As many of you know I recently bought a bow and got into the archery game. I am an experienced firearm shooter but bows were new to me. I came into this with a little different angle then many new bowshooters and wanted to try a couple things. One of the things I identified right away was that the problem of dealing with 3 different focal planes during the sighting process was still present with a bow, just as when shooting a handgun with iron sights. I saw that EO Tech used to make a Holosight archery model, but they had quit making it as they were have a hard time making enough firearms models due to the huge demand placed on them by the current conflict in Iraq. So I had to find one on Ebay, as the archery model has a significant difference from the gun models. First take a look at this link to see what the reticle of a holosight looks like, go to the box for HWS simulator and click on that, it will show the reticle and is kinda fun to paly around with too:
http://www.eotech-inc.com/index2.php
The holosight is a very quality sight and is one that I have used and owned for many years and am very impressed with. The archery model differs from the gun models in that it has a stationary outside ring that allows you to make sure the bow is not canted and that the sight is centered. No string peep is utilized or needed with this sight, as this is taken care of by the second ring on the sight itself. Holosights offers many great features that makes them very popular with military and law enforcement as well as civialian shooters that are in the know. It is durable and tough. It is parallax free, it puts the target on the same focal plane as the target, and it is very fast as it is made to be shot with both eyes open with your focus on the target. One other feature I like is that the center dot on the Holosight is only 1 minute of angle in size. Most other reddot sights have dots that are too big running anywhere from 2-5 MOA. Not precise enough IMO and they offer no speed advantage, so why bother? The Holosight is capable of great accuracy for those who know how to shoot with it, and I have been able to make hits to 500 yds with it on centerfire rifles as well as shooting MOA groups at 200 yds from the bench. It is also very at home at close range, being made to offer an unlimited field of view as you don't look through it like a scope, actually you look at the target with both eyes open and see the dot floating out in front of the gun. I guess by now you can say I am impressed with this sight, and you would be correct. The biggest and least understood benefit of this sight is that it like most other optical sights is that it puts the aiming point on the same focal plane as the target. With a typical archery sight, just like iron sights on a rifle or pistol, one has to deal with a target, a front sight, and either a rear sight or a " string peep". Utilized correctly the shooter has his/her focus on the front sight, and the target and rear sight are fuzzy. Great effort is placed into making sure the front sight is centered in the rear sight, and sight alignment must be perfect, and sight picture must be good. One thing I have learned since taking up the bow and talking to many fine archers, is that just like firearm shooters this is just not understood by many shooters. Matter of fact, even some experienced target archers I talked to do not get this. The reason they get away with shooting decent even when they do it wrong, is that the ranges are much closer and they are rapidly changing focus from pin to target and back again, and their form is so good they manage. Without beating this horse to death, I tested this myself and without a doubt I discovered that amazingly the fundamentals of shooting and the process of sight alignment does not change whether one is using a firearm or a bow :wink:
Well enough said about that. I picked up a used archery Holosight and HHA mount on Ebay and went to work. Here is what I learned. The Holosight is fabulous on a bow. At 20 yds I was able to shoot as well or better then I could with a regular bow sight, but with less effort. Since the mind no longer has to deal with task of sight alignment , this left more of my concentration to be placed on other things related to form. Actually I would say my groups were a little smaller at 20 yds with the Holosight, as I started damaging fletchings with my arrows going so close together and had to quit shooting at the same spot repeatedly or risk damaging more. I really liked the sight on the bow.
The big disappointment for me was the mounting system. I took my time with it and fooled around with it a long time until I absolutley understood how it worked, and what change in impact I would get when adjusting a particular thing. The archery Holosight itself has the elevation screw replaced with a blind screw as it is designed to make all elevation changes with the mount, just like on a single pin archery sight. The mount had two different ways to adjust for elevation. One way was to move the sight up and down on the elevator via two allen screws. This was to be used during initial set up so that an individual could maximize the available yardage on his/her individual bow. Also once that was set, the mount had a cam set up to slide the sight up/down on the cam for different yardages. On my particular bow with this mount I was very disappointed to discover that with the mounting system maxed out for elevation I was only going to be able to get about a 25 yd maximum sight setting. I would suppose that on a different bow with different angles this would not be the case, but on mine it was. Regardless of how much I like the sight, this is just not acceptable. To me that is like having a 30-06 that has a scope on it that limits me to 100 yd shots. Kinda of a waste to have a Mathews Switchback that is only good to 25 yds. After examining the situation for quite sometime, I saw that this mount on my bow was the limiting factor and that there was no reasonable solution to the problem utilizing this mount. As I know of no other mounting system for this sight, I have decided to sell both sight and mount. I hate to do it, as the concept is sound and I am convinced the Holosight offers a real advantage over the more common types of bow sights. But on my particular bow the mount just does not offer enough elevation adjustment for me to be able to use it at the yardages I wish to shoot. No doubt that on a different bow this would work just fine, but not on mine.
So I am back to using a Trophy Taker V drive. It is OK and I shoot it well, allthough it is far from prefect. I also tried an HHA single pin sight with clicks adjustments, but it had its short comings as well. Allthough I liked the sight picture it offered, it maxed out on elevation at a little over 40 yds, and the click adjustments were too fine for hunting use. From 20 to 30 yards it took 75 clicks to come up to the correct point. Well that is just ridiculous.
At this point in time I am convinced that the archery industry would benefit from the experience of a trained rifle competitor when it comes to sight design. Someone needs to make a better single pin sight, one that is click adjustable, repeatable, and one that has clicks that are sharp and does not require excessive clicks to go from one yardage to another. So far I have not found one. Also most archery sights I have seen lean heavily on just 2 allen screws to fasten the sight to the bow, and even when tight, some movement can be detected in the sight or mount. This is not that big of a deal on a bow compared to a gun, but still it is not acceptable in my book.
