Home / Guides / Aiming, sight marks and bow tuning

Aiming, sight marks and bow tuning

The technique behind a set-up bow: how sight marks are built, how archers aim with and without a sight, and how a bow is tuned to shoot cleanly.

Aiming the shot

How an archer aims depends on the equipment. A compound archer lines a magnified scope through a string peep; a recurve archer moves a single pin to a mark; a barebow archer aims off the arrow point by gap or string-walk.

Each method has its own demands, but all of them rest on a consistent anchor and release. The aiming reference only helps if the shot behind it repeats.

Sight marks

A sighted archer needs a setting for every distance, because the arrow arcs and drops. Building a trusted set of sight marks, and printing a sight tape from them, is how a target or field archer hits the centre from 18 metres to 90.

Marks only hold if the sight is mounted solidly and returns to zero, which is why a correct sight mount is the foundation under every recorded mark.

Tuning the bow

Tuning aligns the arrow, rest and string so the arrow leaves without contact and flexes cleanly around the bow. Centre shot is set with the plunger or rest position; clearance is set by the rest type; bare-shaft and paper tuning confirm the result.

All of it depends on a rest and plunger that are correctly fitted to the riser in the first place. Fit comes first, then tuning, then marks, then the score.

The order of setting up a bow

The pieces build on each other in a fixed order. First the sight and rest have to mount to the riser and hold their position, which is the compatibility question this site answers. Then the bow is tuned so the arrow leaves cleanly. Only then do sight marks become worth recording, because a shifting mount would make them meaningless.

Working in that order saves an archer from chasing a scoring problem in the wrong place. A flier caused by a loose rest is not fixed by a new sight mark, and a poor group caused by bad clearance is not fixed by aiming harder.

Get the right part

Open the SightRestFit fitment toolGet the exact fitment for your setup

Sight marks and sight tapesA sight mark is the setting a sight is moved to for a given Aiming methodsArchers aim in several ways, from a sight pin on a compound Bow tuning: centre shot, clearance and the plungerTuning aligns the arrow, the rest and the string so the arro Disciplines and roundsThe formats these skills serve

Sources: Archery GB · Wikipedia: Archer's paradox · World Archery: disciplines