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Course Outline

Follow these steps to sight-in your crossbow.

  • Take a position 10 yards or less from the target—your first shot should always be taken from this distance.
  • Make sure the range is clear before the arrow is loaded.
  • Keep the crossbow pointed downrange.
  • Place an arrow in the cocked crossbow.
  • Make sure there are no obstacles near the ends of the limbs.
  • Shoot the first arrow. At 10 yards, the arrow should hit the target.
  • Take a second shot from the same distance. If all preparations and sighting are done in the same manner, the arrow should strike the target in the same place.
  • Shoot a third arrow.
  • If the three arrows form a tight group on the target, adjust the sight to move the grouping to the top center of the bull’s-eye.
    • The grouping is placed at the top center of the bull’s-eye to prepare for the final dead-center adjustment at 20 yards.
    • To adjust a sight with a pin, use the “Follow the Arrow” philosophy: If your arrow hits to the right of your target, move the pin to the right. If it hits higher than desired, move the pin up. At 10 yards, your arrows should hit high or on top of the bull’s-eye, but centered horizontally.
    • When adjusting a scope sight, remember that all scopes adjust at one inch per click at 100 yards. Therefore, when shooting at 10 yards, the arrow’s point of impact will move only 1/10th of an inch per click. Make windage and elevation adjustments in the direction you want your point of impact to move.
  • Shoot another three-arrow group. If this arrow group is at the top center of the bull’s-eye, move back to 20 yards.
  • At 20 yards, shoot three more arrows and then fine-tune the sight to the center of the bull’s-eye. When utilizing the sight pin system at longer distances, an additional pin may be added for 30 yards and sighted-in by following the same procedure.

Note: For safety, it is best to begin the sighting-in process at 10 yards. Then, when the arrows are hitting in the center of the target at 10 yards after adjustments have been made with the scope, move back to 20 yards.

  • The multiple horizontal lines below the heavy, dark “20-yard” line in the scope are pre-determined by the scope manufacturer to be approximately 10 yards each. Therefore, the second line, under the heavy 20-yard line, would be 30 yards and so on.
  • Due to variances of arrow and point weights, as well as the different draw weights of crossbows, each scope will sight in differently. Due to these variances, the second line on your scope may hit the center of the target at 28 yards rather than 30 yards. It is recommended that you place a piece of masking tape on the inside limb of your crossbow with the distances noted for each line on your scope.
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