New Product Review: Longshot Range Camera

[Dave Doehrman]

One of the biggest challenges to long range shooting is being able to see your bullet impacts on paper or steel targets at ranges beyond 200-300 yards. Even with the best optics, mirage and weather conditions can make it almost impossible to see your results out at the 1,000 yard line. On some days you can’t see .308 impacts on steel at 500 yards.

Until now, about the only option is to walk down or drive down and back to the 1,000 yard line to view your targets. Shaun at Sniper Company has been working on a portable, long range camera system that transmits video and audio to your Smart phone, IPAD, laptop or most other wireless devices.

As soon as I saw the prototypes I knew this was on my list of “things to have”. I had Shaun order my unit and he was kind enough to let me use one of the prototypes for setup and evaluation. I installed the camera software on my Windows 7 Samsung phone, my IPAD and my laptop. The processor on the phone slows down the tilt and pan functions quite a bit, but the IPAD is smooth and much faster. The laptop control is almost instantaneous. I’m still playing around with the video and audio recording functions but the system is ready for a range trip and testing.

Here’s the system in my carbine soft case. There’s room for the unit, battery charger and spare battery

And here’s the unit standing on the monopod with the camera at the lowest height setting.


Here are the specs on the product:



Longshot Target Camera System
* Wireless target camera system operates up to 1500 yards line of sight
* View video on smart phone, IPAD or most WIFI devices
* Battery operated (3 hour run time per battery pack) charger and 2 packs included
* Fixed H264 HD camera (standard system)
* Optional upgraded pan, tilt, zoom HD camera with audio
* Adjustable monopod operates from 2-6 feet in height
* System allows for multiple users to view video
* Optional dip coating (several colors and patterns)
* Fits most gun cases
* Weather resistant

Pricing Information
Longshot standard system (fixed camera) $799.00
Longshot 2 Pan, tilt, zoom system $1499.00

Sold exclusively through:
Sniper Company, LLC
Fort Wayne, IN
ph: 260.710.0693
Sniper Company - Firearms - Optics - Suppressors - Gear - Reloading - Ammo - Training - More


I can see some drawbacks and issues with this unit. My biggest concern is placement of the unit downrange - far enough away from the steel plates that fragments of metal won't hit the camera but close enough to zoom in on a paper target to see bullet impacts. The unit will have to be placed 15-20 feet off to one side to avoid damage from short rounds. I'll have to be careful of who is shooting and what their skill level is. A stray round 15-20 feet off target could result in some major damage to the unit.


I'll be up at Young's Longshot Range this Saturday, but if the range is busy, I'll wait until Sunday to do the range testing. Young's doesn't allow any shooting before noon on Sundays so that would be the ideal time to set up the camera and do some image testing.


Boys and their toys..... I wanna go play but I'll have to wait a couple days.

 

[Hal42]

I am looking forward to this review. Always nifty to see products tested by the potential consumers at their own range/grounds of choice before they go into full production. It's already got me hopping over to their site to find out more about their company. I know I should be more savvy than I am in wireless transmissions, but could you possibly set up another steel plate in front of the camera to block stray rounds and still receive signals from your device of choice?

Might make other shooters want to stray and see if they can hit that other "target" too though!

 

[bullfrog4ever]

Tagged. Intersted to see how this product turns out...

 

[ShaunB]

Hey Dave,

Thanks for posting this, I too am very interested in your feedback and functionality of the system. This is the 2nd version of our system, the first system was a 2 box setup with a transmitter and receiver. After showing it at Shot Show we soon realized that two boxes meant two batteries, one battery would lose its charge before the other. So this one box pole system is what we came up with.

Sure there will always be the risk of deflections or a stray bullet impacting the camera. We have already in the works for available upgrade cages to protect if being left in the woods. Another option is a lighter steel protector to put between the shooter and the camera. We would have to test how this would effect performance of the anntenna.

We have seen dozens of setups similar to ours but they just were not out of the box user friendly. With smart phones and tablets now shooters are already using them for ballistic software on them. Which is how I got the idea for the camera.

We have a camera setup in the store for demo if anyone wants to come check it out.

 

[Dave Doehrman]

Longshot Camera Range Test

I made it up to Young’s Longshot Range today to test the new Longshot camera system and I was impressed with the system on this initial shakedown run. I went out to the 1,000 yard line and set up the camera 10 yards in front of the targets and 10 yards to the right of the targets. If I still remember my high school math, that would put the camera 42.4 feet away from the center steel plate. I used the IPAD and the camera software out at the 1,000 yard line to confirm the placement of the camera and ability to tilt, pan and zoom before retuning back to the club house.

The wind was blowing from left to right and I dialed in 6 MOA for my initial shot on the left hand 36” plate. I added 1 more MOA left windage and fired 3 shots at the smaller center plate. The hits showed up perfectly on the IPAD and the resolution looked better on the IPAD than on the laptop. The photo below is the actual screen capture from the laptop showing the initial hit on the left hand target and then the 3 following shots on the center target.

At this point the wind really started gusting and I had to dial in 2 more MOA to keep the .308 168 grain A-Max bullets on the center plate. I fired 4 or 5 more rounds but the gusts were making it difficult to hold good groups. It started to sprinkle and a couple other shooters showed up at the range. By the time they set up and were ready to go back live, 2 hours and 15 minutes had elapsed since I turned the camera on. The batteries on the transmitter gave up and I decided to go out and pull the camera. The picture below shows my laptop with the camera image displayed.

The next two images show the actual screen capture of all shots and then the same targets taken with the Canon EOS. The last photo is the 700 SPS Varmint I used for this trip.

For a prototype system and this being the first trip with the system, I was extremely pleased with the results. The images from the camera looked clearer and more detailed on my IPAD than they did on the Laptop. The processor on the laptop made pan, tilt and zoom instantaneous. I used Firefox for my browser and all I had to do was enter the IP address of the camera in the URL bar in Firefox and I was viewing and controlling the camera with the laptop. I had to download and install IP CamView on my IPAD.

The battery packs consist of 8 AA batteries that are enclosed in the main housing. I plan to purchase a motorcycle or garden tractor battery and install a quick connect coupler from Radio Shack. That should give me enough juice to last all day. When I ordered mine, I had them dip coat the unit in safety orange to make it more visible out on the range. I used the screen capture in my laptop to save the files to my hard drive. You can also e-mail them directly from the program. The IPAD has a video & audio record mode, but I didn’t have time to try that out today. These are all small issue as far as I am concerned and I’m sure Shaun will address these in the production models. Overall I was very impressed and a couple folks up at Young’s already asked who to contact to purchase theirs.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Holy large photo files, batman!

 

[yotewacker]

Looks nice. I could really use a camera system like this.