The short version of how to sight in a bow and arrow: shoot a small group at a close distance from a repeatable stance and anchor, then move the sight pin in the same direction the arrows landed. Arrows hitting low and left means the pin moves low and left, which is why archers call it chasing the arrow.
Start at 10 yards, work in three-arrow groups rather than single shots, and only move out once the close distance is centered. This applies to any bow with a sight on it.
Form comes before the sight
A sight only records where your arrows go. If they go somewhere different every time, every adjustment is chasing your own inconsistency, which is how beginners spend an afternoon moving a pin and end up worse off. You do not need beautiful form to sight in a bow, you need repeatable form. Three things account for most of the wobble.
A real anchor point
Your anchor is where the string hand lands at full draw, and it has to land in the same place every time. Most archers use a knuckle behind the jaw, a fingertip at the corner of the mouth, or the string touching the tip of the nose. Pick your reference points and say them to yourself on every shot. An anchor that drifts a fraction of an inch moves impact more than any sight adjustment you are about to make.
A relaxed grip
Gripping the bow tightly twists it at the shot, and the twist goes into the arrow. Keep the hand loose with the pressure in the palm below the thumb, and use a wrist sling so the bow cannot jump out of it. Torque shows up as horizontal scatter, which people blame on windage.
The same release every time
Fingers or release aid, the shot should surprise you a little rather than being punched. Hold the bow arm up and keep looking at the target until the arrow lands. Dropping that arm to watch the flight is the most common way beginners throw shots low.
Before you touch the sight, shoot three arrows at a blank target face at close range with no aiming point at all. A tight cluster means your form is repeatable enough to sight in. Scattered arrows mean the bow does not have a sight problem yet. Spend that session on form and come back.
What you need on the line
- Six to twelve matched arrows: same length, spine, point weight and fletching. Mixed arrows will lie to you.
- A target rated for your bow, plus a large backer so a stray arrow still leaves a mark you can measure from.
- A hex key set that fits your sight. Check the sizes before you leave the house.
- A notebook. Write down what you change and what it did.
- An arrow puller. Pulling barehanded is how shafts get bent, and a bent shaft ruins a group.
Shoot indoors or on a calm day. A beginner reading a windy group as a sight problem will move the pin the wrong way.
Range safety, in plain terms
Never dry fire a bow. Releasing with no arrow sends all that stored energy into the limbs instead of the arrow and can destroy the bow and injure you. Do not let anyone else draw your bow without an arrow either. Inspect the string, cables and serving before every session for fraying, separated strands or a serving that has started to unwind, and take anything suspect to a pro shop rather than the range. Shoot into a proper backstop, and know what is behind and beyond the target, because an arrow that misses the bag keeps going.
Flex every arrow and listen for a click before shooting it, and never shoot an arrow shorter than your draw length.
Arrow flight first: paper tuning basics
Sighting in tells the sight where the arrows go. Tuning tells the arrows to go straight. Do the tuning first, because an arrow that leaves the bow fishtailing will group acceptably at 10 yards and then open up badly further out, and no pin movement fixes that.
Paper tuning is the simplest diagnostic. Stretch a sheet of paper in a frame with the target a couple of yards behind it, stand a short distance away and shoot one arrow through. The tear tells you how the arrow was flying.
| The tear | What it means | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Clean round hole with three fletching slits | The arrow is leaving straight | Nothing to do. Go and sight in. |
| Tail high, tear above the point hole | Nock point too high or rest too low | Lower the nock point or raise the rest in very small steps |
| Tail low, tear below the point hole | Nock point too low, or a clearance issue | Raise the nock point slightly, check fletching contact |
| Tail left or tail right | Rest position or an arrow spine mismatch | Move the rest a hair in the direction of the tear, then look at spine |
| Ragged edges with no clear direction | Fletching is hitting the rest or the riser | Powder the fletching to find the contact and fix clearance first |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Move one thing at a time and by tiny amounts. If you cannot get a clean tear after several honest attempts, the arrows are probably wrong for your draw weight and draw length, and a pro shop with a spine chart will sort that out.
The follow the arrow rule
Here is the rule everything hangs off: move the sight in the direction the arrow hit. Arrows landed high, the pin goes up. Arrows landed right, the pin goes right.
