Episode 17 | Peep Sights
Peep sight positioning - height and rotation
Transcript
00:00:16.72
I want to have a look and discussion about peep sights, peep sight height and peep sight rotation. Peep sight height is absolutely critical to how well you will shoot with a compound. First and foremost let's look at the real mistake that people make. We've discussed in an earlier episode that the drawlength is set, the anchor point is set, the head's going to go forward - and that's a consistent and absolutely immutable position.
00:00:47.48
So if I do this and shut my eyes, I expect to open my eyes - the peep sight to be directly in front of my eye, rotation correct (we'll discuss that in a minute) and I expect this scope to be in the middle of the peep.
00:01:09.20
Strangely, what a lot of people do, is that they are willing to alter this position - this anchor position - in order to see through the peep sight. This (anchor) is the basis of what you are trying to do - this tight position which ties up everything in the posture - they are willing to cheat that to see through the peep sight, which you can move easily.
00:01:32.04
So having set the drawlength you will always spend a bit of time drawing the bow, shut your eyes, open your eyes, move the peep sight until it's spot on. And what is spot on? I want this scope to be absolutely centred in the peep sight. We're going to talk in a second about what the issues are at different FITA distances. I want a peep sight aperture that is small enough to let me be able to see just around the outside of the scope. And this is why you see a lot of scopes that are painted bright colours on the outside of the housing (of the body). I've no interest in what the peep sight does to the clarity of the lens. I can buy a better lens - I can buy a different magnification lens. I'm not interested in putting a clarifier lens in there - another lens inside the peep sight. My peep sight allows me to absolutely center that scope body where I want it.
00:02:35.44
There is a little bit of an excuse with respect to clarifiers and peep sight apertures with respect to people with bad eyesight - who need a larger peep sight diameter in order to let more light into their eye in order to make up for a visual impairment. Having said that, that is a special case.
00:02:55.56
So a lot of these small peep sights look really small and novice / intermediate archers really don't like them. These really small peep sight holes - they're about the right size. If you look at well set up good compound archers you'll see very small peep sight (apertures). All they're interested in is being able to centre this scope in this here.
00:03:19.36
So why is that important. It is massively important - if you alter a little bit of head position you will shoot high and low. What you're looking for as I've said is is it (the scope) centred. When you go out to shoot your outdoor distances. This sight here is set up for 18m and this is a quick bow - I'm going to be down around here for 90m. What that's going to mean is that when I draw this bow back with the peep sight set here, shut my eyes, anchor, open my eyes, and I've got the sight set for 90m - I'm not going to be able to see the bubble.
00:03:57.88
I could cheat - I could move my head, but that is going to be inconsistent, so what I do when I go outdoors is that I move this peep sight down - but it's going to be wrong at 30m. In Europe it's perfectly acceptable to move the peep sight normally at the 3rd distance, at 50m. We're talking about a very small movement - maybe half the width of the peep sight. It's no so much liked in Britain, people get a bit hysterical about it. It does have issues about tying up with sight tapes. So what we're going to say it that we're going to pick a position to put this peep sight in, and we're going to shoot that position all day.
00:04:39.00
30m is easy. A big target, shooting open 10s, no hassle. SO we don't mind having to move our heads into a tight position at 30m. We're still going to shoot 357, 358. 90m - if we can see this bubble because we've got it set for 30m it's going to go very badly for us. So we're going to set this peep sight lower when we shoot outdoors because the sight's on a lower track. And we're going to shoot 90m and 70m really comfortable. No issues about where that peep centers - small alterations over such a long distance are going to have a bigger effect than small alterations over 30m - apart from that the target face is so big at 30m - you're struggling not to keep them in the 10 ring. So your going to do that - as we have just said, draw the bow with your eyes shut, when you have a 90m sight mark.
00:05:26.40
It will have a little bit of an effect on your sight mark - if you move the peep sight up the arrows will go a little bit higher. If you move it down arrows will go a little bit lower - but never an exicing amount. So you are looking for 90 / 70 being very comfortable.
00:05:54.96
To finish up - peep sight rotation. 10 years ago you would have a seen a bit of string or rubber going out of here on to this limb pulling this (peep) around. Similarly you will talk to people who, if a peep sight doesn't come round on a new set of strings or cables, they're going to want to move some strands - you wreck a lot of strings that way. You heard Chris Destin in the interview I did with him saying that whether or not a peep sight sits straight is to do with how well the string is made. Is to do with pre-stress - it's not to do with whether it's 1 colour, 2 colours, 3 colours, whatever. So - how are you going to move the peep sight if it's not straight. In emergencies always useful to remember that you can move it on the nock loop. This is not a long term solution but it means you don't have to quit in the middle of a competition. How do I do it = I go home, set the nock loop at the length I want it, set everything up, draw the bow back and if this doesn't sit straight back to my eye, I put the dow in the bow press and put 1 turn on the string. Draw it again - it's never going to take more than 4 turns, which isn't going to alter the drawlength. 4 turns on here - if it does alter the drawlength you can bring it back on the cables if you want to. The only functional way to do this is shoot the string in - nowadays that's 25-30 shots, look at the peep sight position and do it by 1 turn at a time on a bow press. Moving strands works but a lot of people will damage the string and you see a lot of damage to strands up near the peep sight because of that.
00:07:33.64
I hope that allows you to see (a) how important this is, that this has to come round straight, that is has to centre on here and (b) you are never going to alter your anchor position to see through the peep sight - you just move the peep sight.