My experience switching back to center hold from sub 6 o'clock

Well, today is officially my 2nd day of using center hold since I switched back. This is a long one if anyone cares to read but I'm bored and wanting to write because I'm quite elated with how this is turning out. 

I started competing last November and all I knew then was center hold so that's what I shot since it's just the simplest, most intuitive system and I wasn't always shooting at the same targets of a known size and distance. I did OK at Talladega coming off a 5 month work trip, and sleep deprived driving 12 hours through the night from TX to Talladega to make to arrive just in time to make the M16 SAFS class. 

After getting back from that, I purchased a few pistols. A Swiss SIG P49 (military model with fixed sights) intended for service pistol and a Hammerli 211 intended for .22 EIC. Being that the Swiss SIG P49 had fixed sights and these guns were sighted in from the factory with a 6 o'clock hold at 50 meters on presumably a different sized target, I was basically forced to shoot sub-6, which is what it basically worked out to on the B-6 at 50 yds. Naturally I zeroed my Hammerli and one of my S&W K38s for the same thing.

So I started shooting these all sub-6 across the course. Eventually upgraded to a P210-6 with adjustable sights (took some work to get the trigger weight legal) and also bought a second Hammerli, this time a 208 because hey, one is none, two is one; also this one was in a lot worse shape condtion wise so I was much more keen to have it bouncing around as it goes from competition to competition and I really liked the shape of the grips on the one I saw for sale. 

Well, at this point I was thinking maybe I would switch back to what I knew which was center hold, but there was a new problem, the previous owner of the Hammerli 208 had filed down the front sight some ridiculous amount and with the rear sight assembly bottomed out I still had to hold a very deep sub-6. And frankly, he didn't do a very good job, it was actually slightly lopsided and I had to even it out with a stone because it was bothering me. Also the rear sight notch was monkeyed with, but more on that later.

So I was forced to shoot this way and you know what? It was working really really well and I very quickly ended up shooting a personal best on the long line of a 97. At which point I was sold, and I thought to myself, the deeper sub 6 the better. I even put an extra click up on my revolver and service pistol to get a deeper sub 6. And I ended up shooting these all very well and learning a lot in this time, mainly just due to focused, measured practice several times a week and really every day if you count dry fire. 

I took those guns back to Talladega for the Spring classic and did quite well, picking up points for 2 badges, although I forgot my magazines for both my 22 and Service Pistol which made me frantically have to pack mags for timed and rapid fire, which really screwed me on 22 EIC considering the lift (which sucks because I shot a really nice 95 on the long line). Anyway no biggie. 

Came back from that, continously practicing with that Sub 6 and doing decently well, averaging at least a 90. I even ended up shooting some very high (for me) personal bests; a 290 for .22 EIC and a 285 for Service Pistol, and mind you this is not in super favorable conditions, the wind has been whipping through here in my part of TX like crazy. But once I hit that 290, and knowing that there is no aspect of marksmanship that can be achieved that can't be achieved with a .22, I realized I have it in me to win some of these big matches at Perry. Not only that, but if I can hit a 97 on the long line, I have the potential to beat Jim Henderson's record for the NTI at least on X's. This is what I decided I want to do; I want to win and I want to set records.



(A target from the Talladega Spring Classic, shot using a hold that varied between a flat tired and a traditional 6 o'clock. My first target I shot sub 6/line of white and produced an 86, all shots in the black, decently centered, but not very tight. The flat tire/6 o'clock hold gave me a more definite aiming point and I think should have been a signal to me to switch sooner)

I think this is when the cracks started to show for me in Sub 6. This whole time I was simply happy with my own personal progress, and shooting scores that to me seemed very good, especially considering the rapid pace I'd been progressing at, and at the very least they would earn me points to my distinguished badge consistently. Well what I was noticing was that I was having a very, very hard time holding a consistent sub-6 and it just didn't seem very repeatable. In fact, most of the time when I had a good shot using sub-6 it almost felt like luck that it was 10 rather than a 9 or 8. Before, I was just happy to hit the black, but if the goal is to hit the 10 ring 10 times in a row at the 50 yard line, it just did not seem like a system that could reliably deliver that. I also noticed that even depending on how dilated my eyes were which was usually dependant on lighting conditions the bullseye could appear sharper or fuzzier or effectively larger or smaller making it even more difficult to determine how deep I was actually holding sub-6 on any given day. I also don't shoot on full size targets with nice defined target frames so also can't do a frame hold as my reference.

