These are common questions I hear from shooters, coaches and club support staff when it comes to considering investing in a Scatt trainer. I call it an investment for a reason and I hope to explain that in paragraphs below.

Personal Note - I have been a Scatt user for over a decade now. I have started with Scatt USB model and used successfully for more than 10 years. In Recent years, I have upgraded to Scatt MX. It has not been love on the first shot I really wish I knew half of what I know now about how to use it and what to expect as well is the nuances of Scatt setup and usage. However, once I have gotten help from some of my friends, coaches and some internet research I became an avid user of Scatt and find it irreplaceable as a training tool. I continue to use Scatt on regular basis. Right now training on Scatt represents about 50% of my training volume.

Who is Scatt intended for ?

• Shooters and coaches participating in bulls eye shooting disciplines
• Shooters and coaches who want to improve shooting techniques

What can it do for you?

• Scatt enables you to create reproducible training sessions that can be analyzed, shared and viewed both live and at the later time.
• Depending on Scatt model it can be used for dry firing and live firing for distances from 3 to 1000 meters.
• Scatt provides very realistic shot placement simulation with many options to cater to your own training needs.

Will it improve my shooting?

This is very easy to answer. You are the only person that can improve you shooting.

Scatt can help by providing more training opportunity, more time behind the gun and more time pulling the trigger. It will help you improve your consistency and help you identify the areas of improvements in your shot process. It will help you think about your process in a consistent manner and provide very focused training opportunity. It will help you improve you shooting if you put in the time to understand Scatt capabilities and how it can help you train.

Is it a good investment?

This question is going to depend on your situation, your training needs and your finances.

However, let’s look at some numbers. Scatt systems at the time of writing of this article are between $999 and $2499 (CAD).

Now, let’s do some math I will take a basic example and you can tweak numbers to see how they work out for you.

If you shoot live 1x a week with 100 shots the annual cost for one session is:

50 weeks x 1 session x100 shots= 10 000 shots per year equal to 1 case of ammunition

I shoot small-bore so for me that would be around $1400 given the current price of the ammunition that I am using. If I would do two sessions it would $2800 and so on.

Next let’s look at the setup time. Here are my personal parameters:

• Drive to the range 75 minutes
• Gear set up 15 minutes
• Shooting time
• Gear takedown 15 mintes
• Drive home from range 75 minutes

So driving and setup is about 180 minutes = 3hours which I cannot avoid plus I have to pay for the car and gas to get there.

If would go to my range even just one more time per week it would cost me additional 3 hours x 50weeks a year or 150 hours and about $20 in gas cost x 50 or $1000 in extra gas. If I would go extra twice a week it would be double and so on.

If we want to just consider pure cost I like to convert my time into minimum wage meaning that it would save me at least that. So 150 hours would be around $2200.

Now adding all these up. Extra ammo $1400, extra gas $1000 extra time $2200 would bring me to $4600 per year to add an extra live training session per week. $4600 is the figure for me. It could be more or less for you depending on the distance of your range, the ammo that you shoot and how you calculate the cost of your time and how many sessions per week are you considering. You can use the above calculation as a guide to do your own based on your situation.

However, the $4600 is not the most important factor for most people it is the time. Even if you range is closer, and your setup time is quicker, it is still the time that you need to invest before you even make a fist shot. In my case I do not have extra time to go to the range and Scatt is the only way I can still train couple of times a week, given my family and work commitments. For most people being able to train at home would mean doubling or even tripling or quadrupling their training time, even if the financial aspect is not a consideration.

So finally, to answer the question “Is Scatt a good investment?”, just ask yourself how many extra training sessions you would be able to do and could this potentially do for your desired skill development.

Should I buy a Scatt trainer for me?

If you are looking for way to improve the quality and frequency of your training sessions and get constant data and analysis of your shooting sessions, Scatt is not only a good purchase but a necessary investment.

Please also keep in mind the following point about what scatt is NOT!

Scatt is not replacement for live shooting. However, since it can be used with live shooting, it does add value to your live shooting sessions. Yet, shooting just on Scatt will not be enough. You will still need to have time behind the gun with some live firing.

Scatt is not an electronic target. Although we can calibrate Scatt to be producing score that are very close to the scores when shooting live it is not replacement for shooting. Scatt is a simulator and its purpose is to compliment your live shooting and help you work on certain specific skills in consistent analytical way.

Scatt is not a magic pill. You will stall have to do the work. It is still your gun and your trigger finger. Scatt will help you train more often and more consistently and allow you to compare and share your share your training session data.

Scatt is not a video game. There are no power ups or cheats, and you cannot buy more ammo or bigger gun. It does though give you a score at the end and lot of good data, so it could be treated as a video game in that regard. Your skill will improve over time and Scatt will help you take more out of your training sessions.

I decided to write this post more as a reasoning "why" one should consider cleaning their guns on regular basis rather than talking about the methods used to get it done. There are probably as many good cleaning guides out there as there are cleaning products manufacturers and gun manufacturers combined so why add another one to the list.

Though my career as a shooter and running a business this comes up for me more often as a conversation topic compared to an average gun owner.

Coming from air rifle and smallbore rifle shooting background, I had a luxury of choosing how much to clean my guns as both air rifle and smallbore rifle will function "quite well" even with irregular cleaning. However, there were always questions looming in the back of my mind:

Is the "quite well" good enough?

Could I do better?

How can I motivate myself to clean my guns?

