How to Sight In a Compound Bow

Move the sight toward the arrow, and never adjust off fewer than three arrows. Those two rules cover almost everything that goes wrong when someone sights in a compound bow for the first time. The first one is counter-intuitive because it is the opposite of how a rifle scope behaves; the second one is ignored because a bad arrow is so tempting to correct.

The order matters too. Sighting in is not a single task — it is a sequence, and doing it out of order wastes a lot of arrows. You check the bow, then find the paper at close range, then set the 20-yard pin, then gap the rest of the pins at their own distances, then confirm with the broadheads you will actually hunt with. Skip the first step and you will spend an hour chasing a loose sight bracket. Skip the last one and you will find out about it on a deer.

Before you touch the sight

A sight cannot fix a bow that does not fit you. Draw length is the specification that matters most here, because an over-long draw puts your head forward, locks out the bow arm and collapses the anchor — and every one of those moves your impact point in a way no pin adjustment will stabilize. If you have never measured it, do that first: our guide to measuring draw length gives the wingspan method and the full-draw checkpoints.

Then run a hardware check, in this order:

• Every screw on the sight. Bracket to riser, pin guard, pin housing, and the windage and elevation locks. This is the number-one cause of a bow that “will not hold zero.”
• The rest. Mounting bolt, launcher arm, and — on a drop-away — the cord and its timing.
• String and cables. Waxed, no fraying, serving intact, peep and D-loop where they belong.
• Arrows. All the same length, same spine, same point weight, same fletching, and in good condition. Sighting in with a mixed quiver is the fastest way to convince yourself you cannot shoot.

That last point is worth a number. Easton, which defined the spine measurement standard, publishes how spine is measured — an 880-gram load across 28-inch supports, with the deflection in inches becoming the rating — and is explicit that point weight, insert weight, fletching and bow speed all change the spine a setup needs. Easton also recommends 10 to 15% front-of-center for hunting setups and warns that past about 20% FOC the dynamic spine weakens and the arrow destabilizes at distance. Change the point weight and you have changed the arrow, which means you have changed your zero. Our guide to choosing hunting arrows covers spine and FOC properly.

The three things to have in front of you

You need a sight you can adjust in repeatable increments, a target that will take both field points and broadheads so the confirmation step does not require a second purchase, and a matched set of arrows. That is the whole list.

The sight

Trophy Ridge Fix 5-Pin Bow Sight

Most whitetail hunters, most of the time

Type

Fixed multi-pin

Pins

5

Fiber diameter

.019"

$87.43 · View on Amazon

$129.9933% off

Price as of October 10, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

The target

BLOCK Classic Layered Foam Target

One target that handles field points and broadheads

Stops

Field points and broadheads

Dimensions

18" x 18" x 13.5"

Shootable sides

2

$77.50 · View on Amazon

$99.9922% off

Price as of October 10, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Matched arrows

Gold Tip Hunter XT (340)

Best all-round value

Spine

340

Pack

6, fletched with Raptor vanes

Shaft diameter

Standard

$67.49 · View on Amazon

$74.9910% off

Price as of October 10, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

A fixed multi-pin sight is the right default for a whitetail hunter because it needs no decision at the moment of the shot. A single-pin slider is more precise and asks you to range and dial first, which works when the deer gives you time and fails when it does not — our single-pin versus multi-pin comparison argues that case out in full. On the target, the specification that matters is whether the maker says it stops broadheads: a bag target rated for field points only will be destroyed by a broadhead and will ruin the head. Our archery target picks cover the distinction.

Finding the paper, then setting the 20-yard pin

Start at five to ten yards. The point of close range is not accuracy — it is getting arrows onto the target so you can see what the bow is doing, without burying arrows in the grass behind it. Shoot three, look at the center of the group, and move the sight toward it.

Then move to 20 yards and repeat until the center of a three-arrow group sits on your aiming point. When it does, stop. That pin is now the reference for every other pin on the sight, and the most common self-inflicted wound in this whole process is going back and “tidying up” the 20 after the others are set.

Two mechanical notes. Move windage and elevation one at a time, not together, or you will not know which change did what. And make your adjustments small — the usual mistake is a correction twice the size of the error, which turns sighting in into an oscillation.

Gapping the rest of the pins

On a fixed multi-pin sight, each pin is set at its own distance: 30 yards for the second, 40 for the third, and so on. You do not calculate the gaps, you shoot them. On a single-pin slider you are doing the same thing but marking a sight tape rather than moving a pin.

How many pins you actually need is a hunting decision rather than an equipment one. Most whitetail shots happen inside 30 yards, and bowhunting range guidance for whitetail conventionally treats 40 to 50 yards as a practical outer edge where energy and accuracy have both fallen off. Three pins sighted in correctly is a better setup than five pins each slightly wrong, and the fifth pin is usually a distance you should not take on a deer. Our draw weight for deer guide covers the energy side of that limit.

If you hunt from a stand, there is one more correction you cannot sight in: angle. An arrow follows the true horizontal distance to the animal, not the longer line-of-sight distance your eye measures down a steep angle — so a correctly sighted 30-yard pin still shoots high if the distance you used was the slope distance. Our guide to shooting from a tree stand covers that geometry, and our rangefinder guide covers the angle-compensating modes that solve it.

The broadhead check, which is the step people skip

Field points and broadheads are not interchangeable in flight. A broadhead has blade surface that can act like a wing, and a setup that is slightly out of tune will show you that as a broadhead group sitting away from your field-point group. The check is simple: shoot the exact heads you will hunt with, from the exact arrows you will hunt with, into a broadhead-rated target, at 20 and 30 yards.

If they agree, you are done. If they do not, resist the obvious fix. Re-sighting the bow to the broadhead leaves your field points wrong and hides a tuning problem that will reappear at longer range. Address it properly: check arrow spine and point weight against Easton’s guidance, try a head with less blade surface, or take the bow to a shop with a press. Our fixed versus mechanical broadhead comparison explains why mechanicals are more forgiving here, and our broadhead picks cover both.

One equipment standard worth knowing while you are choosing heads and arrows: the Pope & Young Club’s equipment definitions include a 300-grain minimum total arrow weight for bowhunting. That is a floor, not a target, and most hunting arrows land comfortably above it.

Keeping the zero

A bow that has not changed should not need re-sighting, but it does need verifying. Shoot one three-arrow group at 20 yards before you hunt. Re-sight properly after a new rest, a new sight, a different arrow or point weight, a new string, or any knock hard enough to make you wince.

And add the quiver before you finalise anything. A quiver changes how the bow balances, so a bow sighted in without one and hunted with one is a bow with an unknown zero. Set it up the way you will carry it, and then confirm.