I think there were a few things that motivated me to switch back to centerhold however. Number 1, I put a dot on my Hammerli and found that on a good day, my hand is actually steady enough to solidly hold the 10 ring for about a second on a good lift and can easily hold the 9 ring. Second, with the dot zeroed for center hold, I noticed how much easier it was to not have to think about how deep I was holding below the bull, especially in timed and rapid fire. Timed and rapid always felt very frantic for me as I would align my sights then have to bring the sights through the black and when they come out the other side, make sure they're still aligned, then determine how low I'm going to hold and essentially trying to aim at nothing, all while putting pressure on the trigger and doing any last minute cleaning up of my sight picture/sight alignment. It was just a lot more to think about than pull the trigger as the dot sinks into the center of the black. 

The second thing was when watching an interview between Maj Zane Jones USMCR (Bullseye Channel on Youtube) and Jim Henderson, I learned Henderson shoots centerhold throughout. I also learned from an old post on this forum that Hershel Anderson shot center hold. John Bickar, whose posts/insights on here I always appreciate and most recent winner of the P100, also shoots center hold throughout. Brian Zins, which I learned through an article of his, apparently shoots center at 25 and a traditional 6 o'clock at 50, which, a traditional 6'oclock essentially being another method of "point aiming" rather than "area aiming" is theoretically as repeatable as a center hold. 

The last thing that convinced me to switch back to center hold was shooting my Hammerli off a sandbag. Now with a dot and from a supported position, this gun can literally cut out the X at 50 yards, not the X ring, the actual X. So when testing it from a sandbag with iron sights, I shot 10 rounds sub 6, and 10 rounds center hold. Through this test I noticed just how much harder it was to make sure I was getting the same amount of white between the front sight and the black through every single shot even when mostly removing the "hard part" of actually having to steady the gun and maintain perfect sight alignment via the sand bag. I ended up with about a 1.55 inch group less one flier; with the flier, it would have been about 2 inches. I am certain that that one shot was as a result of not being able to consistently establish the same amount of white from shot to shot. I did the same test but with center hold and produced if I recall a 1.2 inch group with all 10 shots, not minding the group location, and they were all pretty much touching in a nice line.

The center of the target is always the center of the target and your eye naturally wants to center things. Again when we're talking about winning these big matches, it comes down to not just hoping that when a shot breaks it lands in the 10 ring, but knowing that it will; in that instance, I want the most repeatable shot process. 

That was Saturday, I went home early from the range that day and got to work with some stones and files. I took my Hammerli 208 rear sight assembly apart, reduced the rear sight blade by about .020" using a stone, making sure it was level (I determined/calculated that was about the amount I need to take off to overcorrect slightly from my sub 6 hold and give me some adjustment up/down). Also it looked like the last owner attempted to widen the rear notch without a safe edge file and all he ended up doing was just rounding over the corners and leaving one side slightly crooked, which was noticeable when shooting. He also left a gouge in the bottom of the notch. I corrected all of this by deepening the rear sight blade by about the same amount as I had taken off the top as well as shoring up the two sides with a safe edge file. Also almost lost the tiny plunger and spring in the elevation screw TWICE. Guys if you are taking apart the rear sight of a hammerli 208, please put it inside of a plastic bag, zip it up, and then push out the elevation screw, or just push it out slowly until you see the plunger and control it with a punch or your finger or something. The first time it bounced off my face and literally landed across the room, how I found it so quickly is honestly a miracle. I was thinking I'd have to make a new one and had no clue how I'd make a spring that tiny. These parts are probably less than .050" in diameter. The spring ended up actually just being on my chair right next to me. The second time it flew out it thankfully bounced off my chest and bounced onto my seat in between my legs. This was during reassembly. When reassembling, make sure you are applying downward pressure to the elevation screw with a screwdriver BEFORE you push it against the T-nut it screws into. 



(The plunger and spring in question)

Anyway finally I had solved my problem of being locked into this super deep sub-6. I also determined I needed to put 2 clicks down on my P210-6 to go from sub 6/line of white to center hold (It's a 4 MOA adjustment thereabouts)

