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Honest answer first: if you keep mishitting the ball, your paddle is probably not the main cause. Most mishits are a contact point problem or a footwork problem. The paddle is genuinely at fault in a smaller, specific set of cases. This covers both, so you can work out which one you are in.
The short answer
The thicker core in the ARTI Pickleball lineup is the 16mm build. Texas is a 16mm honeycomb polymer core with a 100% carbon fiber face, 16.4 inches long by 7.5 inches wide, a 5.5 inch handle and a 7.8 to 8.0 oz weight range. California, Florida and New York are the same build in different artwork. The Kristen & Kristy paddles, including HOWDY and WOW, are also 16mm honeycomb polymer cores with carbon faces, at 16.34 inches by 7.5 inches. Mastery Elite 1.0 is the 14mm build in the same lineup, which makes it the thinner build, not the more forgiving one.
A thicker core puts more material between the ball and the far side of the paddle, so contact away from the middle gets absorbed rather than launched. Your bad shots land shorter and softer instead of sailing. That is a real difference and also a modest one. It will not move your contact point, and no paddle will.
Rule out the three things that are not your paddle
Your contact point has drifted behind you
This is the most common cause of off-center hits at the intermediate level. As rallies speed up, players stop stepping to the ball and start reaching for it, and contact slides back toward the hip. A ball met behind your lead foot has to be steered rather than struck. Film thirty seconds on a phone propped against the fence. If the ball is level with or behind your front hip, that is your answer.
You are jammed, not short
The opposite failure is standing too close. When the ball arrives inside your body, the only available swing is a cramped one, and you make contact near the throat of the paddle every time. If your marks are consistently low on the face, you are too close to the ball rather than holding the wrong paddle.
Your head comes up early
Under pressure, players look at where they intend to hit before they have hit it. The shoulder follows the head, the face turns a degree or two, and the ball comes off the outside edge. The tell is that these mishits cluster in matches and vanish in drills. Equipment does not behave differently under pressure. You do.
Self-diagnosis: read your own mishits
Mishits leave evidence. Three minutes of attention beats any spec sheet.
The tape test
Put a strip of masking tape across the middle of your paddle face, or hit with a lightly chalked ball. Play fifteen dinks and fifteen drives, then look at where the marks cluster. A tight cluster slightly above center is healthy. A scattered spread is a timing issue. A cluster displaced consistently in one direction points at something structural, not at random error.
What the sound and feel tell you
You know what a clean hit sounds like on your own paddle, so compare everything to that. A flat, dull thud usually means low contact toward the throat. A harder, thinner sound means contact near the tip or an edge. Then pay attention to your hand rather than the ball: vibration into your palm means contact away from the middle, and the paddle twisting at contact means the ball landed well off the center line. If it twists on the same side every time, that is a swing path problem, and a new paddle will only report it more quietly.
Reading the contact zone
- Low, near the throat. You are late, jammed, or both. Fix spacing before anything else.
- High, near the tip. You are reaching. Usually footwork on wide balls, and the shot drops short.
- Off the side, backhand wing. Often a grip that has rotated in your hand, or a two-handed backhand cramped for handle room.
- Off the side, forehand wing. Typically an open face and a swing path crossing the ball rather than going through it.
- Scattered with no pattern. Not the paddle. That is ball tracking, and it responds to drilling.
When the paddle genuinely is the problem
Core thickness
Core thickness is the one difference ARTI documents as a number. A 16mm core deadens off-center contact more than a 14mm core does. It will not make you hit the middle more often. It makes the shots where you miss the middle behave less badly, which in a hands exchange at the kitchen is the difference between a ball that floats up to be attacked and one that drops harmlessly. If your errors are mostly long, a thicker core is the honest fix.
Shape
In the wider paddle market, shape matters. Elongated paddles put mass further from your hand, which adds reach but pulls the responsive part of the face higher and narrower. Standard shapes keep that zone lower and broader. Be careful applying it here, though: every ARTI paddle sits between 16.34 and 16.4 inches long by 7. Moving between our models is not a shape change.
