BowCast Blog

In my time as a bowhunter, I've gone through some trials and tribulations with picking equipment that fitted my needs such as choosing the right sight. Hopefully this blog will help you pick a sight without going through the hassles that some of us had the "joys" of going through. Most sights today offer the necessary items that will cater to just about every hunter out there. Those items that I'm talking about are: a level bubble, third axis adjustability, fiber optic pins, and a round pin guard. I say that these items are necessary because at one time or another, I myself or friends of mine whose opinion is gold to me, have had missed opportunities on animals that could've otherwise been successful had we had the necessary items on our sights.

There are hunters out there that will tell you that a sight level is just another thing to have to worry about while you are drawn on an animal. I don't quite see it like that. If you use more than one pin on your bow or you have a sight that allows pivoting for longer shots, I feel it is necessary to use a level. The reason for this is, we want to make sure that our arrow will shoot in the vertical line we are trying to make on the animal. Here's an example of what I'm talking about, if you sight your bow in at 20 yards then step back to 50 yards and start getting right and left shots on the target, chances are you canting your bow right or left without even realizing it. Another reason for this can be torqueing your grip but we'll talk about that another time. Now, with using the level on your sight, by making sure your bow is level, you've now taken another step towards eliminating those right or left shots at further distances.

The second great reason to use a level on your bow is, if you hunt in an area where you might be taking shots up and down hill on game, this is where your third axis comes into play. Third axis is better explained in person but I will do my best in black and white.  Just because your bow is level on a horizontal plane, this does not mean it'll be level when your shooting at an angle. Even when you hold your bow at what appears to be level while aiming up or down hill. Shooting up or down hill brings the third dimension of shooting into play. If your sights third axis isn't true, when you do take that shot up or down hill, you'll most likely find out that your shots will be right or left of where you aimed. To make sure your bow is shooting in tune, you'll most likely have to goto your local pro-shop as they will probably have the necessary tools to set your sight up to your bow for level shooting as well as third axis tuning.

When I first started bow hunting, we had brass pins on our sights that screwed in and out for left or right adjustability (some of you may remember those days lol!).  Then you were really high tech if you had pins that had painted ends. Today we now have the luxury of fiber optics. Having fiber optic pins now gives us the opportunity of staying in the woods a little longer due to the fact that we can see them in crunch time. As we all know, right at dusk and dawn is when those big ones just start moving .

Round pin guards allow us to get 2 uses out of one object. One of these uses is protection of our pins. The second is we can take the shape of the pin guard and use it as a reference point through our peep. If we center the pin guard in our peep, that's another step to helping replicate our shot time after time

That being said, we now know what we need on a sight to help make ourselves as accurate as possible under any circumstances. I like to practice at long distances so that when I do find myself in range of an animal, I'll have the confidence to make the shot. The sight that I've found that has everything I look for is the Sure-loc lethal weapon max with 5 fiber optic pins, a 2" round pin guard, a level, and 3^rd axis adjustability. All the things I look for in a sight as well as one more option that I love to death which is, a built in pivoting system that allows me to take my last pin and move it to further distances. Having a sight with this option allows me to shoot out to 120 yards. Hopefully this blog will help you choose a sight that will fit your needs.

-Wayahsti