Here are my personal "Top 5 Reasons To Clean Your Gun"

1. FUNCTION

This is a no-brainer. Just like any other mechanical piece of equipment, regular cleaning and maintenance will ensure its reliable operation. If you are in military or law enforcement where your gun function is matter of life death and part of the job, this is a given. However, if you are hobby shooter and even a hunter, this reason might not seem as big deal.

I would disagree and say that it is just as important. You want your rifle to work consistently in both practice and competition if your are competitive shooter. If you are a hunter, there is a huge price to pay for your gun not working when you need it. Even if you just like hanging out at the range and getting few shots down on the target, there is a value in having a gun that is always in a good working condition.

2. SAFETY and DURABILITY

Guns are made to last. They are made to endure many hours of usage. Some are manufactured specifically to survive many years of harsh conditions. However, no matter how touch they are made, if not cared for properly your guns will deteriorate faster and not last as long and even become unsafe to operate. They will need more frequent servicing at a higher cost and will be harder to sell and loose the value faster than needed. No one wants that rusty beat up old gun with gunked up stock nor should anyone shoot an improperly cared for gun for safety reasons. Proper cleaning will ensure that your gun can be operated as intended.and expected.

3. AESTETHICS

Although this is very personal, most people still like their possessions to look nice. Some people are lot more particular about it, but most gun owners prefer their guns to look nice. Not old, used, tired and undesirable. That shiny new gun look can last for a long time if it is taken care of properly even with lots of usage. Nice and clean looking guns will be just more pleasant to use, and certainly nicer to show to your friends, and ultimatelly sell if it comes to that point. There are many high quality products avaible that will restore that shine to the old guns and keep your new guns looking new for a long time.

4. ROUTINE

We are all creature of habit. Although a cliche, it is also a major understatement. There are many good articles written about importance of creating a good habit and the power of good habits. Adding gun cleaning as a part of your routine either when you are packing your gear a day before you plan to go to the range or right after you finish shooting, or maybe that one eveninig a week will just help you reinforce good habits. If you clean your guns at the range it also provide a good socializing opportunity that is casual and stress free, yet productive. If you are cleaning your guns when you are getting ready for the range, it will help you build a routine so that you do not forget any of your gear. If you are doing it after the shooting session at home, it will be good time to restock your ammo box, or throw in that extra tool that you forgot last time.

5. ZEN

The Zen, The Zone, My Happy Place - we all have activities that put us in this state of mind. For some people it is exercise going out for a walk or deliberate act of meditating. It is generally a repetitive and familiar activity. Gun cleaning is both of those and many shooters, use this time to reflect. We are all busy with our lives and we rarely give ourselves permission to just turn off. Cleaning your gun could be one of those rare moments without cell phones, computer screens, where you can just focus on what you are doing and allow yourself some time for reflection, upon whatever that your daily life does not give you time for.

And if after reading this you feel inspired to give your guns some extra TLC we do happen to have some products in store that might interest you <HERE>

Usually the conversation begins something like...

"How does Lapua ammo compare to SK?" or "I heard that Lapua and Sk...this and that."

Here are some things you need to know of the bat:

• --> Both Lapua and SK made are made in Schönebeck Germany
• --> Both are brands for smallbore ammunition from the Nammo Group of companies
• --> Both share the same markings on the bottom of the casing, a little cross hair
• 
  

However most people would like to know where the two brands fit. Since they are both owned by the same company it would not make sense to have have competing lines and thus SK and Lapua have virtually zero overlap.

SK has always been made in Schönebeck, where current factory is.	Lapua is Finnish brand and smallbore ammunition under Lapua name has been made in Lapua in Finland until mid 2000s when it the production was moved to Schönebeck.
SK smallbore ammunition is positioned in the highly competitive mid range or entry level competition ammunition, competing with mid range Eley and RWS. There are other players in this space like Federal, Aguila and CCI, but they are generally just a notch below in quality and in price compared to SK ammunition.	Lapua is positioned as high top shelf brand having it compete with the top lines of Eley and RWS Ammunition.
SK has been produced as an OEM product sold under different brand names.

Each of these two brands produce great products for the shooting market, each with benefits for specific purposes.

If you want to see for yourself how these products compare in you gun you might want to try our popular ammo samplers!!!

And if you have more questions, you know how to reach us!

If you search for Eley Team reviews or description you will find very little. There are some theories on other forums and Eley webpage offers nothing.

We are fortunate that we have been able to acquire some quantity of it and offer it to our customers so I thought it would be prudent to find out little more about this mystery ammo line from Eley.

While attending ISSF World Cup in Munich, I caught up with Eley and was able to get some information. I was surprised how open they were and they actually confirmed some of the theories I had personally about it.

First of all Eley team is the entry grade of the EPS bullet offered by Eley. Eley Match and Tennex being the other two higher grades.

Eley calls these "white bullets", because they look lighter compared with he rest of the Eley ammo line.

According to Eley they do not produce Eley Team, it is rather a byproduct of lower quality run of Tennex or Match production.

More importantly for us consumers is: "How is this ammo compared to others in the same price bracket?"

The short answer is: It can be really good. What do I mean can be good? .22lr guns are generally very picky and you will have to test to see what your gun likes.

Eley Team is above Eley Club and our opinion significantly more consistent. It would be competitive with Lapua Center X, both in price and quality.

So that question remains. Should you get some and is it available?

We suggest that you should try it and compare it to the other ammo that you are either using.

Another option is to try out our Mid range Ammo Sampler and see how it stacks up.

We still have good supply of it, but it is not infinite and when it runs out it will likely not be available in Canada for a long time if ever.