How to Shoot a Compound Bow Accurately

If your a noob in the bow hunting game then a question that often pops up is how to shoot a compound bow accurately?

While we are going to address that question today, the age old answer is obviously to shoot it more. Right.

While that is true, practice makes perfect, there are some things that you may not be aware of that will greatly affect accuracy.

Accuracy its self comes from consistency, it doesn’t matter if your not hitting the bull every time, but if you can put 3 arrows within 1\4″ of each other, then your winning. See, once a hunter is able to group consistently, adjusting onto the target is easy. Learning to group is the hard part that takes practice.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling on from me.

Consistency is key

Ill give you a little challenge, and im sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised from the results.

Get a target, aim for the bull, loose 5 arrows.

When you do though, focus on being as consistent as possible. Don’t worry about hitting the bull, hell it’s fine if you miss by a mile. Just focus on doing exactly the same thing every time as you did on your first shot.

Now, if you have done this little experiment (and you’ve done it right), im sure you’ll be surprised to see just how close those arrows grouped together.

This is what I mean by consistency.

You’ll hear that word thrown around a lot in this article, and it’s because thats the real key to shooting a compound bow more accurately.

Now, obviously there are some things in bow hunting that just aren’t going to ever be consistent.

These are things like our stance (Kneeling, standing, i.e.), weather, arrows (to an extent). These are all things that are out of our control, to an extent. Obviously we can make our arrows very close to consistent, but they will never be 100% consistent.

So, what are the things that we can control?

Anchor point

Probably the single most important rule to getting great accuracy, is your anchor point.

Anchor point refers to a position at which you draw the bow string to every single time. You then anchor at that exact same position every time, and fire. Your anchor point is the one variable that can be controlled regardless of weather, arrow consistency, or stance.

If you focus on only one thing to get better accuracy, then this will be the one to pick.

You can even buy whats known as kissing buttons, in order to give you a reference point to draw to every time.

The kissing button sits at the edge of your lip when at full draw and this ensures that your anchor point stays consistent.

The thing with anchoring, is if you change ever so slightly every time, then over a group at 20 yards this can throw out your grouping significantly. This is why it’s so important, and probably the most overlooked issue.

You can have the perfect arrows, the perfect stance, perfect weather, but if your anchor point is not consistent, then kiss goodbye to your grouping.

So, what else is within our control?

Arm positioning

The next thing is where we place our arms, and elbows when at full draw.

This is another thing that no matter any other variables, this is within your control, and once again it comes down to being consistent.

Now lots of the old timers who have been shooting their whole life will tell you that your elbow needs to be positioned slightly upwards, to the left 90°, bite your tongue, and then your ready to shoot (OK, that was an exaggeration), but you get the point.

How you shoot is how you shoot, and whatever feels the most comfortable for you is the way to go, however, being consistent with how you place your arm, and the way you release your shot, will make the world of difference.

Once again, maintaining the same arm position every time ensures consistency across the board, which is where you’ll get the accuracy.

Wrapping things up…

As you can see this was a pretty short article, but thats because those two points are the ones that are withing your control, and ultimately the ones that will give you the best bang for your buck when wanting to shoot a compound bow more accurately.

As I said, it comes down to consistency, and if you are able to focus on these two points and fully immerse your self in mastering them, then your going to be well on the way to becoming a crack shot.

Later we’ll do a post on some more of the technical stuff to get you shooting more accurately, but for the start, focus on these, and trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

’til next time,

Happy hunting and fishing,

Redneck Salvation.