4 Easy Steps to Improve Archery Accuracy

Before ever stepping foot into the field, here are four (4) easy steps to improve archery accuracy. Every drill, every distance, and every shot requires accuracy. This applies to all archery (traditional, Olympic, target, hunting, and instinctive)

Every archer must be sure that their bow is as accurate as possible for a couple of reasons.  First, having the trust and confidence in your equipment is paramount as the mind can have a huge effect on your overall accuracy. And secondly,  (for hunters especially) it’s our responsibility to swiftly, effectively, and humanly kill the animals we hunt.  That’s why proper shooting mechanics plays such an important role.  Knowing how to properly shoot a  bow  and putting in the time to practice proper shooting mechanics can generate consistent and accurate shooting. 

Here are 4 easy areas to focus on to improve your accuracy:

Step #1: Stance/Posture 

While there may be certain hunting situations where perfect stance isn't achievable or practical, you should still understand its importance as a good foundation for accuracy. Correct stance/posture helps your body work efficiently with your bow, which helps you shoot with consistent accuracy. Archery form imperfections show up and affect your arrow flight from the point you release the arrow until the arrow leaves the bow. 

Starting with the gound up, make sure your feet are shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent (like shock absorbers), and pointing perpendicular to your arrow.  Your torso should be straight up and down without any bending forward, back, left or right.  And finally your shoulders should be parallel with your arrow with your head facing downrange.  Everything should feel relaxed, natural, and not forced into position in any way.  This is called finding your “center”.  Once you find your proper stance (unique to you) you can start eliminating some errors and your accuracy should improve

Step #2: Grip

Believe it or not, how you grip your bow  is one of the most under addressed shooting mechanic.  An incorrect grip can not only affect tuning your bow, but you'll also suffer from inconsistent shooting caused from hand torque. Hand torque is when the archer squeezes the grip or unintentionally causes a twist (or torque) of the bow during the shot.  Snipers are taught to utilize “bone-to-bone” shooting, meaning using the least amount of muscle as possible to help alleviate hand torque.  

So you decided you're going to address your shooting grip.  Where do you begin? To start, a proper grip should be relaxed and free of any gripping or “handshaking”.  The holding pressure of a fully drawn bow will keep the bow in the correct position while your other fingers will merely act as a light support. 

As for placement, for the grip to be most effective it needs to be placed on the pad of your thumb and the bow grip should not cross the lifeline of your hand. Having too much hand on the grip and/or “gripping” the bow tightly with your hand places your forearm inline of the string, which is why people commonly have “string slap”.

Take a look at the picture below:

Here’s one way you can practice a proper grip without even shooting. First, try holding your hand out in front of you as if you were telling someone to STOP! Now just relax your fingers.   That feeling of intentional relaxation in your hand can help eliminate hand torque in your shot helping to increase your accuracy.  Try it now!

Step #3: Proper Draw

It has long been an internal competition on who can draw the most draw weight.  Its  been thought that in order to kill big game you need to 70lbs of draw weight.  But what we now know is that too much draw weight can be a bad thing, especially if you are not drawing with proper mechanics and if your body isn't conditioned for that much weight. Both of which can prevent shoulder injuries over time.

To properly draw a bow, your hands should start about at around neck to nose height, with your grip hand and the release hand extended in front of you and in line with your target. Keeping your grip hand extended at neck to nose height, use your release hand to start pulling the bowstring toward you inhaling as you pull back. 

There are a lot more technical maneuvers and gargin for us to explain, which is why we brought on Christian William from Archery Strong to explain things in greater detail on the Podcast.  Make sure to give it a listen.

Step 4: Anchor Points

This might be the one factor that brings everything together.  Your anchor point is the point of contact where your release hand is a t full draw in connection to your face. Once you find your anchor point, remember it because it will be the one thing that will be the easiest to replicate. Most of the time, an anchor consists of the the following:

• Your release hand at full draw at our near your ear or jaw.

• The bow string making a line from the tip of your nose, to the corner of your mouth.

Everyone has their own anchor point, but in general it follows these concepts.  There are even certain items to help you remember your anchor point, like kisser buttons.  Kisser buttons are small round discs that are attached to your bowstring.  When at full draw, they rest in the corner of your mouth to help form a consistent anchor point.

Here are some tips to help your find your anchor point and to a few things to remember:

• Keep your head in the same position

• There are no wrong anchor points, only consistent ones

• Keep the bowstring close to your face, (it’s Ok)

• Keep a consistent anchor point.

Conclusion

Taking all of these factors into consideration, they all work in tandem for greater accuracy. To be accurate is to be consistent, and to be consistent means having a form that is repeatable. The combination of these four factors helps assure consistency in your overall form and therefore improve your performance as a hunter