TARAN -- Target Analysis software -- Features

The software can:

  • Load images (e.g. scans) of targets with impacts
  • Point-and-click to mark the scale (some known length on the target)
  • Point-and-click to mark the target centre (point of aim, POA); understands multiple targets/groups on the same image
  • Point-and-click to mark all impacts
  • For individual groups, calculate extreme spread and average point of impact (POI) -- nothing else. We could do much more, but this is pointless -- see below

The actual evaluation of rifle precision is NOT done by groups' extreme spread, but by individual impacts aggregated from all targets. This, for several reasons:

  1. The number of shots in a single group is, as a rule, statistically insignificant, and
  2. Measuring precision by extreme spread is probably the LEAST efficient way of doing it, in terms of information per shot (we are using only two points of data; of the rest we only know that it is somewhere in between). Evaluating precision from all individual shots in a series saves you 25% to 40% of ammo to get to the same confidence.
  3. Also, extreme spread is very much skewed by fliers; a single flier in 5 groups of 5 shots skews 20% of measurements. A single flier in 25 individual shots skews only 4% of data.

Over all data points, the software calculates the statistically valid measure of spread -- sigma, R50, R95, etc. along with associated confidence margins -- the more shots we shoot, the closer we get to the truth (Rayleigh estimator and associated confidence intervals). It also calculates the aggregate average POI (with associated confidence margin) -- how much off is your zero.

Incidentally, for entertainment purposes, the software also calculates average 5-shot and 10-shot groups size that can be expected from the rifle.

But a picture is worth approximately 417.6KB words. Behold the screenshots.