TargetTalk

Have been mired in 540’s for a long time.

I shoot with center hold for its utilitarian purpose. I can shoot any target, any size paper, any color holder.

But mentally, I know I need to go down to sub-6 to shoot better. Gone down there many times, longest stay was for a good season of 3 months. Sub6 did match my best for center hold.

But whenever I start to shoot not well, invariably, I always come back to center hold, my security blanket.

Can someone shoot well with center hold, please convince me it is more than a-OK to shoot with center hold at higher level?

I'm not going to recommend it, because I don't believe it. I'm also sure with adequate training that you can learn to shoot at a high level by holding at the lower left corner... My question is: why make things more difficult for yourself? There's plenty to struggle with without going against all the books & coaches out there.

Sub-six has been the recommended "best" approach for precision target shooting since the early 1970's (if not longer). That was back when 6:00 hold was traditionally taught for target shooting. In some places, it still is...

The MIT collegiate team was taught to use sub-6 in 1970. Despite having a much smaller budget & talent pool to draw from, they used to beat the service academies (which used 6:00 hold) on a frequent basis. The coach believed a lot of their success was from the sub-6 hold.

The only place I use center hold, with pistol, is when shooting with an ultra dot. Otherwise its sub six..

I would try to talk you out of it... almost

I had once worked out the mathematics behind a clear and focused sight alignment vs my hold. Long and short is that it is roughly 3 times more important that your sights be aligned and remain perfectly so through the trigger break than it was that I remain centered with my arm. The obvious problem with center hold is that black on black obscures your ability to see a clear sight alignment. It also shifts attention off of that alignment in favor of hold position. You can prove this out by turning your target over to the back side and shoot on blank paper. You will likely find that your group IMPROVES without the target and your brain is able to easily will work out where to hold.

I shot a deep six hold with success back in the mid to late 80s. Still, I know of elite shooters who shot center hold and also did well.

Jet

Change for the sake of change is a fool's errand. Marching to the beat of others' drum ditto. I shot my most consistent scores, highest average, and personal best with center hold.

Just work on how to refine what you're already doing to eliminate the worst shots. What are you doing that produces a 7? Convert 2 or 3 of those to 9s, and your in the 550s. You can do it with center hold, 6 o'clock, sub-6, whatever.

Another issue with center hold is your vision. If your eyes are old, you may have trouble with the low contrast even more than if you were younger. I shoot a 6:00 hold for sport/center-fire rapid because I can no longer deal with the low contrast. I have a hard enough time aligning my sights against a light background without trying to do it in the middle of the black.

To maintain the maximum amount of symmetry in the sight picture, you also want to keep the size of the side gaps roughly equal to the gap below the black:



The brain & optical system love symmetry. Rather than thinking of the sights & targets as three separate moving pieces, you can train your brain & muscles to try to achieve the symmetrical image shown above. This off-loads your brain a bit

I started shooting and was taught to shoot area hold ( sub six). I did this for about ten years of shooting. I swapped to centre aim primarily because of issues with sight quality at some clubs while shooting air. I swapped to centre hold with all my pistols. I did this for more than two years. I did not go backwards with my scores. In good light I had no problems using centre aim, in poor light sometimes it was a disadvantage. I use a 5.5 mm front sight on my air pistol with a plenty of light gap.
The down side of air pistol centre aim for me was the distraction of the furry black blob behind the front sight moving around. It dragged my focus away from the front sight. With a very stable hold it is not a problem, with an unstable hold I found it a major distraction. I am comfortable shooting either way, I went back to area hold 18 months ago and have found I am more consistent, with little change in scores.
I call it area hold because aim suggests I am aiming at a specific spot on the target, for example the white patch I stuck in the middle of the target.
I do believe the best area to hold is below the black, but for some people the concept of not pointing the pistol at the place you want to hit does not compute. Do what works for you, but give the other option a real go before dismissing it. I was only going to try it for 3 to 6 months and ended up centre aiming for two years.
Good technique is critical with both aiming locations. I shot to 570 level with both aiming locations

I've been practicing again for about four months now after knocking off at the end of last year. It took about 4 weeks to return to my old average of around 540 then I plateaued, so I've been digging all through the shot. One thing that is perfectly clear is that 95% of your score is based on how cleanly the trigger breaks, and to learn that you have to be able to see your sights perfectly, and you can't do that with center hold. It's so easy to have an eye twitch or a focus change right at the moment of truth that obscures what you did, adding black-on-black has to be worse. I'm up in the 550s now with just that realization.

