shot timer accuracy?

[taliv]

i've been using a shot timer for several years. i recently left it at home and borrowed a friend's which was the same brand but a different model. Suddenly, my splits went from .18-.21 to .13-.16! A few days later, knowing I wasn't just super fast that day, I ran both of them at the same time, and actually, my friend had two of the same model, so I used 3 shot timers at the same time.

what I found more or less defies any sort of unified theory of timerology so far, but I can say a few things

- my timer(a) never registered a shot below .17
- most of the time, two of the three timers would be within .01 sec but I could never predict which two it would be
- timers (b) and (c) were all over the board, with times from .13 to .22
- on longer strings of fire, the total time would be very close, but individual shots would vary considerably

in total I fired 4 strings of 10 shots, plus probably another 30 rounds one at a time

you know what they say about a man with more than one clock never knowing what time it is... i now have zero confidence in any of these timers

anyone know of a study or ever tried this themselves?

 

[Jim Watson]

Cheap consumer electronic "accuracy."
As long as you use the same timer for practice or a match stage, it should not be a problem. Just an annoyance that you don't know what you are Exactly doing.

 

[Reloadron]

Jim pretty much nailed it, inexpensive consumer electronics. The internal clock in units like this and low end chronographs are not known for their accuracy or stability, combine that with their sensitivity and the end result is poor repeatability.

Much better units could easily be manufactured but the average shooter won't pay the higher prices. They will buy the $100 shot timer or chronograph before they buy the $500 version.

Ron

 

[jmorris]

A man with one clock always knows what time it is, a man with two is never sure.

I have never used more than one at the same time but I have an R U Ready, ced 8000 and a couple of Pact timers. Let me see if I have enough 9v batts.

 

[jmorris]

Well, I could have tested all 4 but just changed out the batteries in all my smoke detectors but did try out the 3 different ones.

Not enough fingers to start them all at the same time but they all registered the same split times though, not too bad for an LCP either.



I would have been surprised if they were off as much as you found. Even the lowly $.020 555 time IC is good to the millisecond (.001 seconds).

What brand of timers were you playing with?

 

[jmorris]

Also, any chance echoes, other firearms or full auto fire confused the different timers? I like some better than others for different situations.