Sites on a recurve?

[shosier]

#5691

I’m 56 yrs old and have just taken up archery and wanted to go traditional. I’ve been doing it for about a year and am having a real hard time hitting anything (I don’t hunt yet). Started out with 30# bow and worked up. Would anyone advise putting a sight on my bow till I know how it sights in or should I just gut it out?
Getting discouraged.
BTW, I shoot a 62″ recurve 45# at 28″ and I draw 30.5 so I’m pulling about 56#, which I can do ok.
steve

[flyrite]

#44099

Steve, if you want to shoot without sights, stick with it, BUT find a club or a buddy that shoots a recurve/longbow who can give you some help. You need to work on:
1) Form
2) Tuning arrows to bow
3) Concentration
4) Repetition
Good Luck!

[oldtwohairs]

#44300

Steve, You might want to get Tony Camera’s new book “Shooting the Stickbow”

It might well be the best $20.00 you’ll ever spend. It has been about a year for me since I switched back to traditional and I have learned a lot from that book.

Kevin

[RAGMAN]

#44668

Sights work well on a recurve, if that is what you want. I also think that if you are going to hunt with your bow than you should learn to shoot without sights. Start very close to your target,say 20ft. After you can hit good, mave back 10 ft. and so on. Every time you start a shooting session, start close and back up. It will come to you. If you want, you can email me and I will help you as much as I can.

[RugerBH]

#50832

I have sights on my recurve and like it. I perfer the feel of the recurve to a compound but like the added confidence the sights give me. The only down side is that you don’t seem to fit into any group. Trad shooters think your lazy or taking short cuts and compound shooters think your a fool for messing around with the recurve. Try it, if you like it go for it.

[Ralph]

#52436

Hi. Back in the 60’s and 70’s sights on recurves were a common thing. I have a late 70’s model Black Widow take down with a metal riser that is drilled and tapped for sights. I’ve seen bows with a toothpick or something a bit bigger like a wooden matchstick taped on the bow for a sight. When it comes to trad “archery” there’s probably not much that hasn’t been tried. When it comes to getting something to eat or fighting wars, man can be pretty darn innovative. If it works for you, have fun.

[donw]

#52457

sights work just fine on a recurve…

[Hubertus]

#60974

If you want to shoot without sights, I’d say just “gut it out”. I would recommend viewing G. Fred Asbell’s “Instinctive Shooting” video. It will give you a great overview of technique and a boost of encouragement.

[Van/TX]

#23993

Ruger makes a good point. It’s really a damn shame that most new wave trad archers are so narrow minded:wink:…Van

[JDinCO]

#27331

There’s nothing wrong with taping a matchstick or toothpick on your riser to use as a sight pin. I also 2nd reading Shootin the Stickbow. This book covers a just about everything.

[JDinCO]

#27335

RugerBH wrote: I have sights on my recurve and like it. I perfer the feel of the recurve to a compound but like the added confidence the sights give me. The only down side is that you don’t seem to fit into any group. Trad shooters think your lazy or taking short cuts and compound shooters think your a fool for messing around with the recurve. Try it, if you like it go for it.

Folks were putting sights on recurves long before any compounds were popular. The new “Trad” movement seemed to forget about history.

[greg]

#13974

Sites have been on recurves at least as long as fiberglass has been on recurves, so I would think they would qualify as “traditional” in 2009. If you want to try to keep shooting without sites you will probably need to make some common changes in your style of shooting, for example canting the bow more and canting your head more to get the arrow directly under your domanant eye, or stated differently, getting your head and dominant eye over the arrow, and looking directly down the shaft in your peripheral vision to the target. With this style your calculation becomes elevation, the windage is taken care of by your eye being in line with the shaft. Most recurve shooters tend to shoot in an upright target stnace, which is good for sites but more difficult to manage with barebow or gap shooting. With this style you soon learn the arrow trajectory as you watch it travel straight to the target and the distance calculation becomes easier. This is what has worked for me, hope it helps some.

[shosier]

#14250

Hey thanks for the advice Greg. I’m getting better but not where I would feel comfortable hunting yet.

