Shooter Global Timers GO

[alfsauve]

I ordered an AMG-Labs timer in June not knowing there was up to a year's backorder.  In the mean time, I ordered a Shooters Global Timer GO the week before Thanksgiving and wouldn't you know it?  Both the AMG and SG timers arrived the day after Thanksgiving . Miss Kitty decided to keep the AMG until Christmas (what's another 4 weeks since you waited so long anyway). It's a game we play because we don't ever know what to get each other. So we confiscated any purchases the other makes and hold them till Christmas.  BTW AMG-Labs offered a refund, but I opted to keep it.  AMG is, at least in the SE, the defacto go-to timer for matches.

<I originally posted this article on The High Road.  Have edited it slightly for DRTV.>

This is my impression of the Shooters Global SG Timer GO. It is the little brother of their full featured SG Timer 2, but with a lower price point, ($127.49). Made and sold in Poland, but DHL international shipping it only takes 3-4 days to be delivered. The manual is on-line, well translated, easy to read and available via the app.


PROs                     

• Utilizes an app on either Apple or Droid
• Small with only 2 buttons
• Easy to read screen
• Long battery life w/ meter on screen
• Has a Dry Fire Mode
• Spy setting
• Good shot detection

CONs

• Requires an app
• Only 2 buttons
• Minimal navigation ability on GO screen
• Batteries not replaceable
• Does not connect with Practiscore
• App does not export data
• All data stored on SG's Server

The package includes a quality charging cable, a Getting Started Guide, pocket and belt clips, if so ordered, and comes fully charged. The timer paradigm and the whole emphasis of the Skills App is around training and drills. They have a community that shares drills and stage designs and competes with each other. The timer paradigm has some unique features in that you can set a limit to the number of shots or a time for each string of fire. The timer will automatically start a new string when either of those settings is reached. (They refer to a string of fire as a Set, like a set in an exercise routine.) The shot pickup, both dry fire and live fire is excellent. I played with it dry firing both my revolvers and semi-autos. You can get the sensitivity so high it will pick up both the striker noise and the reset noise. No problems on the outdoor range using it in Spy Mode and recording live fire times.

MODES:
It has 3 modes; Shooting, Dry Fire and RO. The RO mode is a very basic timer intended for using out of the box, no app required. It's pre-set for 75% level of shot detection setting, 2-4 seconds start delay, and while you can review the last string of fire, it does not save it or transfer it to the app for later review. Crude but effective in the right situation. The Dry Fire mode is designed with the single action semi-auto shooter in mind, (Single action includes striker fired in this context.) It has a delay mode after the buzzer so you don't pick up the noise of drawing and then after one shot it has another delay to allow you to perform a mag change before it picks up the next shot. Very detail explanation in manual. All these delays are adjustable. You can also do plain dry fire without the fancy delays.

The main mode is the Shooting mode. Very easy to setup and adjust presets. It comes with 3 presets for Common (handgun basically), 22lr and Air Soft. You can change or even delete them. A total of 10 presets are possible. The paradigm assumes all strings of fire have a time limit, like a PAR time,, but by changing the Set Time to ∞ and the Shot Limit to 999 it becomes a standard timer. Besides a shot limit, it has an echo filter (minimum split time) and of course sensitivity. All these things are easy to set and as soon as you press "SAVE" they seamlessly update in the GO. When you have a time (PAR) or shot limit and the limit is reached a double buzzer is sounded and the timer continues to record shots up until a time limit that you set. Then it goes into review mode. You can also set Set number >1 so you can run through a drill multiple times without touch the timer. Set the Sets to 1 and you have a conventional timer. (Say you want to do drill with a draw and 5 shots to body, and you want to practice it 10 times. Set the number of Sets to 10, the shot limit to 5 and Pause time to 30 seconds. Press Start. After the 5th shot it will then count down from 30seconds and reStart on it's own for 10 Sets. This give you time to change mags, holster and wait for the next Set without touching the timer.)

The Spy setting is very interesting and can be enabled as part of any preset. Turn the buzzer volume to zero and after the Start button is pressed, it listens for the RO/SO's timer's buzzer, that's when the GO starts it's own timing. I used it in a Steel Challenge match to time myself during the match. Very neat way to take home your complete shooting history. It was consistently 0.01sec shorter time that the RO's official timer, which makes sense because it is responding to the other timer's start signal.

I've found no way to export the data outside the app. All of the data is stored on their server.  You must set up an account with SG, The Mobile App also has the data and settings, but I'm not sure how far back it saves or how much space it will use on your mobile device.  I'd delete old data.  You don't need the App to shoot as long as you can live within your presets. That's their marketing point. Set the presets right for your practice session then you don't need the app at the range. The GO will store >100K+ shots if not connected, and will update the App when it does connects. Only the last string can be reviewed on the GO. All other previous strings are reviewed on the App.

I have an issue when batteries are not replaceable. If you run out of power, then you're stuck until you can get enough charge to use the device. Some devices won't operate while they're charging, this one does though with a 5V UCB-C source. I'd rather be able to pop in some alkalines and at least finish up the task at hand. Also down the road batteries go bad and built-in batteries can be a hassle to replace. I don't know about the GO. I'll cross that bridge if I live that long.

I think it's an good individual timer for training, but because the app is required to make changes or view previous strings of fire, I wouldn't buy it for a club to use in matches. I'm going to keep it as a practice timer and Spy timer. I'm in hopes they get the Practiscore connection completed. For Steel Challenge practice, I rather dump each string to PS and then view it as though it were a real match, which I'm currently doing via manual entry.

[Big Frank]

t sounds like it has a lot of things going for it but I don't like built-in batteries on most things. And I don't like that it stores all your data on their servers. What could possibly go wrong with that? Plenty.