My SRF Sight arrived today and I just finished my first session with it. To say I'm sold is an understatement! I just ordered a second and AMO brackets & inserts for my two primary bows.
I started by putting a piece of tape on the front of my test bow's riser (58" LH Chek-Mate Hunter I 55#@29") and then taping a sight pin on that. Shooting at 20 yards, I moved the pin until I was "on". I then marked that spot on the tape.
Using that reference, I positioned the tape-on mount I bought to try the sight, and attached the sight itself. My eyeball setup was just about perfect as using the widest point of the sight as a reference I was right on at 20 yards. A minor windage adjustment was all that was required.
I should preface this by advising I have a lot of experience using Ghost Ring sights on rifles, so I had no problem tranferring the concept to archery. If a person isn't familiar with shooting a Ghost Ring it will take a bit longer to catch on, but I bet you will be surprised how quickly it comes.
Anyway, within 10 minutes I had the sight picture down at 20 yards and vital area hits on my Delta Buck were a forgone conculsion.
I then began to experiment from 5 to 40 yards. In short order, I soon had a good enough grasp on the required sight pictures to place the arrow in the vitals from 30-40 yards most of the time. Misses tended to be elevation errors, demonstrating that my eye was naturally centering the target in the sight aperture. From 5-25 yards, it was pretty much a lead pipe cinch, dead deer.
I then tried a few rear quartering shots. No problemo out to 25-30 yards. I was liking this stuff!
I demonstrated the sight to my wife who is a hardcore modern gear bowhunter but a casual trad shooter. She was amazed at how consistent I was shooting.
I finished the session with a single arrow at roughly 42 yards. Plunk, right in the center of the kill zone.
I have absolutely no doubt that as I become more familiar with the setup, I will be able to shoot
much tighter groups than ever before.
A couple suggestions/ observations:
The stick on base is OK for testing, but not sturdy enough for hunting. If it were longer, thus allowing more adhesion to the bow it would a more reliable option. IMO, it would be fairly easy to make a better stick-on sight at home or to drill a hole in this base to attach to an AMO sight insert.
If you decide to go with an SRF, I think the best bet is to get the AMO bracket and put some AMO standard sight inserts on your riser. That's what I'm going to do.
The key is to look through the sight and cncentrate on your target. It should be in focus and the sight aperture a blur around it that you are only peripherally aware of. If you conciously use the sight to aim, you're not letting your eyes and shoulder mounted computer do their job anfd your results will be mixed.
Even though I was having no problem making vital hits past 25 yards, clearly this setup is at it's best inside of that distance. In fact, once I got comfortable with the sight picture inside of 25 yards, I often found myself releasing as soon as I hit full draw, and hitting. I'm not a snap shooter, so I had to conciously slow down and hold at full draw for my customary couple seconds while I concentrated on my spot before release.
That being said, it will be a good feeling to know that if I need that 30-40 yard shot to anchor a wounded animal, I'll have the capability.
I have a Hunter 56 that, because of it's small sight window has to be shot off the shelf, as well as a Kota Prairie Swift that I shoot off the shelf as it isn't compatable with my prefered elevated rests.. It will be interesting to see if the sight picture holds I'm learning with the SRF translate to these bows. In effect, is the SRF a training aid or a stand alone sighting system only?
SUPPLEMENTAL:
Put AMO sight inserts on the H1 this evening, which is simple job of 5 minutes max. I then drilled a matching hole in the stick-on base.
The top insert was nearly a perfect match with the pre-tested position for the sight on my bow, it was just a matter of tilting the base down slightly to re-align elevation. A couple test arrows just before sunset to re-adjust windage, and the SRF was on the money...
Topic: SRF Sight : Love At First Sight (Read 1654 times)