Sunday morning I wake up, eat some food, drink my caffeinated beverage and hit the range. I load up my P210-6 and even though I wasn't very steady I shot 10 after 10 after 10 after 10 and the only thing that had me shoot 2 nines and one 8 was that as I was shooting and calling these 10s and seeing them drop right into the 10 ring I kept verbally saying to myself "holy shit what is going on," I was getting so excited and that excitement caused me to get over confident and pull my last two shots into the 9 and 8 ring. But these shots were not taking the most amount of time possible, I was not as steady as I usually am, and yet just like that I had broken my service pistol long line best by 3 points which is not an insignificant amount when we're talking about going from 93 to 96. And frankly, if I had tried a little harder and not been getting worked up as I was shooting it definitely could have been higher. Unfortunately my first timed and rapid fire was still not great and my "cold bore" NMC was a 279; still a good score for a non-distinguished shooter. I then spent the rest of the practice session shooting 5 more timed fire strings and 2 more rapid fire strings and ended up with a best score of I think a 98 Timed and 94 Rapid, but what I noticed between all of those targets was they they were all consistently higher than average for me, the spread between them was much better than usual. With sub-6 I would find my scores in timed fire ranging from around 88-98, and my rapid fire scores from about 86-95. With center hold they were much more consistent and not one target was below a 91. It also just overall felt less frantic: get my sight alignment as the sights are in the white and as I apply pressure to the trigger, sink the sights into the center of the black, squeeze until the shot breaks. It was just a LOT less to have to think about mentally and superior to Sub 6 in my opinion. 



(Note that shot off the paper was from the a previous target the day prior hence why I marked it with sharpie, just didn't get around to pasting it)

Anyway after that, I switched to my Hammerli. Now because I had messed with the sights and literally just eyeballed the windage I expected it to be off. Took one shot at 50 yards which felt perfect and I called it as a perfect center punch. Walked down to the target, saw how much it was off by, put two clicks of elevation down then got ready to shoot my 10 shots for the NMC. I took one shot, looked through my scope, and couldn't find it. I have a horrible, horrible scope from amazon that might as well be a toy. I looked longer and saw what I thought was my shot, off the repair center (turned out to be a partial shot hole peaking out from behind the target I hadn't noticed when putting it up). Bummer. Anyway, I thought that was weird since it felt like a good shot, so I took another one and saw it was in the 10 ring, so I was like OK I'm not going to touch my sights and just adjust after getting my group if it is off. So I continued shooting and my scope being terrible, I could only make out a few shots. I saw a few more 10s on what I was calling as good shots, but I wasn't getting as excited about it as I was with service pistol because I already "spoiled" the target with one shot off the repair center. Well I'm sure you know how this goes. I walk down to the target and see that 9 of my shots are in the 10 ring and one is a scratch 10: I had just cleaned the 50 yard line and breaking my old best of a 97 by 3 points and it didn't even feel like I was trying so hard like it does when I'm trying to intellectualize just how much I was holding in the white with sub 6. 

I was elated and immediately took a photo and showed a few people. I just wish that I had switched to a fresh target after that pesky first shot I took to zero! Even taking the low 10, I am not mad about a 99-2X

I moved onto timed and rapid and shot some OK score, I think my .22 EIC NMC worked out to a 287 overall "cold bore." Again, I did note that timed and rapid felt a lot less frantic as my mind had less to think about. Then went back and practiced timed and rapid hard like I did with service pistol and within a couple targets cleaned the timed fire string with a 100-5x, my 2nd time ever cleaning the timed fire string and with five X's in a tight cluster. I then practiced rapid hard and told myself I would not leave the range until I cleaned a rapid fire target. Lo and behold, a few targets later I had done it and cleaned my first ever rapid fire target with a 100-6x and along the way producing some very consistent 95+ rapid targets.

I was ecstatic when I went home that day and felt I had made a major breakthrough just as I felt I was beginning to plateau. 



(My 3 best .22 targets for the day. Who doesn't love those scratch 10s!)

Today I hit the range and decided to shoot my service pistol a Presidents Pistol Match Course rather than a NMC cold bore, especially since slow fire feels so much less mentally taxing with center hold than it did with sub-6. I didn't produce any spectacular groups with my service pistol, but it felt very consistent and easy to attain the scores I did, again just so much less to think about, total was a 365-5x. Today was also a work day and I was hitting the range after a day of work rather than fresh first thing to start the day. The lighting conditions were also not ideal, very cloudy/dark which made me realize one of the drawbacks of center hold and that is in low lighting conditions, it is very possible to have trouble seeing the front sight against the black bull and maintaining sight alignment through the shot. 

Next I went onto .22 EIC and shot a 96 on the long line and again, it just didn't feel very difficult to attain that score at all where as with sub-6 it was always a constant mental struggle to maintain the proper distance from the bull, and the slowfire string always felt like a chore which, admittedly, I am quite good at relative to most people judging by scores. I just couldn't stand to shoot more than say 3 in a day, but today I shot 8 slow fire strings and didn't think anything of it. Back to the 22 eic practice, I then shot a 97 and 98 in timed and rapid respectively breaking my previous personal record of a 290 with a 291. Awesome! 

