VIASS, I knew the plastic clamp was a mistake

Whilst doing some home training with my new LG400 I decided to try fitting the VIASS to it. To my surprise it was not quite as simple as I had been expecting. Initially the LG400 looks like it should be very good for VI shooting as the loading lever can be fitted on either side, either going up or going down when in the open position. Having the lever going down means that there should be no problems in fitting a scope to the rifle as nothing comes above the mounting rail. Well that is what I thought, but it turns out that on the right hand side of the rifle there are a couple of linking rods connecting the spindle of the lever to the sliding mechanism of the bolt and when the loading port is in the open position these actually rise up alongside the mounting rail. Unfortunately the bulky plastic clamp of the VIASS is just too wide and will get in the way of these linking rods.

Not all is lost if you want to fit the VIASS to the LG400, there are a couple of possible solutions. The first is to use a sight raising block to mount the VIASS and the LG400 comes with a sight raising block which is suitable. However if you want to avoid raising the VIASS more than you need to the other option is to consider fitting it to the rail just in front of the loading port, but this does place the VIASS further from you which means you may need to reach further when making adjustments. I cannot help thinking neither of these need to be done if the VIASS had been slightly differently designed. If it had either used a narrower clamp like that on the EcoAims VIS500 or used standard scope mounts then this problem would simply have not occurred.

New rifle

Last week I got my new air rifle, a Walther LG400 Alutec Expert. Some of you might be thinking, so why the new rifle? We may all like getting our hands on nice new bits of shooting kit and the Walther is that, but there were a few other reasons as well.

Probably the first is that for the last ten years or so I have only been shooting with my Steyr LG110 and prior to that with club rifles which don't really come to the same standard. I was given the chance to have the Walther on a trial period, so I thought may be it is time to try something different to see how it compares to the Steyr. Its always good to try a few things so you really get the chance to know what you like.

There also have been a few other things in the past where the Steyr just does not quite seem to be ideal. My steyr has had a few small alterations, mainly to alter the palm rest for the supporting hand and the cheek piece. Probably one of the biggest concerns I had on the Steyr is that for some reason my LG110 did not like going between dry-fire and live firing, with the next shot after a dry-fire always going low, in the 3 ring of a air rifle target. So with my Steyr, I had to avoid doing dry-fire within competitions.

So how does the Walther compare? Its probably a bit early to say as I have only had it a week and there is much tweaking to do, but initially it all feels good. Having said that though, the Steyr is still a good rifle and the differences probably are either personal preference or only really make the difference when you are trying to convert 9s on the air rifle target into 10s. There are still a few things about the Steyr I think I prefer, such as how dead it feels as you release the shot, but is that just learning something new after 10 years of the same?

EcoAims VIS500 reviewed

In a number of previous posts I have mentioned about the EcoAims VIS500 and that it at the moment is my aiming device of choice when I am shooting air rifle. However I realise I have never really done a post about the VIS500 to give you an overview of the device and my view on its good and bad points. So time to put that right, in this post I will give a bit of a review of the EcoAims VIS500.

Who is EcoAims?

For those of you who have not heard of EcoAims before, they are a company who make a number of electronic shooting devices, such as modern pentathlon laser pistols and the VI biathlon system which has been used in paralympic biathlon events since 2002. So I would expect that they should have good experience in tracking the point of aim of a gun. However the VIS500 as far as I know is the first product from EcoAims which is to be attached to a gun and used whilst live firing.

The VIS500

Now to the actual device. Like the VIASS Pro, the VIS500 is an infrared based system, requiring an IR LED to be placed near the target. It has been approved for use in international competitions by both IBSA and WSPS, so big tick for those who are interested in international competition.

The VIS500 has a fairly slim design to it, however you will still need to be careful of guns with loading mechanisms which come upwards as they could clash with the VIS500. This is actually part of the reason why I cannot use the VIS500 on the Walther LP400 air pistol. Also it is worth noting that the mounting clamp on the VIS500 is shorter than the device and is only at the rear end, meaning that you have a good amount of scope protruding forward of the mounting point, the second part as to why it will not fit on the air pistol when using standard parts for mounting.

