Saturday, October 18, 2014 was a historical day for clubs on the Belmont rifle range when a syndicate of rifle clubs, including the Natives Rifle Club, pooled their financial resources, with the valuable assistance of a State government grant, to successfully introduced electronic targets to the range on a permanent basis. Electronic targets purchased by the QRA have been used on the range intermittently on previous occasions but this is the first permanent adoption of electronic target systems replacing manual target marking. A second syndicate of clubs is working to introduce more electronic targets in the near future.
The Hexta-002 target system was chosen by the clubs and is a modern system which has proved very successful elsewhere in Australia.
The system basically comprises a target fitted with 8 sound sensors around the target perimeter which record the passage of the bullet and triangulates its point of impact on the target. A CPU unit uses a dedicated wi-fi system to transfers this data to a computer server at the butts which in turn relays the data to a server at the mound and from there to monitors used by both the shooter and the scorer. The data is depicted on the monitors as a hit on a target image while at the same time the value of the shot is displayed and announced by an electronic voice.
A feature of the system is that the wi-fi network allows anyone with a electronic device such as a smart phone, tablet or laptop to view any of the targets from anywhere on the range. Every shooters’ score is recorded on the server and, at this early stage of the installation, the day’s data is uploaded to the website at the end of the day after which it can be viewed on the website. The Hexta system at Belmont will be capable of streaming the information live to the web by the end of this year.
Example of a completed shoot as displayed on the monitor (It was a tough day, Kev!) This screen dump photo is shown at the smallest zoom. The shooter and the scorer can zoom to magnify the size of the image. The shooter can view the monitors of shooters either side of him by continuously touching the “Look” icon. As Natives club captain, John Menzel, said this is probably the most significant change to our sport in the last 100 years and probably in the entire history of the sport. The use of electronic targets is not new. It has been around for many years in one form or other (especially in small bore shooting) and has matured, as all new technology does.
It is an exciting time for shooters on the Belmont range and we look forward to consolidating our experiences with the new technology and becoming more comfortable with it’s use into the future.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games shooting disciplines will be conducted at the Belmont range and it is expected that the Hexta electronic target system will have proved itself robust enough to be used in the full-bore shooting competition in those Games.
