Shooting Skills Diagnostic Inventory (SSDI)

Diagnose what's holding back your shooting. The SSDI is a free, research-informed assessment that helps shooters identify the specific skills limiting their performance. It covers precision rifle, practical rifle, pistol, clay shooting, and archery. No sign-up required.

The SSDI covers 28 diagnostic domains across five shooting disciplines. Each discipline measures technique, mental skills, practice habits, and equipment management.

It's easy to train the skills you can name and miss the ones you can't. The feedback report summarizes your scores and the response patterns they suggest reviewing.

How It Works

  1. Select your shooting disciplines — precision rifle, practical rifle, pistol, clay shooting, or archery
  2. Answer 12–75 diagnostic items rated on a 1–5 scale covering fundamentals, mental game, training habits, and equipment knowledge
  3. Receive a feedback report based on your domain scores and diagnostic flags

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the SSDI?

The Shooting Skills Diagnostic Inventory (SSDI) is a research-informed self-assessment for reviewing reported strengths and areas to practise. It covers precision rifle, practical rifle, pistol, clay shooting, and archery. The SSDI covers areas like mental game, match preparation, fundamentals, and training habits, then generates a feedback report from your scored responses.

How does the shooting skills diagnostic work?

You select your shooting disciplines, then respond to a series of diagnostic items rated on a 1-5 scale. The system calculates domain scores, checks for defined response patterns, and generates a feedback report based on your results.

What disciplines are covered?

Five disciplines: Precision Rifle (benchrest, F-class, long-range), Practical Rifle (PRS, NRL22, 2-gun), Pistol (bullseye, action pistol, PPC), Clay Shooting (trap, skeet, sporting clays), and Archery (compound, recurve, 3D/field archery).

How long does the assessment take?

About 10 minutes for a single discipline, longer if you select multiple. Each discipline has 12–19 items. Your feedback report generates in under a minute after you finish.

Do I need to create an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no login, and no email required. You get a shareable link to your results that you can bookmark.

Can I retake the assessment?

Sessions are anonymous. Retaking after deliberate practice is a reasonable way to check whether gaps have closed.

What shooting skills does this test?

The assessment covers five disciplines: precision rifle, practical rifle, pistol, clay shooting, and archery. Each one measures technique, mental skills, practice habits, and equipment management.

Is this useful for beginners?

Yes. Beginners often find it useful because the SSDI surfaces gaps that aren't obvious without structured feedback.

How accurate is the feedback report?

The report is generated from your scored domain data and diagnostic flags. It reflects what your responses indicate, not a generic template. Accuracy depends on honest self-assessment.

Why this instead of a generic shooting checklist or a personality quiz

A checklist describes good practice in the abstract, while a personality quiz returns a label. The SSDI asks structured items, scores responses against per-discipline domains, evaluates flag conditions, and returns a feedback report based on the response pattern. The scoring math, flag conditions, and AI coaching prompt are documented at /methodology. The result is a starting point for review, not a verdict.

The gaps most likely to be capping a shooter's progress are usually the ones they cannot name yet — items like practice structure, competition transfer, equipment knowledge, and self-diagnosis ability. The SSDI asks them directly, so the result reflects the full picture rather than only the half that was already top of mind.