29 August 2010
Coaches and shooters for decades have known scores alone don't tell very much about how a shooter is doing. Scores are only weakly related to performance, hold, gun/ammo combination, and other factors. The problem is, unless you can afford expensive laser systems (e.g. Noptel or SCATT), and use them every day, shooters do not have additional information to reference. The Orion Scoring System has once again stepped forward and solved this problem.

Available in the latest release of Orion, version 1.0.19, Orion is equipped with "Shot Group Analysis." Orion uses statistical technique to analyze the shots fired in a ten shot group, then displays the results on the individual score sheet.

 Depicted above, shot group analysis displays the following information:

• Graphically, the light shaded blue ellipse is the shooter's statistical representation of his or her group. It displays the area that 90\% of a shooter's shots were statistically located within.
• The lines within the shot group ellipse are the major and minor axes, and correspond to the center of the group.   
  
• "Group Center" is the statistical center of the shot group. The first number is the X-coordinate center, the second number if the Y-coordinate center. Both numbers are in millimeters.   
  
• "Group Area" is the size of the statistical representation of the shot group. It is also the size of the shot group ellipse.  This is measured in millimeters squared.   
  
• "Group Roundness" is a unit-less metric measuring how round the shot group is. A shot group with roundness 1.00 is perfectly round. A roundness value greater than 1 is more elongated along the X-axis, less then 1 the group is more elongated along the Y-axis. Groups with a roundness between .75 and 1.50 may generally be considered round.

10 August 2010

Gold Medal Shooting (GMS) has become synonymous with quality targets for the shooting sports. They recognized early on that target paper quality manufactured in the United States is poor and inadequate.  To help solve this problem, and give American shooters the same quality as our European counterparts, GMS designed and began importing 12 bull air rifle and indoor smallbore rifle targets for use here in he United States. Their quest for quality has paid off as they are now the official target supplier for USA Shooting.

Starting immediately GMS has added the Orion Scoring System to their list of quality products. GMS offers their customers not only the Orion software but also Orion targets. Even more exciting GMS will be able to offer all Orion scoring technologies to their customers as they come online, including indoor smallbore rifle due in September 2010, and air pistol due later this Fall.

Check out Gold Medal Shooting at www.goldmedalshooting.com.

June 15 2010
A new version of Orion is ready for download. This updated version has a number of incremental updates and bug fixes. This version also sets the ground work for an exciting new feature in Orion, the management of club members accross multiple matches. Soon you will be able to add a shooter into Orion and keep his or her information stored. When you create a new match, just select the saved shooters and all of his or her information (rifle category, skill level, DOB, etc) is added automatically to the match.

4 February 2010

USA Shooting has approved the Orion Scoring System for use in its sanctioned matches.  The USA Shooting rulebook has been updated accordingly:  USAS General Technical Rules, 6.3.1B permits the use of Orion Scoring System in USAS sanctioned competitions. The USAS rulebooks may be downloaded from http://www.usashooting.org/rulebook.php.

5 January 2010

The First Shot, online magazine for the Civilian Marksmanship Program, has published an in-depth article about the Orion Scoring System.  Check it out here:

ORION ARTICLE

22 December 2009

The Orion Scoring System has teamed up with the Civilian Marksmanship Program to allow match directors to electronically report scores from their CMP sanctioned three-position air rifle competitions. With the latest release of Orion, just as soon as the Orion Scoring System has scored all targets, results can be uploaded to the CMP's Competition Tracker webserver.

To use this new feature, match directors will receive a CMP match ID and authentication code. These two pieces of information are entered into Orion. Also within Orion, all participants must use their pre-existing CMP competition number. This insures the right score will be assigned to the right shooter. After the match is complete, the match director simply uploades the scores, verifies the scores are correct, and notifies the CMP that scores were reported electronically.