[cyrille]

#14990

I shoot “bare bow”, always have and probabaly always will.
I had a shooting buddy a few years back who shot bare bow also but he had a “yardage chart” taped to the belly of his bow and he could come close to centre up to around 40 yds.
Never could get him to reveal how he figgured out the diffrent degrees of elevation for the specfic yardage, but he was darn good shooting bare bow.

[donw]

#27121

i’d like to add that whether or not you choose to us sights on your recurve it’s your form and YOU that determine final accuracy.

jack howard used sights on his recurve and regularly took big game at sixty yards and beyond, as an example.

howard hill and saxon and pope all regularly shot at one hundred yards without sights and took big game.

again…practice, form and consistancy are what determine accuracy.

[Chris Shelton]

#27659

personally i shoot the bare bow. And i think ordering a book or something might work but trad archery is all about instincts. What you should do is get a huge target, as big a target you have around your house. Even like a milk jug. Then put a dot in the middle of it and shoot at that dot. You will find that in the beginning you will shoot about the same but your mind will compensate for the correction you need if you missed. Everyone has different instincts so it is hard to follow someones form, you need to jsut do whatever is comfoatable for you!!!

[MontanaFord]

#29667

shosier…welcome to an awesome passion and past time. oh, and a good way to waste as much money as you can afford as well as some that you can’t afford…lol…these guys have pretty much said it all, so i won’t add anything, except good luck and keep plugging away at it.

Michael

[Jerry Gowins]

#19488

Greatreearcher wrote: … And i think ordering a book or something might work but trad archery is all about instincts.

I’d like to offer my two cents on it being all about “instincts”.

There is nothing “instinctive” about shooting a bow. It’s hand/eye coordination, pure & simple. No different than shooting a basketball to the hoop or pitching a baseball. That said, not all folks possess the same degree of hand/eye coordination as others. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve been shooting trad bows since ’89 (I’m 54) and have seen a lot of guys shoot who really shouldn’t be in the woods with a bow, but insist that to be trad you can’t use sights. Sigh…Bull hockey!! It’s nothing but pride & ego. I use to be a dang good shot up until a couple of years ago when I could practice shooting daily. But I plan on using a sight this year because I can’t shoot as much as I need to, to be accurate under hunting situations (bad elbow). And that’s the bottom line; what will you be the most accurate with in the field shooting at living, breathing animals? And as far as I’m concerned, I’m still “trad” all the way!!

I say screw the naysayers and shoot whatever makes you the better archer. And don’t worry about what others think is “trad”.

I taught myself how to shoot “instinctively” (for lack of a better word) by placing one of those little fluorescent dots on my target, backing up to 10′, and concentrating on just that dot and shooting until all arrows were in or around that dot. when I could do that with ease and consistency, I backed up 5′, and repeated until I was finally 20-25 yards away by summer’s end. You are basically training your brain to calculate the trajectory of the arrow through repetition. Because even though you concentrate on the spot, your “secondary vision” picks up the flight of the arrow and stores that info in your brain. Of course form, release, & follow-through are all important, but that’s what worked for me. And when I started spraying arrows during a practice session, it was time to quit for the day.

Hope this helps,

Jerry Gowins

[Steve Sr.]

#19734

Steve,
I’m going to assume that since you “have just taken up archery” that you have never shot with sights, on any type of bow?

Sights do help some shoot a bow better but be advised they most certainly are not a “cure all”.

In fact, the use of sights for HUNTING, FOR ME…..was a disaster. It mandates that you MUST hold your bow perfectly vertical to always have the sights in the exact location in reference to your arrow, each and every time.

A bow canted even an 1/4 inch either way of where the bow was when the sights were adjusted results in horrible shot placement, regardless if your form is perfect every other way.

The second consideration needed when using sights is that you MUST know the yardage you are shooting and be able to choose the correct sight (or between which two sight pins) you must use to “put er there”.

FOR ME, these two factors alone allowed (if not CREATED) two more possibilites for human error (aka, me to mess up!!)and simply did not lend themselves well to hunting.

Concentration, is probably (at least IMHO) one of the most important factors of an accurate shot, if not THE most important. Again, for ME, the necessity to check bow alignment at full draw, AFTER estimating a shot distance (that I never was consistantly doing well) was just not fitting well in hunting situations.