Not satisfied with center hold again, Came down to sub-6 again.

Again, not satisfied with my sub-6.

After some observation, I think my sub-6 was too sub-6. The space above the front sight was the height of front sight, may be more, one ring or may be even below. With that far down and cant, it was not precise. Sometimes, good, sometimes very bad.

Tried ‘6’ hold, my ‘6’ hold does not touch bottom of black, there is always a thin space between top of front and the black bottom.

Using this ‘6’ o’clock hold, shooting has become more precise. My ‘6’ is probably most people’s sub-6.

Nothing new under the sun... This is a rarely used hold called "line of white". It has a lot of the same issues as 6:00 does, in that it encourages trying to aim at a precise point, which nobody is stable enough to achieve. The sub-six hold is also referred to as "area hold", to emphasize that you need to accept the size of your hold (wobble), and just shoot.

It sounds like your sub-six was too low. Unless you have huge gaps on either side of the front sight, it doesn't sound like the setup recommended 4 posts up.

emphasize that you need to accept the size of your hold (wobble), and just shoot.

GWHITE that’s the best graphic I’ve seen that explains why a sub six works. Thanks for posting it.
John LaBusier

I shot center hold for a long time. It worked...on a range that was not covered, with a front sight painted bright orange. Shot good scores. But when I started shooting MLAIC events, the rules forbade sight paint other than black or white. I went to a six o'clock hold, shot some good scores. Then wound up having to switch guns...and tried a sub-six hold.

I never looked back. Yes, it's an act of faith. But it worked reliably. I still shoot some center hold, with the guns that are set up for that (my original flintlock and percussion pistols). But sub-six is my preference.

GWhite's schematic pictures, above in this thread, are excellent sight picture illustrations.
I am by no means an elite shooter, so I will do no more than add a simple personal detail to my use of sub-6. I believe it is helpful to me to focus not on the horizontal top margin of the central sight post but on the center of mass of the central sight post. My gaze seems to be more fixed and relaxed with less of a tendency to jump or scan up/down and L/R, and I have a feeling of improved ability to judge the equality, the symmetry, of the 3 white gaps to the left, right, and above.
One thing I have never tried but would like to see discussion of is lower-left hold.

Owl wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2020 3:45 pm
One thing I have never tried but would like to see discussion of is lower-left hold.

I rather think that is what is known as a "tongue in cheek remark". ;-)

I've had students decide that if sub-six is good, the more "sub" the better. They end up holding at the bottom of the paper. One advantage is that you don't have to change your sights in Sport pistol between Precision & Rapid....

Bottom of the card is what I use now for sport Pistol, I was using sub six for precision and center hold for rapid, that was not helping, quite a few use the card bottom. I use a real low POA on 10m and get away as far as possible from the black fuzzy blob, this is in an effort to get it as far as possible out of my macular vision. I can then forget the black totally and concentrate on subconscious release and keeping the sight picture planted as if dry firing on a blank white wall. Try not looking at the target at all and focus totally on the sight alignment just let your subconscious deal with it, let it happen don't even think of trying and make it happen or it will go to hell in a hand cart. In fact zone out and don't even think anything, the moment you do reject the shot.

Bit late - happy new year

So true......the only problem with aiming so low is that if there is any canting of the pistol the lateral error is magnified the further down you aim.

If a shooter can repeatedly keep the pistol in a vertical plane there should be no problems and the other benefits of aiming so low can be enjoyed.