In 2019 the Office of Navy Research (ONR) approached us to help solve the problem of how to use hit factor scoring for Marines at a massive scale.

The problem was interesting… massive scale, basically an Area Match (400+ shooters) a day… multiple times a week, in many locations around the world, every week forever…

ONR engaged us with a Small Business Innovative Research contract, and we got to work. And as I write this now, hundreds of Marines each week are doing hit factor scoring at scale.

The first spin out from that effort was the Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package (JMAP). It’s a mil-spec PractiScore, completely re-written and intended for use on huge ranges with lots of people shooting at once. It’s used on thousands of shooters monthly now. And it is “Joint”, in that it’s used for USMC, Army, Air Force, FBI, DEA, and other shooters.

The second spin out was our Recoil Shot Timer. It solves the problem of timing the shots of shooters standing right beside each other. To do this we trained a neural network on over 20,000 shots, figured out how to cram that same neural network into an Apple Watch, run it in realtime as you shoot, and report shots quite accurately.

We’ve been using it at various training events for a while now. Students love it. As an instructor, I love having shooters on a line doing different things, but all on the clock. And our daily assessments run MUCH quicker now, since we do them all at the same time.

Funny thing is… I use it solo. My son, Brian, uses it solo as his primary timer. It’s darned handy to have an accurate shot timer on your wrist, tied to an app that never forgets. Book a class with him, you will definitely see the watches put to use all day every day.

If you are an armed professional – police, military, or security – Recoil is built into JMAP. Contact us to discuss giving both a try in your firearms program.

–Ken Nelson, founder and President