The build quality of the VIS500 feels good. Whilst there are some plastic parts, metal is used in the places where I feel it requires it, such as the mounting clamp and support frame.

The sighting adjusters are mechanical adjusters operated by a dial on the top and right hand side. Whilst I like the electronic adjustments on the VIASS, the intuitive nature of making adjustments, the reliability of adjustments and the ability to adjust it from a computer to set specific values thus making it simpler to swap between different guns or shooters, it must be said that a good set of mechanical adjusters will also do a good job. Although the mechanism on the VIS500 feels slightly basic, having the adjusters move the rear end of the device about, the adjusters do seem to be working fairly well in use.

The VIS500 is the only aiming device I have used with the battery built in. I have mixed views on this. It is good not to have additional cables providing power or needing to find somewhere to mount a battery pack to the rifle. However it has the disadvantage that you need the VIS500 to charge its battery, no just taking the battery home to charge. Also it is not possible to have a spare battery for it, although as a backup I guess you could have a USB charger or a USB battery. The other disadvantage is that by having the battery built in, it makes the VIS500 heavier than the VIASS. Personally the weight of the VIS500 is not a problem for me with the rifle, it might be if it were to be used on an air pistol.

On the left hand side of the VIS500, you have a mini USB port for power and connecting with the EcoAims software on a PC, the power button and three indicator LEDs. Whilst in my role of IBSA shooting chair person I have concerns over the presence of indicator LEDs and whether it could impact upon sight classification by giving some shooters additional information, the LEDs are useful for the assistant in training. There is a power indicator which doubles as a low battery warning by changing colour when the internal battery is low, an on target indicator and a shot indicator which flashes when the VIS500 detects a shot being taken.

There is no on-board volume control, you will need an inline volume control and EcoAims supplies one in the package. The final thing to note about the physical design is the headphone socket. The placement pointing forwards and upwards near the top front end of the scope may seem slightly odd at first, but in actual use it seems well placed. By not placing it on either side it will work equally well for either a left or right handed shooter, you can route the cable off to which ever side of the gun you prefer. To have the cable exit at the rear could have had problems for the shooter as the cable might get in the way of head placement on the rear of the stock. For me I have found using an extension cable looping it back along the left side of the rifle, tucking it under the cheek piece and around the cheek piece support and then down to the shooting jacket pocket where I plug in my headphones works well and I never notice the cable in use.

The sound

This is where you will notice the origins of the VIS500 and that the biathlon system was the previous audio aiming system from EcoAims. It definitely has similarities to the sound of the biathlon system, but it has also definitely evolved into something else. The VIS500 has three main different regions, off target, outer region of target and inner region. When the VIS500 cannot detect the IR LED it produces a low beep every second or so, I guess to just remind you it is on. Once the VIS500 can detect the IR LED, it starts producing a varying pitch tone, increasing in pitch as it gets closer to the target centre. Unlike the Swarovski the VIS500 has a stepped tone, you hear it jump from one tone to another where as the Swarovski smoothly transitioned. At first this can seem off putting, but I have found that as I have got used to it I probably can shoot just as well with the VIS500 as I could with the Swarovski. Also as the shooter's technique improves and they become more stable and the movement is slower, the steps become less noticeable as the jumps become less and also less frequent.

I mentioned that there is an inner and outer target region, what is the difference between these? In the configuration software for the PC, there is a setting where you can define the radius of a zone in the middle of the target and you can have the tone pulse inside or outside of that region. The speed of the pulsing can be selected in the configuration software, allowing you to define the on and off durations. Even when the tone pulses it will still change pitch depending on the point of aim. I have my VIS500 set so that when the rifle is pointing outside the 9 ring of a air rifle target it will pulse and if it is pointing at the 9 or better it will be a constant tone. Having it change from pulsing to constant just gives me a very clear indication when I am getting very close to the target centre and helps me assess how good my hold is. I do like how even with the inner zone you still get the change in pitch as it means I can still seek out the very best point of aim and have an idea of the amount of movement. This is what I don't like about the VIASS, its inner zone just had a single tone with no variation in pitch inside the inner zone.

