What Do Your Numbers Say?

Ring Reader computes a whole set of metrics. This page explains which question each number answers — and which it doesn’t. Where the values live is covered in Viewing the Result and Statistics.

Ring score and Teiler: result and precision

The ring score answers the competition question: what counts on paper? The Teiler answers the precision question: how close was the shot really to the center? Two shots with the same 10.3 can be a 151 or a 175 Teiler on the air rifle target, the same score with different precision. That’s why the Teiler average is worth a look when the ring score stagnates: it often moves earlier than the score does. The math behind it is in the blog post Teiler and ring score.

Group size and standard deviation: two views of consistency

• The group size is the smallest circle around all shot holes — intuitive, but sensitive: a single outlier makes it big.
• The standard deviation averages over all shots and is barely touched by a single outlier.

If the group size grows while the standard deviation stays stable, it was an outlier — find the shot in the shot list and think about what happened there. If both grow, the whole series is spreading.

MPI and corrected result: systematic or random?

The MPI (mean point of impact) shows where your series sits on average. If it repeatedly lands off-center — series after series in the same direction — that’s not chance but a systematic offset: a case for your sights. The corrected result (“Corrected: +X.X”) tells you what the same series would have been worth with a perfectly centered MPI — your potential from adjustment alone, without shooting any better. More in the blog post What would the series have scored without the sight error?.

If the MPI instead wanders from series to series, clicking won’t help — that’s spread, not offset. How to tell the two apart over weeks is in What the mean point of impact says about your technique, and how many clicks a stable offset takes in Adjusting sights with numbers.

Horizontal and vertical spread: the direction of the scatter

Spread split by axis tells you more than group size alone: clearly larger vertical spread often relates to breathing, rest or position height, dominant horizontal spread to trigger or alignment. Take the axis with the larger value as a hint where to look first in training — and check the shot pattern to see whether the picture matches. Which causes coaches check first for a group or fliers in a given spot is shown on the shot correction chart.

Trends need time

A single series is daily form plus chance. The numbers become meaningful over weeks of history: the average over ten, twenty series, the direction of the trend line, the development of Teiler average and standard deviation. Compare like with like — same discipline, same position; the statistics filters help with that. How to turn this into goals and a routine is covered in Training Planning. What your first ten series already show is in the blog post Your first ten series.

The right baseline: yourself

Other shooters’ absolute numbers are the wrong yardstick — discipline, class, supported or standing, everything shifts the scale. The reliable baseline is your own history: your average of the last months, your personal records, your streaks. Beating your own ten-series average — that’s progress, regardless of where that average sits.