Arrow Drop
It would be really nice to have the deer walk in at 20 yards and stop broadside. Unfortunately deer walk in at different distances. In most cases we have only two or three pins on our sites and they are set at ten yard increments. This brings up the problem of what to do if a deer comes in and stops at 25 yards?
I never really thought too much about shooting deer at odd distances. That was until last year when I shot over the back of a nice buck at 25 yards using my 30 yard pin.. I have made this shot a hundred times at 3D shoots. I have killed deer doing this but as I learned this was not always the case. This is a tough lesson to learn and I would have had a great deer on the wall if only I had used my twenty yard pin. In this situation some people have suggested that you should space the kill zone of the deer between the appropriate two pins. The problem with that is that you don't have any way to aim at the kill zone. This could cause the shot to be off to the left or right.
The best way to make sure that you will kill the deer is to use your pin to aim at a spot on the deer. You don't want to be thinking about the spacing or other things when you are making the shot.
We need to know where our arrow will hit at that odd distance. There is only one way to find out, just try it. I have put together a system for you so that you will know where your arrow will hit at odd distances. To start we need a target that is the size of a deer's vitals. The kill zone on a deer is about 7 to 10 inches. The five face free downloadable and printable target is 7 1/2 inches in size, perfect for what we want to do. You will also have to have a tape measure to measure the drop of the arrow. This will give you the knowledge needed to make the shot when you have a deer of a life time.
The setup that I use shoots a 429 grain arrow at 256 FPS. This setup may seem a little slow for you target shooters or 3Der's, but I feel that it is the best deer hunting setup I have ever had.
As you can see the pins are nice and close so I never thought that I would have a problem with yardage. The pins are 3/8 of an inch apart. I feel this is really good for a hunting bow.
To start we will shoot at ten yards and then twenty yards to compare where the arrow hits on the target. In the photo below this shot is the two arrows that are in the center of the target below. Next we will shoot at 25 yards using our 20 yard pin. This is the lowest arrow and the top arrow is shot at 25 yards using my 30 yard pin.
The arrow I shoot using my 20 yard pin hits 4 inches low at 25 yards and the arrow I shoot using my 30 yard pin hits 3 1/2 inches high. At first they all look like kill shots, even a small deer would have an arrow fly though it's lungs. Then why did I shoot over the back of that buck last year?
The reason is that we have to know where the arrow will hit at different yardages. If you are shooting 3 to 4 inches high and the deer jumps the string and drops 3 to 4 inches you have just shoot over the back of the deer.
The easiest part is that any deer that walks in at 20 yards or less could easily be shoot using the twenty yard pin. What about at 25 yards? At first look the 30 yard pin is closer to the center of the target. The shot made using the 20 yard pin was 4 inches low. It would seem that using the 30 yard pin at this distance would be the best shot. That would be true if the deer doesn't jump the string. After completing this test, I'm going to be using the 20 yard pin for for any shots of 25 yards or less and my 30 yard pin for shots over 25 to 35 yards.
I found that the arrow drop became bigger as I stepped back. The photo below shows that the arrow drop at 45 yards is almost 5 inches. This last shot has me thinking about how affective a shot is at 45 yards using my 40 yard pin. This has me rethinking the idea of spacing the deer kill zone with my 40 and 50 yard pins.
There are two actions that I can take. One I can try to cut the distance between me and the deer. The problem occurs when I'm in a tree stand or I can't get any closer. Then I will have to move to plan two. I definitely wouldn't make the shot if the deer was alert. If the deer was feeding I think that I would wait for the deer to get closer or move further away to 50 yards, but I wouldn't shoot at 45 yards.
This is a experiment that would benefit any bow hunter. I have learned a lot from doing this and I feel that I may have to rethink how I will setup my pin system for the shots that I will take. Well it is time for you to go to the range and shoot away.
Good Luck
