At big competitions many archers lose points to a badly adjusted sight

The summary today

One study has tried to put a number on these points, using the groups shot at a World Cup and at the World Championships: bringing each archer's group back to the centre of the target would gain about three points a head on average, with cases of around twenty points in men's recurve and a higher share of off-centre groups among the women. Two smaller measurements also describe groups that do not land on the centre: in eighteen archers at eighteen metres almost two arrows in three finished in the upper half of the target, and in twenty-nine recurve archers of three levels the average offset was almost entirely horizontal at intermediate level, while even the nine high-level archers had their mean impact slightly down and left, in an abstract that does not give the unit of measurement. The weak point is always the same: nobody has measured the sight settings, so an off-centre group can be explained by the sight or by the archer. That the margin is real is suggested by a follow-up with no control group, where six Australian archers went from seventeen potential points lost to three after being shown where their groups fell. A 2020 rereading of the same targets gives the loss division by division, from 1.35 points over 36 arrows in men's compound to 2.92 in women's recurve, under half a point for the top twenty men's compound archers, and warns that it is probably an underestimate, because archers were correcting their sights during the distance.

Also phrased as: "a wrongly set sight costs points in competition"; "many archers shoot with their group off centre"; "setting the sight well is worth more than a tweak of technique"; "points lost to the sight"

Evidence

• 2014
  For Archers Published later

  Groups of elite recurve and compound archers at the 2013 World Cup and at the World Championships, photographed on the target faces and recalculated by shifting the centre of each group onto the centre of the target: the scores move, for example, from 347 to 353 at thirty metres and from 335 to 341 and from 341 to 346 at fifty, with losses of up to about twenty points in men's recurve and an average of roughly three points per archer at the World Championships. Among the women a higher share did not have the group in its best position than among the men, although the authors give no percentage. Among the top twenty-two in men's compound, by contrast, there were only six points in all to recover.

  Analysis of scores and arrow grouping at major international archery competitions · James L Park, James E Larven

• 2014
  For Archers Published later

  Twenty-nine Turkish recurve archers of three levels, seventy-two arrows each at eighteen metres, with the mean impact position on both axes. In the thirteen intermediate archers the offset is almost entirely horizontal: a mean of -4.19 on the x axis against 1.03 on the y axis, so the group is tight but shifted sideways. In the nine high-level archers the mean does not fall on the centre but slightly down and left (-0.79 and -1.24), with the smallest spreads of the three groups. The beginners are close to the centre on average (1.56 and 1.46) but widely spread, with standard deviations of 11.80 and 14.34. This is a congress poster abstract, it does not give the unit of measurement and it does not measure sight settings.

  Hit distribution patterns in recurve archery · H. Ertan

• 2014
  For Archers Published later

  Eighteen archers, seven women and eleven men with four to six years of training, twelve arrows each at eighteen metres: one hundred and twenty-seven arrows out of two hundred, 63.5 per cent, finished in the upper half of the target against seventy-three in the lower half, with the same imbalance inside the gold, sixty-eight against twenty-nine. A systematic vertical shift of the group is consistent with a badly adjusted sight, but the study did not measure the settings and the cause may be technical.

  Assessment of target performance in archery · İpek Eroglu Kolayis, Murat Çilli, Hayri Ertan, J. Axel Knicker

• 2014
  Context Archers Published later

  In the same group the offset does not show on the other axis: ninety-six arrows to the left of the centre against one hundred and four to the right, a difference that is not significant. And at equal scores the distance from the centre was the same in all four quadrants, for instance 0.83 to 1.13 centimetres on the tens and 2.06 to 2.40 on the nines. The group is shifted upwards, not sideways, and the shape of the grouping does not change with direction.

  Assessment of target performance in archery · İpek Eroglu Kolayis, Murat Çilli, Hayri Ertan, J. Axel Knicker

• 2014
  Context Archers Published later

  In the same work, six elite Australian recurve archers who were shown where their groups were falling went from seventeen potential points lost at the first World Cup to three in all at the following World Championships. There is no control group and there is no way of knowing what else changed in between: the figure says the margin exists, not how large it is.

