Can AI Train For And Predict Future Shooting Skills?

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The AccuShoot LFX in action, pictured here with a game designed
to make training more fun and engaging for range guests.

Everyone knows AI is increasingly involved in many aspects of our lives, for better or for worse. So, when I heard about AccuShoot, a real-time scoring system with dynamic targets that can learn and predict how a shooter’s scores could change and improve over time, it piqued my interest. I spoke with Co-founder Poul Petersen and Head of Marketing Atakan “Kan” Cetinsoy to find out more.

The Beginning

Francisco “Cisko” Martin and Poul Petersen co-founded the company BigML, which offers a machine learning software platform for clients to build predictive models. Customers have included toll roads in Texas, North Carolina and Virginia; Mercedes-Benz in Germany; as well as the U.S. Air Force.

“BigML been around since 2011 and we have a pretty experienced team when it comes to machine learning,” noted Petersen. “The nomenclature always changes — machine learning, deep learning, AI, etc. — but we have deep experience in that field.”

Now this is where necessity being the mother of invention comes into play. Much like Prohibition bootlegging was the beginning of what would become NASCAR racing, the COVID pandemic was the impetus for AccuShoot.

Petersen and Martin were going to outdoor shooting ranges and, being engineers themselves and experts in AI/machine learning, they started thinking they could create a better and more engaging experience.

“By digitizing marksmanship, we thought we could do better than shooting at paper targets, going and fetching them, bringing them back and trying to score with pens and paper and notebooks,” explained Petersen.

The App

Their first foray into the space was building AccuShoot iPhone and Android apps. Utilizing a tripod holding a phone, the camera is focused on the target. Each shot is automatically scored and tallied in real time. It keeps a log of all past performance and uses this data to try to predict how future performance will evolve. 

Cetinsoy added, “As you train more and have more sessions, the predictions are expected to get more accurate.”

Currently, the app costs $15 a month and can be used by an individual wherever they shoot.

The Website

The team then created the accompanying website, which is the repository of all the statistical data. 

“One of the things differentiating us from a lot of shooting apps is we push all that data into a central repository, and we’re doing some advanced statistical analysis of a user’s data to predict performance over time,” said Petersen. 

As the model continues to collect data, it will evolve over time to produce more information.

The LFX

In late 2023, the team decided having a direct-to-consumer app is nice, but they wanted to have a B2B product and service for shooting ranges. So, they picked up an old project that they had an idea from back when the company was created — the LFX system (Live Fire eXperience).

This is a hardware plus software system, with a thermal camera and a minicomputer built in. A projector is utilized to display imagery for different types of drills. An iPad or any other kind of tablet is used to control the system.

The system is easily portable, fitting inside of a Pelican case, though the screen and the stands are bigger and transported separately.

Cetinsoy shared, “Recently in Las Vegas, we went from range to range in a day and just set it up and shot it and then tore it down and went to the next range. It does work outside as well. If we’re in full daylight we just put a canopy over the screen so it doesn’t have direct sunlight on it.”

The “self-healing screen” is another piece of the system the group created, where the bullets pass through the screen.

“It’s our own little piece of technology, which is still evolving,” noted Petersen.

This is a consumable system; it does eventually wear out after around 3,000–5,000 rounds. The cost for a new screen is about $200, and the AccuShot team is working on getting the price down.

Social Competition Component

The most fascinating aspect of the system is the ability to accumulate and compare data across multiple users and facilities.

Petersen conveyed, “We have all these tools where you can say, ‘Okay, this session was this weapon with that ammo,’ and then we also have leaderboards where you can see who’s the best. So, we have this accumulation of individual user data on the website. You can have multiple ranges, you can have leaderboards across the ranges, you could have a leaderboard for the state, you can have a leaderboard for the country, the whole world. You could have leagues. We can share and socialize this data in ways no one has tried before,” he said.

“To be clear, this is all permission-based; we’re not going to take people’s data and present it without their consent,” Cetinsoy emphasized. 

A shooter’s data is aggregated and then can have a performance prediction. For instance, if a shooter shot a session and then wanted to see what that group would look like if they were shooting under stress, they can adjust it to see how their groups would change. 

Built For L.E. Applications

Petersen says LFX doesn’t have to be machine learning or even AI to provide interesting data. They conducted a test with a police department that was switching from a .40-caliber pistol with iron sights to a 9mm pistol with a red dot. They were able to gather the data and show the exact comparisons side-by-side to see the specific outcomes of each gun.

“It’s actually quite easy to do a session comparator where you can take sessions and can group them together. If I wanted to compare all of the pistol sessions in my account, I could compare them with all of the public pistol sessions. You get a summary of exactly how accurate these comparisons are,” said Petersen. “You can also replay video and see the actual session you did, and you can see groups evolving over time in the video as well.”

Shooters don’t have to just stand and shoot at plain targets. Many scenarios are also available on the system. Currently, there are over 100 drills and counting.

“Some are on the lighthearted side, like for Halloween we came up with shooting ghosts or pumpkins to get people engaged,” Petersen said, “but the system also has drills like the FBI challenge and the Mozambique drill.”

One of the many differences of LFX is they can make any video a shootable scenario. For example, police body-cam footage can be turned directly into live-fire scenarios.

Petersen added, “We’ve also turned it into a process to add more drills, so in the future, it doesn’t have to be us adding drills. Eventually, people who are active users or admins of the system and their location will be able to add new drills — it’s going to be a growing catalog of drills the entire community can benefit from.”

He continued, “The idea is making the whole experience as authentic as possible because you’re using real guns and real ammo, and it’s more engaging because there’s a digital component to it.”

Adjective Feedback

Here in Feb. 2025, the AccuShoot LFX system is celebrating its one-year anniversary. Petersen believes the system is primed for expansive growth.

“When we had the first demo of the LFX system running back in February 2024, we realized this was the thing we needed to focus on,” he said. “So, we’ve been 100% on this for the whole year to get it to market. We realized we couldn’t stop playing with it and everyone we showed it to couldn’t stop playing with it either — so it was one of those market indicator moments that says this is something we should be looking at.”

The AccuShoot LFX system is being tested at Oregon’s Indoor Shooting Range in Lebanon, Ore. Jared Millhouse, a sales associate and trainer with the range, was the person who let me know about AccuShoot because he was so excited about it. 

“We’ve had it for a couple of months at this point and it has honestly grown exponentially since we started,” he said. “They are constantly developing everything that happens with the system.” 

The gun range utilizes the fun shoots such as the Halloween shoot, as well as the body-cam footage for training.

Cetinsoy also says the other feedback they are receiving has been very positive. 

“So far we’re getting great feedback starting with the Lebanon location, and then when we did demos in Finland, Germany, Las Vegas and Spain we also received great feedback — with participants saying they haven’t had that much fun shooting in a long while.”

The cost of the system is $12,500 list price and for the first 100 ranges, AccuShoot is offering a promotional price of $9,999. 

“The type of capability and the feature set you get with LFX — one that’s constantly evolving and the fact you can use real firearms and real ammo while you’re practicing — and with a figure as low as $9,999, we figure it’s a good starting point for us to make more noise about this in the shooting community,” concluded Cetinsoy.

 

For more info, visit AccuShoot.com. 

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