It feels backwards at first, and it trips up people arriving from rifle shooting, where you think in terms of moving impact toward your aiming point. With a bow sight you do the opposite thing mentally: you move the aiming point toward the arrows, so holding that pin on the bull rotates the whole bow to compensate.
Check the group after each move and confirm it went the way you expected. If it moved further from center you went the wrong way, and finding out costs two arrows instead of twenty.
Sighting in at 10 yards
Ten yards is close enough that a badly set sight still puts arrows on the target face and form errors stay small. It is faster than hunting for a hole at 30.
- Set the sight roughly by eye
Put the pin housing near the middle of its vertical travel so you have room to move either way later, and get the pin visually centered left to right relative to the string.
- Shoot three arrows at the same aiming point
Not one. One arrow tells you nothing about where the bow is shooting. Three tells you where the middle is.
- Find the center of the group, not the best arrow
Work from the middle of the triangle the three holes make. Adjusting to the one you liked is the classic way to go nowhere slowly.
- Fix windage first
Move the pin left or right to follow the group, then shoot three more. Left and right is easier to read than up and down, so you chase one variable at a time.
- Then fix elevation
Move the pin up or down to follow the group. If you are unsure how far to go, move half of what you think and shoot again.
- Confirm and stop
When three arrows land centered, stop adjusting. The urge to keep tweaking is the enemy. Write down where the sight ended up.
Building out to 20 yards and beyond
With 10 yards centered, step back to 20 and shoot a group at the same pin. It will almost certainly land low, because the arrow drops further over the extra distance.
What happens next depends on your sight. With a single pin you decide what distance it is for and hold high or low for everything else. With several pins you leave the first alone and bring the second into play, following the arrow with that pin only.
Windage is set once. If the bow groups centered left to right at 10 yards it should stay centered at 20 and 30. If it does not, that is a form or tuning issue, not something to fix by staggering pins sideways.
Stop expanding when your groups get bigger than the target you would be aiming at. Your maximum sensible distance is set by your grouping, not by how far the sight will adjust. For a full compound pin stack or a slider tape, see how to sight in a compound bow, pin by pin.
Problems that look like sight problems
Actually the sight or the bow
- Tight groups consistently off center in the same place
- Groups that move after the bow was knocked over or travelled
- Impact shifting after you changed arrows, points or draw weight
- A housing or mounting screw you can wiggle with your fingers
Almost always the archer
- Vertical scatter, which usually means the anchor is moving
- Horizontal scatter, which usually means grip torque or a punched release
- Everything low, which usually means the bow arm dropped to watch the arrow
- Groups that fall apart only late in a session
One more catches everyone: peeking. Lifting your head as you release moves your anchor at the worst possible moment. And if your groups are fine for five arrows then open up, you are tired, and tired shooting teaches the sight the wrong lesson.
Keeping the zero
Write your settings down: sight position, arrow spine and length, point weight, and the date. Re-check every season, after travel, after shop work, and any time you change arrows or points.
The other thing that quietly moves a zero is transport. A bow bouncing in a truck bed or swinging off one shoulder gets banged into things. Carrying it hands free keeps the bow controlled and your hands available for the climb. Our post on choosing a sling for crossbow carry covers where webbing can and cannot route, and tree stand carry covers hauling a bow up and down safely. The McLean Dynamic Retention Sling is a patented two point to one point conversion in maritime grade webbing with all metal hardware.
If your season involves a crossbow too, that process is related but not identical, and we cover it in how to sight in a crossbow.
Frequently asked questions
How many arrows does it take to sight in a bow?
A few dozen if the sight is new, a handful if you are confirming a setting. Work in three-arrow groups. If you are still chasing the group after a long session, the problem is usually form or arrow flight, so go back to the blank target test.
Which way do I move the sight if my arrows hit low?
Down. You always move the sight the same direction the arrows landed, which is why archers say follow the arrow. Move a small amount, shoot another group, and confirm impact moved toward center before making a bigger correction.
Do I need to paper tune before sighting in?
You should. A poorly flying arrow can still group at 10 yards, so you can end up with a sighted-in bow that falls apart at distance. Tuning first also keeps your settings valid, because fixing flight afterwards moves your impact.