  Analysis of scores and arrow grouping at major international archery competitions · James L Park, James E Larven

• 2014
  Context Model Published later

  A scoring model takes up the estimate of about three points lost per 36 arrows to the sight and turns it into millimetres: at 70 m on the 122 cm face they correspond to a group whose centre is 32 mm from the centre of the target. In the example of the eighth-placed man in recurve at the 2013 World Championships, at 50 m, of the 30 points lost about 5 would go to the wind, 5 to sideways bow cant, 3 to the sight and 17 to the other errors that grow with distance. It is a calculated split, not a measured one.

  Modelling archers’ scores at different distances to quantify score loss due to equipment selection and technique errors · James L Park

• 2020
  Context Archers Published later

  The same targets photographed at the Shanghai World Cup and the 2013 World Championships that the 2014 analysis rests on, reread through a model: at 50 m off-centre groups cost on average 2.34 points over 36 arrows in men's recurve, 2.92 in women's recurve, 1.35 in men's compound and 1.48 in women's compound, with similar results at the World Championships; the top twenty men's compound archers lost 0.30 points on average. A top recurve archer whose group sat 25.9 mm down and to the left scored 335 instead of the 341 calculated for the same group centred. The author warns that the losses are probably underestimated, because archers were correcting their sights during the distance, and in the model the loss grows with the square of the offset and weighs more on better archers. These are the same data as in 2014, so not a new sample.

  The impact of off-centred groups on an archer’s score · James L Park

Status history

1. 1990 Not studied No study in the registry's bibliography has yet measured where the group falls in relation to the centre of the target, or how many points an off-centre group costs.
2. 2014 Reported All the evidence we have arrives in the same year. An analysis of the groups shot at a World Cup and at the World Championships measures what would be gained by bringing each group back to the centre: about three points per archer on average, with cases of up to around twenty in men's recurve, and a higher share of off-centre groups among the women. Two smaller measurements from the same year describe the same systematic offset, one on eighteen archers at eighteen metres and one, a congress abstract, on twenty-nine recurve archers of three levels. These are cross-sectional descriptions, none of them recorded the sight settings and one is not a full paper: the claim is reported and goes no higher. The same year a scoring model turns the three points into millimetres: at seventy metres on the 122 cm face they amount to a group whose centre sits 32 millimetres from the centre of the target.
3. 2020 Reported The same researcher returns to the photographs of the 2013 targets with a model: at fifty metres off-centre groups cost on average between 1.35 and 2.92 points over 36 arrows depending on the division, under half a point for the top twenty men's compound archers, and the loss grows with the square of the offset. These are the same data as in 2014 and nobody has yet recorded the sight settings: the status stays reported.

Related

Related articles

• Why do my arrows go left, right, high or low?Where your arrows land is a report: how to read impact patterns, and what the measurements say about the sight, the grip, bow torque and launch speed.
• Why your score does not tell you whether you are grouping betterYour score folds group width and centring into one number. What the studies that recorded where every arrow landed say about the gap between them.
• First adjustments to your bow: what to set and in what orderBrace height, tiller, nocking point, centreshot and pressure button, sight marks: what each one is and the order in which to set them on a new bow.

Research lines

• 21 studiesDistance, group size and score
• 102 studiesFrom the total on the scorecard to the arrow's coordinates

Other claims in this domain

• CorroboratedAbout 150 points on a FITA round separate a club archer from a national-team archer13 studies · 492 archers measuredStatus since 2003
• CorroboratedAn archer's arousal rises with what is at stake, and keeps rising as the competition goes on3 studies · 23 archers measuredStatus since 2011
• CorroboratedArchers are more aroused in competition than in training5 studies · 50 archers measuredStatus since 2025
• CorroboratedAt 70 metres a top archer averages about nine points per arrow7 studies · 72 archers measuredStatus since 2012
• CorroboratedEven in competition at the highest level, most arrows are not tens4 studies · 3,212 archers measuredStatus since 2024

See all claims on competition and scoring