Arrow flight at different altitudes

[justin davis]

I’d zero in your bow when you get to the elevation you’re gonna hunt at. I’ve had some hunts at 12,000-14,000 ft and my arrows were hitting different forsure. I live at 8,000. I’d recommend just like a rifle that you check zero

 

[tdcour]

Agreed. Definitely check it. I shoot every time I get to the trailhead. I just haven't seen much of a difference with my setup.

 

[CobraChicken]

I've always been told the difference in elevation at the short distances of archery shots is negligible. I live at 750' elevation and my shots under 60 yards have always been spot on at 8,000'.

I would agree. I live and hunt in higher elevation. Wind and sideways wet will be more of a factor hunting at range. Remember imo, we are hunting not target archers in the field. Target will be a lot bigger on some critters than the x.

 

[n8saki]

If high, 1/4 turn out on the limb bolts should bring them in. Mark a dot on your bolt & limb to keep track of where you started.

 

[mod-it]

I live and sight in at about 750' of elevation. I recently went and shot the Silver Mountain shoot at Kellog (Idaho), a ski resort. You ride to the summit and then shoot your way down. We shot two courses that took off from the top, one off each side. The top is around 6200' in elevation. You drop elevation pretty fast, but the first 3 to 4 targets from the top the four of us in our group all noticed that we were hitting a little high. Not a lot, but I found that I had to take about 2 yards off to hit in the 10 ring. My 3d setup is shooting at 294 fps. I'd say by the time we dropped to around 5500 to 5600' in elevation I could go back to adjusting my sight dead on again.
I regularly hunt from 3500' to 5000' and have never noticed a POI change from sighting in at home at 750' of elevation, even with my slower hunting setup that is doing around 265 fps.

 

[tdcour]

Great info mod-it. I'll have to pay more attention at the trail head next time. Were you seeing the same 2-3 yard difference at close and far ranges or just far?

 

[mod-it]

Great info mod-it. I'll have to pay more attention at the trail head next time. Were you seeing the same 2-3 yard difference at close and far ranges or just far?

If I went and shot it again knowing what I know now, i'd have a rough system to take 1 yard off for targets 32 or so yards or less, 2 yards off for 33 to 49 yard targets, and 3 yards off for targets 50 to 60.
Keep in mind, a lot of the shots were fairly steep up/downhill shots too, so my angle compensation rangefinders were having me take off a couple yards on a lot of shots as well. If my rangefinders said it was 45 yards, shoot for 43, then I'd have to dial more like 41 yards to not hit high.
If we shot ALL the targets at an altitude that had us hitting high, then I'd just back my poundage off until my sight tape was true again. But we didn't bother since it was only the first several targets that were a problem. Walking down off a ski hill dropped elevation pretty fast and we stopped hitting high fairly quickly, within 4 to 6 targets in. They had the targets pretty spread out, each course was only a 20 target course.

Just a somewhat wild estimation of elevation, but a google search shows the very top of hill is 6200', the top of the Gondola is 5700'. But then after going up the gondola we rode a chairlift back down in elevation to the bottom of chairlift #2, I'd guess the bottom of chair #2 to be around 5000' or so. So, we were shooting 20 target courses starting at 6200' and working back down to around 5000', give or take a couple hundred feet. I'd guess we stopped hitting high at around 5500' or so.