Anyway just thought I would share my experiences so far. I am sure my perspective as a rifle instructor/competitor is a little different then the average archer and might not persuade all, but at least might give us something to think about and discuss.
Rman
http://www.eotech-inc.com/index2.php
The holosight is a very quality sight and is one that I have used and owned for many years and am very impressed with. The archery model differs from the gun models in that it has a stationary outside ring that allows you to make sure the bow is not canted and that the sight is centered. No string peep is utilized or needed with this sight, as this is taken care of by the second ring on the sight itself. Holosights offers many great features that makes them very popular with military and law enforcement as well as civialian shooters that are in the know. It is durable and tough. It is parallax free, it puts the target on the same focal plane as the target, and it is very fast as it is made to be shot with both eyes open with your focus on the target. One other feature I like is that the center dot on the Holosight is only 1 minute of angle in size. Most other reddot sights have dots that are too big running anywhere from 2-5 MOA. Not precise enough IMO and they offer no speed advantage, so why bother? The Holosight is capable of great accuracy for those who know how to shoot with it, and I have been able to make hits to 500 yds with it on centerfire rifles as well as shooting MOA groups at 200 yds from the bench. It is also very at home at close range, being made to offer an unlimited field of view as you don't look through it like a scope, actually you look at the target with both eyes open and see the dot floating out in front of the gun. I guess by now you can say I am impressed with this sight, and you would be correct. The biggest and least understood benefit of this sight is that it like most other optical sights is that it puts the aiming point on the same focal plane as the target. With a typical archery sight, just like iron sights on a rifle or pistol, one has to deal with a target, a front sight, and either a rear sight or a " string peep". Utilized correctly the shooter has his/her focus on the front sight, and the target and rear sight are fuzzy. Great effort is placed into making sure the front sight is centered in the rear sight, and sight alignment must be perfect, and sight picture must be good. One thing I have learned since taking up the bow and talking to many fine archers, is that just like firearm shooters this is just not understood by many shooters. Matter of fact, even some experienced target archers I talked to do not get this. The reason they get away with shooting decent even when they do it wrong, is that the ranges are much closer and they are rapidly changing focus from pin to target and back again, and their form is so good they manage. Without beating this horse to death, I tested this myself and without a doubt I discovered that amazingly the fundamentals of shooting and the process of sight alignment does not change whether one is using a firearm or a bow :wink:
Well enough said about that. I picked up a used archery Holosight and HHA mount on Ebay and went to work. Here is what I learned. The Holosight is fabulous on a bow. At 20 yds I was able to shoot as well or better then I could with a regular bow sight, but with less effort. Since the mind no longer has to deal with task of sight alignment , this left more of my concentration to be placed on other things related to form. Actually I would say my groups were a little smaller at 20 yds with the Holosight, as I started damaging fletchings with my arrows going so close together and had to quit shooting at the same spot repeatedly or risk damaging more. I really liked the sight on the bow.
The big disappointment for me was the mounting system. I took my time with it and fooled around with it a long time until I absolutley understood how it worked, and what change in impact I would get when adjusting a particular thing. The archery Holosight itself has the elevation screw replaced with a blind screw as it is designed to make all elevation changes with the mount, just like on a single pin archery sight. The mount had two different ways to adjust for elevation. One way was to move the sight up and down on the elevator via two allen screws. This was to be used during initial set up so that an individual could maximize the available yardage on his/her individual bow. Also once that was set, the mount had a cam set up to slide the sight up/down on the cam for different yardages. On my particular bow with this mount I was very disappointed to discover that with the mounting system maxed out for elevation I was only going to be able to get about a 25 yd maximum sight setting. I would suppose that on a different bow with different angles this would not be the case, but on mine it was. Regardless of how much I like the sight, this is just not acceptable. To me that is like having a 30-06 that has a scope on it that limits me to 100 yd shots. Kinda of a waste to have a Mathews Switchback that is only good to 25 yds. After examining the situation for quite sometime, I saw that this mount on my bow was the limiting factor and that there was no reasonable solution to the problem utilizing this mount. As I know of no other mounting system for this sight, I have decided to sell both sight and mount. I hate to do it, as the concept is sound and I am convinced the Holosight offers a real advantage over the more common types of bow sights. But on my particular bow the mount just does not offer enough elevation adjustment for me to be able to use it at the yardages I wish to shoot. No doubt that on a different bow this would work just fine, but not on mine.
So I am back to using a Trophy Taker V drive. It is OK and I shoot it well, allthough it is far from prefect. I also tried an HHA single pin sight with clicks adjustments, but it had its short comings as well. Allthough I liked the sight picture it offered, it maxed out on elevation at a little over 40 yds, and the click adjustments were too fine for hunting use. From 20 to 30 yards it took 75 clicks to come up to the correct point. Well that is just ridiculous.
At this point in time I am convinced that the archery industry would benefit from the experience of a trained rifle competitor when it comes to sight design. Someone needs to make a better single pin sight, one that is click adjustable, repeatable, and one that has clicks that are sharp and does not require excessive clicks to go from one yardage to another. So far I have not found one. Also most archery sights I have seen lean heavily on just 2 allen screws to fasten the sight to the bow, and even when tight, some movement can be detected in the sight or mount. This is not that big of a deal on a bow compared to a gun, but still it is not acceptable in my book.
Anyway just thought I would share my experiences so far. I am sure my perspective as a rifle instructor/competitor is a little different then the average archer and might not persuade all, but at least might give us something to think about and discuss.
Rman
