Sights and pins...

[not on the rug]

Ok guys... I've been shooting various sights over the years and I like a multi-pin sight over a slider. No debate there.

 

Starting last year I noticed that I was finding my eye was having difficulty focusing on the middle pins in the sight. So the top and bottom pins are fine, but when I'm using a middle pin, my eye naturally wants to go towards the top or bottom.

 

I'm thinking of pulling a few pins out of the sight and just going with 2. It will give a clearer sight picture and with the way most bows shoot, coupled with the average distance shot I'm taking, I think 2 should be fine. Helln the longest shot I've ever taken on a deer is 22 yards

 

Right now, I'm using 4 pins, set to 15/25/35/45. The 15 hits bulls out to about 21-22 before there is any drop. The 25 hits a dead bull at 30.

 

So... I'm thinking of keeping my 15 pin and probably my 35 pin. The 15 would be used for just about every shot I'd ever taken without any needed adjustment. I could aim a hair high in case of a 27-30 yd shot. The 35 would handle the rest. Do any of you guys do anything like this? If I go with 2 pins, what yardages would you recommend?

Edited August 21, 2017 by not on the rug

[Lunatic]

That's the very resin I went to one pin slider.  

However your plan with two pins should work as well.

The good part about 1 pin slider I use is that if a monster deer walks out at 40 to 55 yards + your are guessing on what to do and I just slide my pin to whatever distance. I only shot two deer with by vertical over 45 yards but it happens and it would suck if a deer of a life time just walks by you because you don't have a pin for that distance. Just my opinion.

[not on the rug]

That's the very resin I went to one pin slider.  

However your plan with two pins should work as well.

The good part about 1 pin slider I use is that if a monster deer walks out at 40 to 55 yards + your are guessing on what to do and I just slide my pin to whatever distance. I only shot two deer with by vertical over 45 yards but it happens and it would suck if a deer of a life time just walks by you because you don't have a pin for that distance. Just my opinion.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. With a slider, you have to make an adjustment, often on the fly. You may also forget to make the adjustment in the heat of the moment. There are countless stories on archerytalk and here of guys making either of those mistakes. I don't want to think about adjustments ever. I just want a pin or 2 to cover the shots that I'd actually take due to stand location limiting distance or due to the maximum ethical shot I'd actually ever take.

 

I really just want to figure out where those 2 pins should be

[Lunatic]

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. With a slider, you have to make an adjustment, often on the fly. You may also forget to make the adjustment in the heat of the moment. There are countless stories on archerytalk and here of guys making either of those mistakes. I don't want to think about adjustments ever. I just want a pin or 2 to cover the shots that I'd actually take due to stand location limiting distance or due to the maximum ethical shot I'd actually ever take.

 

I really just want to figure out where those 2 pins should be

 

Yes you have to make adjustments but not as many, if you apply your two pin principle. There are also many stories, I can give you few of mine, of using a wrong pin on a multi pin sight. At the end you have to use whatever you are comfortable with.

 

BTW why don't you zero your first pin at 20 yards and this pin then should cover anything from Zero to about 30 Yards and then 2nd pin accordingly, giving you further reach.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Lunatic

[not on the rug]

Yes you have to make adjustments but not as many, if you apply your two pin principle. There are also many stories, I can give you few of mine, of using a wrong pin on a multi pin sight. At the end you have to use whatever you are comfortable with.

 

BTW why don't you zero your first pin at 20 yards and this pin then should cover anything from Zero to about 30 Yards and then 2nd pin accordingly, giving you further reach.

Agreed. Countless stories of guys using the wrong pin in the heat of the moment. Fortunately, I haven't had that happen yet.

 

Thats kind of where I'm at now. 1st pin hits from 15-21/22 with no discernable drop. Maybe I'll bump it down a hair so it will hit almost perfectly out to 25. Might hit an inch or 2 low at 30, for which I can adjust my aim slightly. Then I'll just remove the 25 pin altogether and leave the 35. I just need to pull the bow out and experiment a little

Edited August 21, 2017 by not on the rug

[vdep217]

Try sighting at 30 and see where u hit 5 to 25. That's whay I do with my slider. I leave it at 30. It hits an inch low at 7 yrds and an inch hi at 18. All perfect. And than about 2.5 low at 35. Any thing farther I feel I will have time to adjust. Just what works for me

[hammer4reel]

Shoot 2 pins .

First one set dead nuts at 17 yards

Second pin at 35.

 

 

You will find as you get older you can shoot pins that are larger than you could when you were younger due to how your eyes see them .

 

For me the 29 thousandths pin appears the same as the 15 thousandth used to .

Without blurring out . Or covering too much as thry are not seen as sharply

[Lunatic]

_{Is your problem related to having to use reading glasses and you also use contact lenses?}

[vdep217]

...

[not on the rug]

Try sighting at 30 and see where u hit 5 to 25. That's whay I do with my slider. I leave it at 30. It hits an inch low at 7 yrds and an inch hi at 18. All perfect. And than about 2.5 low at 35. Any thing farther I feel I will have time to adjust. Just what works for me

Interesting. Thanks for the thoughts 

 

 

Shoot 2 pins .

First one set dead nuts at 17 yards

Second pin at 35.

You will find as you get older you can shoot pins that are larger than you could when you were younger due to how your eyes see them .

For me the 29 thousandths pin appears the same as the 15 thousandth used to .

