TargetTalk

I am curious as to where most 50 mt. Free Pistol free pistol shooters set their sights for this event.

I shoot deep sub 6 for Free Pistol. Roughly halfway between the black and the outer ring. 6-5 ring?

If I am not mistaken both of these sighting conditions could be described as "Area Hold"?

Edit: I am no expert however, and it probably varies even between those who are experts.

You want enough white showing under the black so that the edge of the black does not meld with the sight. I try to have as much white under the black as there is showing on the sides of the rear sight; a kind of "square" sight picture.

When I was much younger (better sight, steadier hold) I used 6 o'clock.

After + o - 50 y.o., I gradually started going down, to sub-six, sometimes even lower if necessary to get the necessary light (what Rover is talking about) because otherwise the black visual seems to "sucks" my sights when I get too close and I have vertical dispersion.

I suppose that better physical preparation would somewhat reduce this by improving stamina.

Sub 6 with similar amount of white below the black as on either
side of foresight.
Sight picture with a apparent ratio of 1.75 to 1
Exact position on target will vary a little with different
light levels, adjust rear sight width to suit bright/dull etc.

This is what Antal/Skanaker wrote in their book.

"To achieve accurate results the relationship between sights and aiming mark must generally be kept closer than in other forms of precision shooting. The size and configuration of the sights are important, too. A fairly thick foresight aids sight definition: its apparent width as seen in the aiming position should be roughly the same as that of the aiming mark. The width of the notch in the rear sight should allow the gap on either side of the foresight to occupy about a quarter of the notch, though in strong light a narrower gap is desirable, and in dull light a wider gap is essential."

"Copied from Shaky Hands contribution."

I was drawn to the last part where Skanaker refers to varying the rear sight gap depending on light conditions.

I moved further down below the bull tonight, OMG it got better fast......
Thanks for suggesting I add to the gap....

Not to piss on your parade, Spektr, I really hope that you struck a gold vein, but very often any new thing you do will work well. For a while. A brain apparently likes new things and pays more attention to them. But that changes as the new technique becomes routine.

Personally, I liked center hold.

That's nice!

That's nice!

You're a wicked man Rover.

What is "center hold" exactly, if you're trying to get match quality results?

If you need to judge if the rear sight edge (and of course the front sight at same level) is really in the middle of the bulls eye, you would need to focus the target instead of the sights. That's bad.

For an easy test simply put a target or better a target without rings (blackened) to your wall and try to find the middle with the long side of a ruler (or another target, backside to front). Then try it, with the help of a friend, from some meters distance (the friend holds the ruler onto the black bullseye according to your commands). You will soon see, that it's almost impossible to find the center, if you don't take the change of the bullseye diameter left and right of the ruler as help.

The same error occurs when holding the rear sight 6 o'clock - it's nearly impossible to judge, of the straight edge sits exactly on the round edge(?) of the bullseye or if you cut a tangent from it.

So a bit of white as background is always necessary to judge the distance between front sight and bullseye. If you can hold very calm, that distance can be smaller, if you're still moving around a bit, it would be recommended to use a larger gap - if not, your front sight would "touch" the bullseye from time to time during aiming, and black on black is generally not helpful.

A team mate of mine was training in Madrid for the European Championships (1975). He shot with a very low 6 o'clock hold (bottom edge of the target!!). It was a bright sunny day the sand in the backstop was a light colour and he was shooting consistently better than his personal best. In the match he started off by shooting to the same standard, but then it rained and the sand changed to a very dark colour and he was lost......!

With the current range standards background is not so variable.

Nothing wrong with center hold.

Center hold is a center AREA hold, not a center dot hold.

That is a very large area.

If you use center hold on a regular basis, you are looking at front sight. Center AREA is just like sub-6. You are not paying much attention to that large area.

Let it floats.

Not sure what you mean Rover...anyway, using sub holds do nothing but trick you into thinking you are not looking at the target; however, shooters tend to check in on the target to make sure they are the proper distance below. Center hold is easy, as long as your sights are on a black background, you are good.

"Not sure what you mean Rover..."

What do Rover's posts almost always mean: "Your ideas are nonsense, except in the unlikely event they happen to coincide with mine."

Gee, William, I thought you'd NEVER get it!

For an instance, I was wondering if we are all on the same radio frequency.

For a second, I thought we are talking about center hold, and Rover was talking about his preference for center fold.

Actually, I say things like that to give William something to kvetch about.

I use a sub-six hold for everything except Center-fire, where I use a center hold because I don't want to bother changing the sights, and hunting.

I've also been using the iron sight center hold for some 900 matches, just for the hell of it (in case my battery dies in my Red dot).

"Actually, I say things like that to give William something to kvetch about."

To paraphrase the best president of my lifetime, Harry S. Truman: I don't kvetch. I only tell the truth, and Rover thinks it's kvetching.