As well as being able to change the inner and outer zones, it is possible to select from three different sound curves. A sound curve is how the pitch changes for the distance from the target centre. As an example you could have it change linearly with the distance from the target centre, or you could have it that the pitch changes quicker in the centre than near the outside. Unfortunately the software just labels the three different curves A, B and C, it would be nice to know what each curve is meant to be like.

The software

EcoAims has software for configuring some parameters of the VIS500 and also some training software so it can be used for dry-fire training. Other than the sound customisations I mentioned above, the configuration software allows adjusting the shot sensor. I have already discussed the training software in a previous post. In summary though I would say the training software is a nice extra but would not be a big pull for choosing the VIS500 as for a VI person it is fairly limited what can be done. Also having the separate software for configuration and training is slightly awkward at times, mainly when setting the shot sensor level as you can only have one of the software tools open at a time and so you may find yourself switching between them more than you want.

Conclusion

Well you may already know my view on the VIS500. Whilst seeming simpler than the VIASS, the VIS500 works very well and is well thought through. I feel some of the simplicity helps as you do not have too many settings to confuse you and it is not as critical to configure the sound parameters optimally. The settings which can be configured on the VIS500 do add value and are useful.

The VIS500 is let down by its mounting options, always having a significant amount of it protruding forward of the mounting point making it impossible to fit in some cases without designing custom parts. Also the sound will put off some as the steps in tone is not as pleasing to listen to as the devices with a smoothly varying tone.

Having seen the VIS500 at different times as it developed and evolved from the biathlon system, I know how EcoAims has gradually made the VIS500 a better device. Over that time my feeling towards the EcoAims VIS500 has gradually changed and now I am at a point where out of the VIASS and the VIS500 I choose the VIS500 for rifle use. I just hope that EcoAims will continue to build on what they have now to continue making improvements to overcome the few remaining issues.

I cant explain the bad shots

Firstly I must say sorry to those of you who don't like word play or those who do not natively speak English, but I just couldn't resist it in the title.

Recently we had been noticing that when I am shooting that I would have a string of good shots, a bad shot being considered an 8 on the air rifle target, but then I would just get a random 6 or 5 on its own and the good shots resuming afterwards. What was most concerning was that those random 6s or 5s actually sounded fairly reasonable. So it was time to do some experimenting to find out what was going on.

One thought was that may be the equipment was doing something strange, may be the EcoAims VIS500 was walking. So to test this I spent an evening at the shooting club sitting down with the rifle on a support rest and the computer connected to the EcoAims VIS500. I did live firing so we could compare where the VIS500 claimed the shot went and where the MegaLink target scored the shot. After around 80 shots, no fliers in the 6 ring and both the EcoAims software and the MegaLink were in fairly close agreement. So seems like its not the equipment, unfortunately that means I was doing something.

One concern I have had for some time with the IR LED based systems like the VIS500 and the VIASS is how the IR LED is offset from the target. The problem with this is that if the rifle is canted over by differing amounts then this might affect where the shot goes. To test if this could account for the random fliers I was getting, it was time to cant over the rifle on the support stand and fire a few shots and see what happens. The original plan was to try 10 shots canted one way then 10 with another cant, however it became very clear sooner this could be the problem. The only thing to notice is that if you mount the IR LED above the target, then the shot goes the other way to wat you might normally expect from canting the rifle. Remember normally because of the path of a pellet dropping over the 10m the barrel is pointing above what you are looking at through the sights, but with the VIS500 it is looking at the IR LED which will be above where the barrel is pointing.