Weight and swing weight
Static weight is what the paddle reads on a scale. Swing weight is how heavy it feels while moving, driven by where the mass sits rather than how much there is. Too much swing weight for your hand speed and the paddle arrives late, and late is a mishit. Too little and it gets pushed around on contact. Every ARTI paddle is documented in a 7.8 to 8.0 oz range, so static weight is not a variable you change between our models.
Grip size and handle length
A grip that is too small lets the paddle rotate in your hand at contact, turning a near-miss into a real one. Too large and you lose wrist mobility. Hold the paddle in your normal grip and check whether your index finger fits in the gap between your fingertips and the base of your thumb. Too much room means you want a build-up, and an overgrip is the correct fix.
Handle length is separate, and it matters most for two-handed backhands. The State Collection paddles, Texas, California, Florida and New York, document a 5.5 inch handle. If your bottom hand feels crowded off the handle butt on two-handers and that is the side you shank, handle length is a credible explanation.
A worn face
Carbon faces lose surface texture with use, gradually enough that most players never notice it happening. What they notice is the ball sliding rather than gripping, spin dropping off, and shots that used to dip starting to float. Run a fingertip across your usual contact area and compare it to the edge of the face that never gets used. If they feel different, you have your answer.
Match the problem to the paddle
| What you are seeing | Most likely cause | What to change first | Paddle that fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-center hits sail long | Thin core launching your misses | Move to a 16mm core | Texas, 16mm carbon |
| Paddle twists in your hand at contact | Contact well off the center line | Check grip size, then core thickness | California or Florida, 16mm |
| Two-handed backhand cramped and shanking | Not enough handle for the bottom hand | Move to a documented 5.5 inch handle | State Collection, 5.5 inch handle |
| Low contact near the throat, dead thud | Standing too close, hitting late | Footwork and spacing, not equipment | Keep your current paddle |
| Clean contact but late on volleys | Paddle slower through the air than your hands | A thinner build | Mastery Elite 1.0, 14mm |
| Ball slides off the face, spin has faded | Worn face texture | Replace the paddle | Carbon Fiber Paddles |
| Your partner has the same problem | Two players on thin or worn paddles | Move both to the 16mm build | State Carbon Doubles Duo |
What we document, and what we do not
We document core thickness, core material, face material, length, width and weight range on every paddle, and handle length on the State Collection. Our paddles are approved by USA Pickleball. We do not publish swing weight, twist weight, balance point or sweet spot area, because we have not measured them. So we cannot tell you which of our paddles is the most forgiving or has the largest sweet spot, and you should be skeptical of anyone, us included, who ranks paddles on a number they cannot show you.
Nine of our paddles share a 16mm honeycomb polymer core and a 100% carbon fiber face, including the four State Collection models and the Kristen & Kristy designs such as GAME ON, GOOD GAME and IT'S PICKLE TIME. One, the Mastery Elite 1.0, is 14mm. If off-center contact is your problem, the thicker core is the side of that line you want, and which artwork you pick makes no difference to how it plays.
Questions people actually ask
Will a new paddle fix my mishitting?
No, not on its own. It can reduce the cost of a mishit. It cannot stop you making one. If you want the mishits to go away rather than get quieter, the work is contact point and spacing.
Does a 16mm paddle have a bigger sweet spot than a 14mm?
We have not measured sweet spot area on our paddles, so we will not claim that. What a thicker core reliably does is absorb more energy on contact away from the middle, so the penalty for a miss is smaller. That is a different claim, and one we can stand behind.
I only mishit in games, never in drills. Is that the paddle?
Almost certainly not. Equipment does not perform differently when the score is 9-9. Pressure shortens your preparation and speeds up your swing, and both move your contact point. Drill at match pace rather than comfortable pace.
The bottom line
Start by assuming it is you, because statistically it is. Check your contact point on video, run the tape test, and see where the marks land. If the pattern is scattered or clustered low, drill it and keep your paddle. If the pattern is tight but sits off the center line, and your misses fly long rather than dying short, a thicker core is doing you a genuine favour, and a 16mm build such as Texas or California is built for it.
By ARTI Pickleball. Last updated September 2026.