and then you start aiming with that patch of light only to not be able to find a tone which would relate to the centre of the target, so you waste time investigating light spots which are irrelevant. The other reason being that the centre tone of the VIASS can be very distinct from the lead in tones, where as the Swarovski the more accurate you are the less the tone will vary.

There were a couple of small issues I found. One is when doing multiple presses on a arrow key it did not seem to respond to every press if doing it quickly. If you are aware of this then it seems perfectly workable, just wait for each beep to finish and do the presses at a steady rate. The other issue is a slightly more puzzling one, there were occasions when taking a shot the scope would just emit a long beep which had no relationship to the point of aim. I don't know for sure but it almost seemed like the device was restarting. It seemed to mainly happen just after taking a shot, normally when it had been held in the centre region for some time. May be with firmware updates these issues can be solved.

Now the question how accurate is it. Supposedly the resolution of the camera is such that it can detect movements of 0.7mm. Trying it out in practice I cannot verify that, but the accuracy does seem to be at least as good as the Swarovski. When firing it off a stand to test it out for accuracy, I heard a comment from behind saying that it was worryingly accurate, may be that says it all. It has been suggested that may be in the future there will be a replacement lens for prone which will lead to it detecting 0.3mm movement, although this would lead to a smaller field of view and so you will get less lead in and will need to find the target more accurately.

Infrared LED options

Quickly to describe the options you have for LEDs. VIASS offer two versions, one which is a small board and a power cable, again using a USB battery for power. The board can be fitted to an eleectronic target with velcro or such like. The other option is a small LED powered by a button battery which is mounted to a cardboard mask which is the same size as a air pistol target. The idea being that you can put this in a target changer with a paper target, as the two are the same size you should be able to get the LED in the same place relative to the centre of the target each time. This has one advantage over the electronic target system, it means that you do not need to go down range when using paper targets. May be electronic target manufacturer's could start including the infrared LED in their target systems and that would mean also not needing to go down range to install a LED.

Conclusion

So would I say VIASS is a worthy replacement for the Swarovski. From what I have seen it has the potential to, although may be it could do with some small improvements. The firmware glitches I mentioned hopefully will get sorted and will be user updatable. The computer software still needs to be released and is required to access certain features of the device. Providing these get addressed, then my only concern is the reliability and this will only be known with time. When considering the price, how long a device will last is certainly important to determine if it is worth the cost. With no track record of previous devices and the VIASS Pro being new, I feel may be the asking price is a bit high particularly considering that there is no mention of a multi-year warranty, although multi-year warranties mean nothing should the company discontinue the model or go out of business. Swarovski could ask much as they did because you could be fairly certain of it lasting for ages. May be in a few years once the reliability is established VIASS may have earned a reputation which could be seen to deserve such a asking price.

For those who cannot afford this then cheaper options may be needed. Whether something such as Kedok might be worth looking at.