The choice of sight is likely to be one of the most important, and more expensive, choices for an archer. A sight is exposed to a lot of vibration, and a high-quality sight is a very accurate piece of equipment with fine tolerances.
The most important considerations include:
- Reliability, with features like vibration dampening to contribute to a longer usable life.
- Three axis adjustment, crucial when shooting uphill and downhill, like in Field tournaments:
- 1st: Alignment of the vertical sight bar with the string, or consistent bow inclination, rotating around a horizontal axis. This ensures the vertical sight bar is always upright in reference to the archer.
- 2nd: Alignment of the scope in the vertical plain, rotating around a horizontal axis. This ensures the scope is aligned to the vertical sight bar, thus keeping the sight bubble accurate.
- 3rd: Alignment of the scope in the horizontal plain, rotating around a vertical axis.
- Micro adjustment
- It’s very useful to have micro-adjustment which is easy to read, and have an easy-to-use resolution, like 20 clicks to a full rotation, or 1 line on the vertical adjustment.
- Vertical quick change
- A vertical quick change is very useful when competing in a competition which has multiple distances, like a Field tournament.
Other considerations may be important to an archer as well, like the ability to swap between scope housings easily to go from outdoor, field and indoor competitions.