Unfortunately this seems to be a design problem of the IR based systems, with a single LED they cannot see the cant and cannot account for it. Also the further the LED is from the center of the target, the larger the affect from canting the rifle will be, I just hope that WSPS have sufficient wisdom to not standardise the placement too far from the target center.

So looks like we now know what I need to train, detecting and reducing the variation in the cant of the rifle.

Home training

With the holiday period over the last week the chances to get to the shooting club were going to be limited so I was given some home work and sent home with my rifle to do some dry-fire training. Whilst in the past I have taken the rifle home to do some trigger training to improve my trigger technique, this was the first time I was going to try and use the EcoAims VIS500 in training mode at home.

Fortunately my house is about 10m from the very front wall to the very back wall and there is a straight path between them, so this seemed the perfect placement for dry-fire training at home. OK, I will be aiming over a slightly shorter distance as I need a bit of space for me, but it probably is still more than 8m between the IR LED and the EcoAims scope.

As the aim of this exercise was so that I could learn about the sound of the EcoAims VIS500 and also have the opportunity to experiment with the various settings, I decided to make the task slightly easier by sitting with the rifle resting on a support. Good job I did as I have not yet fully worked out the placement of everything and a reliable way for me to align myself with the LED, and there have been some minutes of just searching around to get the target sound. Once I located the target I normally was able to keep finding it for the rest of that training session. Standing though could have been quite a challenge and probably will not happen until we have designed some foot templates to assist me in aligning myself correctly.

This probably was the first time I ever really spent much time with the EcoAims training software. It may be due to it being my first time with it and needing to learn how it works, but I just get the feeling that what I was able to do was very limited. Part of this may be due to the fact that a good amount of the software is not accessible to my screen reader, so there definitely are features I cannot access.

It was good that whilst I was doing my dry-fire training that the software was speaking out a score when the trigger is pulled. Whilst it gives me an indication of whether what I thought I heard was really correct, one needs to remember these are not scoring devices, the slightly shorter range and the fact the VIS500 does not account for cant both would lead to inaccuracies in scoring. The first problem I noticed was that if using my usual headphones which block out some background noise combined with the fact that one tries to continue to hold the same position for a second or two after firing, I normally could not hear the score being spoken over the sound of the VIS500. Changing to a lighter weight set of headphones which block less noise did help. I am not sure if there is a keypress so that one could have the score repeated. Another solution would be if the software had a setting to delay the speaking of scores by a few seconds, giving the shooter the chance to come off target first.

As well as being able to know what the last score was, it would be useful if I had a way to go back through a number of shots and review the whole session. This would be particularly useful when trying out something new and comparing it to before making the change. This might be possible with the software, but due to the lack of accessibility with a screen reader I could not find out how to get this information. Again may be there is a key press and the software may self voice this information.

Knowing scores is only a small part of what one needs to know when training and trying to improve shooting, it is also useful to have the trace showing how the rifle was moving throughout the aiming process. Now I did find a replay option in the menu, but again due to the lack of screen reader accessibility I am unsure exactly how this works and if I could make use of it independently. This is one thing Scatt does have, the audio output mode which allows its trace to be played in sound. In fact at some point I am going to be given some of my Scatt traces and some of a sighted shooter so I can compare how they sound, something which would not be possible without the audio playback feature of Scatt.

So in summary, it is great to have a way of dry-fire training at home and to get some sort of indication of the quality of the shot from the computer, the software to me as a VI shooter trying to use it independently feels very limited and probably at this point is no where near what Scatt is as a training tool. However the EcoAims software is free with the VIS500 scope, where as it would cost quite a bit for a Scatt MX02. It is software, so may be over time EcoAims could provide updates and possibly could look at resolving some of these issues. Also if we compare this with what one previously had with the Swarovski, IE. no estimation of score, this is definitely a step forward already for doing home training for VI shooters.

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.