Yet another down side for sights in the field, again FOR ME, was the LACK of ability to notice a branch etc that was between the arrow and my target. I was unable to concentrate on holding the sight pin through the shot AND see the path the arrow would fly.

The end result for me was shooting my butt off two summers working on my abilities and missing more deer in those two seasons than I had missed in the previous 20 shooting barebow. One of which I missed twice. Once at 14 yards hitting a branch and again at about 25 due to the bow being canted and the arrow flying way left. (In other words I shot “too fast” for my set up). Thankfully I did NOT hit the deer at all but could have easily gut shot one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever seen in the field.

After that episode and some others I knew I would NOT have missed barebow, I realized the “extra range” I had on the target range using sights where I had more time, was less excited, and could stand in the same position through each shot, was totally totally useless out hunting. In fact, as I described above, I shot far worse…….at ALL distances.

When shooting targets on a range where the yardage is marked and a perfect stance is allowed both in amount of room and time….sights are very common for the REALLY serious target shooters.

There have been some GREAT bowhunters in our history using sights that successfully hunted with them and took animals I can only dream of. Sights have been in our sport for decades and decades. Some use them some do not and only you can make that decision.

The main purpose of my reply is for you to realize that sights, by themselves, are not a “FIX” but more a change in the shot process THAT DOES ADD additional factors that you must consider. Hopefully I have explained a few of them to help you in your decision.

Some make it work beautifully, but for me using sights hunting was the worst two seasons of my life.

I do commend you on your decision to start LIGHT on your first bow. Getting a solid anchor engrained in your form without thought is a huge leap towards becoming a great shooter. Also, your refusal to hunt till you feel more confident speaks well of you and I truly expect to see some “success photos” here on the hunting threads from you with a HUGE smile on your face!

I am not a “great shot” but some locally think I am. IMHO, being a good “hunter” consists of just knowing and staying within your limitations shooting at a living, breathing target.

Practice diligently but without beating yourself to death doing so, and concentrate, concentrate on that spot you wish to hit BEFORE you draw the bow, WHILE you draw the bow, DURING anchor and THROUGH release and follow through till the arrow connects. If you do not already do this now, give it a few days of shooting, NEVER EVER taking your eyes off “the spot” your arrow WILL CONNECT (think positive).

FOR ME, I find that concentrating on a spot, drawing, anchoring, holding……….and LETTING UP, LOTS AND LOTS of times each week has made me a MUCH better barebow shot simply because (IMHO) I’m practicing CONTROL of the shot as well as my concentration and anchor.

Beware continuing to “practice” bad habits. Should you find yourself dropping your bow arm, losing concentration during the shot, not hitting full draw….STOP. Tomorrow is another day! When this evil bug bites…..I revert back to my “concentrating on a spot, drawing, anchoring, holding……….and LETTING UP”

It will come my friend. Have faith. As all the mechanics of any sport, positive repetition will win the day.

God Bless, Keep em Sharp and hunt safely.

Steve

[heydeerman]

#22720

Sights might be a good way to get a fella going in the right direction. If you feel comfortable with a sight and it helps you to be an accurate hunter then so be it. If you want to learn to shoot without sights practice in the off season without them.

[tradbowman67]

#33499

Congatulations on Deciding to take a step towards enjoying yourself with archery!! Shooting a bow, ANY bow wheeled or not, with or without sights is purely a matter of personal preference to me. I started shooting with an old shakespeare recurve I got at flea market in a barrel of yard tools! Then I started shooting an old 6 wheel Bear Whitetail Hunter compound with no sights, then for a time shot a high-tech wheelie bow with a drop away rest, adjustable sight, carbon arrows, etc. Personally, I find shooting sans sights to be more satisfying, and using my recurve a helluva lot of fun!! It does take a good deal more effort and motivation to become competent and confident without sights, but if you are interested in devoting the time and effort to it, GO FOR IT! I have a vhs tape by Paul Brunner called “Instinctive Shooting” produced by Stoney-Wolf Productions that I am constantly playing for Esther since she is just learning, and it also helps me when my form is a little off, I’d be more than happy to send you a copy if you’d like! Reach me at my profile here (tradbowman67) if you’re interested. Welcome, Good luck, and remember, persistence makes a goal reached a goal earned!

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