Revolver I had some weird issues with, as I was chasing my new zero. My first target which I was using *to* zero I only shot an 80. I had overcorrected at first and with center hold my shots formed a nice little cluster about 4.5 inches below the 10 ring. After getting it zeroed (I think? I still need to do more testing on a better day) I put out two targets, both 87s, on the long line. Again I was losing the front sight post in the black, and I think I was having sight alignment issues because the rear sight blade leaves such narrow bands of light on my K38. Timed fire put down an impressive 98 my new record in revolver for that stage of fire, again noting just how much easier it is mentally to just sink the sights into the black and pull the trigger. My rapid started off great, or at least it felt great as I never check the targets in between the 5 shot strings. The 2nd string a big gust of wind messed with me and started rushing shots and saw a few that didn't look good and I think I lost focus of the sights on one or two shots as I think my eyes were fatigued by this point. Still put down a 93. My overall score being 365-7x, beating my previous revolver best and also my service pistol/p100 match score for the day! So even on not a particularly great day, ie bad lighting conditions, kind of tired from work etc I was still able to set new personal bests! I honestly attribute that to just how much less thought has to be put into a center hold. How much less of a tendency there is for your eye to want to focus on anything but the front sight. 

I will have to keep testing this of course, but I am excited for my next match here in the beginning of May. I hope to win all three EICs, or at least get points, or at the very least, put some very good score down on the long line in an official match (and then bomb T and R? lol) 

If you read this far, have you experienced a similar experience with center hold? Who are some other champions that use center hold? What about Olympians? I'm also getting into 10m air pistol since I seem to have a knack for the slow fire string.

My conclusion thus far is I think when it comes to center hold and 6 o'clock, it benefits someone most who, for whatever reason, has a very steady hand. I think for most people, to elevate their shooting to a certain point, a sub 6 would probably work best as it embraces a wide "area aiming" concept, but if you find that you are one of those people that *can* hold the 10 ring for a crucial second or two for example, then maybe it might be worth it to switch to center? All I know is that when you feel like you're plateauing, something needs to change that lets you break through.

Area aiming is a misnomer. Sub-6 is the default aiming scheme for Olympic precision pistol sports. Light bar/front sight ratio of 1:2:1 or 1:3:1 with a matching visual light bar between front sight and bull—there’s a ton of intuitive symmetry there.

The misnomer issue—zero the gun with symmetrical light bars, and you are very much point-aiming at the inner 10. You do so by focusing on front sight light bars with only a peripheral reference to the bull. Once NPOA is locked in, you can almost ignore the bull unless it seems real funky in the background. A decent wobble will hold tight 9s and mostly 10s with that sight picture.

The value of aiming in the white “area” versus in the black “area” (sub-6 versus centerhold) is the ease of disregarding sight picture for the benefit of sight alignment. A parallel error is a small error, an angular error is a big one. When I shoot AP, sight pictures that are aligned but noticeably “off-center” to the bull produce loose 9s, tight 8s at worst. Sight pictures where my light bars seem a little faded/tight in one direction or the other, or my front sight isn’t level, produce 7s.

A sight picture with a light background lends itself to parallel errors rather than angular errors and removes the temptation to focus-switch between bull and sight. It’s also less dependent on pure visual acuity. I had to shoot an AP match with my driving glasses last week because of a range bag mixup. No iris, just a blinder on glasses with a corrected focus for distance. I was still able to shoot mid-90s on well-lit bulls, blurry sights and all. Light bars were the ticket. Dark bulls further from range lights (the match is shot in B40/4s) were below my average in the high 80s. Had I shot centerhold, my front sight and the bull would have made a blurry dark gray blob on every target.

I shoot a lot of air pistol and seemingly less and less real pistol with every passing month, but I still shoot plenty of bullseye. The one COF that typically gave me headaches with the sub-6 index was turning-target rapid fire. The trick for me was internalizing a focal point in the white below the bull—not watching for the bull to turn, but watching for that spot in the paper (somewhere in about the 6-ring) to turn. Once the target frame moves, all focus goes to the light bars.

People have shot HM scores with every reasonable sight picture under the sun—center, flat tire, 6 o’clock, sub-6, and even aiming at the bottom of the target frame. The most common sight picture in precision pistol sports (especially collegiate and international disciplines) is the “true” sub-6,, and conventional wisdom is convention for a reason.

ISSF ranges typically have lighting requirements and don't have to deal with the wide spread conditions (changing light, wind, and rain).

When shooting center mass, the sight picture is fairly simple on a round bull, split the circle in half. In comparison to sing the "equal lines of white" approach you are focusing on three things, the left and right side of the front sight and the amount of light tangent to the bottom of the bull and the top of the sight. 

Both can work, however Center Mass is far simpler for me.