Designed by the Bone Collector Brotherhood

For hunters, archery hunters especially, accuracy is everything. Even the smallest error can lead to a misplaced shot that wounds, maims, or cripples an animal, or to a missed opportunity altogether. And if you can’t manage to hit anything, well…where’s the fun in that?

With a quality sight added to your bow, however, you’ll get both improved aim and alignment – leading to tighter groups and more predictable shot placement – for any arrow you shoot. This way, you will be better prepared to line up and connect on ethical shots from 20 or more yards away. Good bow sights not only help you pinpoint good shots and maintain visibility of your target when you shoot, but also help keep you within your comfort zone when it comes to knowing the target’s distance and remaining confident in your ability to hit your target.

Before exploring bow sight types currently available on the market, you’ll want to gauge your ability and level of commitment as a hunter. What kind of animal are you targeting, primarily, and in what sort of terrain do they live? What distance range are you typically shooting? How much time do you have available to dedicate to practicing with your archery equipment ahead of the season opener? Oh yeah, and budget might be a good thing to have in mind from the get-go.

At any rate, once you’ve evaluated where you stand in terms of needs, wants, and what’s likely realistic given your current time and budget situation, the next step is research.

Bow Sights: What Are My Options?

When it comes to choosing which type of bow sight to add, your options are many.

• Single Pin: Single-pin sights have just one pin within the sight housing, allowing for faster target acquisition and eliminating the need for pin gapping when making mid-20-yard shots, for example. They operate on sliders, which are adjusted to the appropriate yardage prior to drawing and aiming.
• Multi-Pin: These sights come in various models, containing three, five, or seven pins and are the most common sight type used by archery hunters. The pins within the sight housing are usually set at 10-yard increments, meaning there’s no adjustment necessary – simply know your yardage, pick your pin, acquire your target, and let her fly. However, those pins can crowd and clutter your sight picture, making pin selection confusing and inaccurate at times.
• Hybrid: Hybrid bow sights allow for micro-adjustability along a sight tape with super-simple-to-use adjustment tools. These sights provide longer-range capabilities without muddying up your sight picture and covering up your target with loads of pins.

Hybrid Bow Sights: The Best of Both Worlds

Based on the single pin sight design, but featuring four pins, the Wheel Bow Sight is as versatile as they come, offering the best of both worlds. It ensures you don’t max out your shooting distance in the heat of the moment, wasting valuable seconds of shooting light or having an animal in range, or risking spooking them from the area.

Designed and endorsed by the Bone Collector crew, the Wheel Bow Sight features four .019 pins for traditional sighting performance, with a bottom pin that adjusts from 40 to 100 yards with the simple turn of a dial. Calibrated sight tapes aid in quick and efficient longer-range shooting, while a glowing aperture and bright pins make target acquisition and sight alignment a breeze, even in the low-light conditions of sunrise, sunset, and those sometimes vital 30-minute stretches on either side of each.

Have we already mentioned how simple it is to use? Well, it’s as easy as this…

• Step 1: Using windage and elevation, sight in the bottom pin for 30 yards, then mark the line with the adjustable yardage pointer.

• Step 2: Adjust the dial on the side of the sight to move the bottom pin to 60 yards and sight your bow in again. Make another reference mark.

• Step 3: Match up the 30- and 60-yard reference marks you made with the 30- and 60-yard indicators on the sight tape. The tape that should be installed on the sight is the one that matches the gap between the two reference points.

• Step 4: Install the appropriate sight tape so the pointer, 60-yard reference mark, and 60-yard mark on the sight tape all line up.

• Step 5: Adjust the pointer to line up with the 50-yard mark. Sight in the top three pins – 20-, 30-, and 40-yards – by moving the pin up and down the sight track (note: you’ll need to loosen the screws at the base of the pin to do this).

Told you it was simple.

With adjustments that easy, worries about making rapid, heat-of-the-moment changes afield are now a thing of the past. Whether you find yourself a mere 30 yards or a whopping 80 yards from your target animal, in just a few seconds and with a few quick turns, slides, and tightens, you’ll be in the game and ready to let one fly.