Without blurring out . Or covering too much as thry are not seen as sharply

Thanks Dan. I'll give that a whirl too

 

  

_{Is your problem related to having to use reading glasses and you also use contact lenses?}

No. I mean, I wear glasses or contacts on a daily basis, but they are for distance. No issues with close vision or need for reading glasses yet. The issue isnt being able to see the pin clearly, it's like my brain keeps making my eyes dart to another pin because it doesn't want to look at a middle pin. Perhaps that is my brain's way of telling me that my close vision is starting to get worse

[Lunatic]

Interesting. Thanks for the thoughts 

 

 

Thanks Dan. I'll give that a whirl too

 

  

No. I mean, I wear glasses or contacts on a daily basis, but they are for distance. No issues with close vision or need for reading glasses yet. The issue isnt being able to see the pin clearly, it's like my brain keeps making my eyes dart to another pin because it doesn't want to look at a middle pin. Perhaps that is my brain's way of telling me that my close vision is starting to get worse

 

 

If you use contacts then try what my doctor told me to do and it worked. make the lens in your aiming eye weaker than what you need. I go one point lower but I am minus six. So my one eye is -6 and the other -5. This will allow you to see clearly objects up close. Your brain will adjust and after few days you will not see the difference because your brain will use the stronger lens to see far and weaker lens to see up close. I delayed my reading glasses this way by 3 years. It really works.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Lunatic

[Matty]

 

I used to hunt with one pin. But I found it actually over-complicated things.

 

Yes, shooting is easier with just one pin to focus on, I definitely shoot a little better like that because my mind loves the simple, uncluttered sight picture.

 

 

Here's where everything can go bad though. I don't have a long draw length, and the most I ever used to hunt with was about 67#.  Now I only use 50#. And arrows were heavier, so I didn't get a real flat trajectory.

 

I mean I could use one pin out to about 24ish or so if it was set at like 21yards. But after that I'd start to hit too low.

 

Now you can compensate, which is fine up to about 30ish...But compensating past that would be difficult.

 

The next thing you could do, is range the average shot in your spot and move the pin to that. However, if you get a shot further, (or maybe even closer)...You have to remember to compensate and know what kind of compensation is needed.

 

You can also accidentally forget that you dialed the sight into 60 last night for some long range practice and never moved it back to 20 for the hunt. At first you'll wonder how you could miss so high, but it will come back to you pretty quickly. Trust me.

 

 

If you're going to shoot one pin for hunting, I'd suggest just fixing it at a certain distance. You could still use it on a slider so you can practice longer ranges, or dial in on rare occasion for a longer shot, but just make one mark on that sight that is specifically for HUNTING. And sight it in at a distance that gives you the best accuracy at several yardages with the least amount of compensation.

 

You'll have to play with that because each setup is different, but an example might be...sighting in at 23 yards dead on, could allow you to be very accurate from 0-28 or so....And just hold a little high past that.

 

Or maybe sight in at 27 and be good to about 35. Again, every setup is different and some people can get a lot of yardage out of one pin. I'm not one of those people, so I went to 5 pins. Even then, I don't sight them dead in at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. I actually sight them in a little off to give me the best margin of error. I still call them my 20, 30, 40, etc....but they are actually something like 22, 34, 39, 47 and 60. (I have it written down somewhere because it did take a while of trial and error to figure out the best sight in distances).

 

I almost never use a rangefinder while bowhunting whitetails because of my "room for error" system. I really don't shoot deer past 30ish anymore anyway. So it's basically just a two pin system for hunting. Close pin and far pin. The others are all just for practice and now elk hunting. Now the two pin system that I use (minus the clutter of all my extra pins at the moment.....is one I would highly recommend for bowhunting whitetails.

 

I literally think of them as "close pin and far pin"  And I know what "close and far" look like to me. Anything out past 25ish is "far" Everything else is "close". Really simplifies things after you figure out exactly what distances you need to sight in for.

 

Think about trying that before you go just one pin. Unless that works for you....Everyones different.

 

 

I wrote the above a few years ago, but it still applies to this.

 

Since I'm not elk hunting in the near future, I'm back to two pins for hunting. For the East it's the best (impo).

 

In all fairness though, I do have two identical bows and the second one is setup with 4 pins for 3d and field edge hunting.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Matty

[not on the rug]

If you use contacts then try what my doctor told me to do and it worked. make the lens in your aiming eye weaker than what you need. I go one point lower but I am minus six. So my one eye is -6 and the other -5. This will allow you to see clearly objects up close. Your brain will adjust and after few days you will not see the difference because your brain will use the stronger lens to see far and weaker lens to see up close. I delayed my reading glasses this way by 3 years. It really works.

Interesting...

[not on the rug]

I wrote the above a few years ago, but it still applies to this.

 

Since I'm not elk hunting in the near future, I'm back to two pins for hunting. For the East it's the best (impo).

 

In all fairness though, I do have two identical bows and the second one is setup with 4 pins for 3d and field edge hunting.

What distances are you using Matty?

[Matty]

Off the top of my head, I believe the current setup gave me the most margin of error when sighted in at 18 and 27 (that covers 0-30). I'm not 100% on that, but it's close and all setups are different so you have to mess with it to figure out your best distances.

 

My top pin is my "close" pin and is currently covering 0-23ish (99% of my shots) and the other is my "far" pin and will put it in the kill zone from about 23-32ish.

 

I always have a close guestimate of range too, so I already know to hold  a little high or low.