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Dr. A. C. Jones, author of Sporting Shotgun Performance, has written computer software which allows a shotgun pattern to be scanned into a computer without marking each pellet hole.
The computer then calculates the X and Y coordinates of each pellet hole on the pattern.
It determines the X and Y means, variances, covariances, and the two-dimensional Gaussian distribution and can determine the probability of any pellet or combination of pellets hitting at a given distance from the calculated center of the pattern. By inserting several patterns into the computer, the variation of the shot-to-shot centering (the human error) can be added to the probabilities.
I did something similar to this in my weapons work back during the Cold War for weapons with a little more oomph than trap guns. Am very glad someone has now made this available for sporting gun purposes.
Dr. Jones has measured and recorded tens of thousands of shotgun patterns (millions of pellet holes) in his work.
From Dr. Jones' thousands of measured shotgun patterns, he has concluded that short range (e.g., 13 yard) pattern performance can be used to predict long range pattern performance (e.g., 40 yard).
This makes the piece of paper for the patterns smaller and, more importantly, the walk to the target shorter.
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Fascinating! Is the program a computerised version of the Oberfell and Thompson methodology or something totally different?
Cheers...
Con
