Technique question - missing right & left

[Dipsnort]

As would be expected, the farther I am away from the target, the looser my groups get. At 50 yards I'm consistently hitting withing 2" up or down, but as much as 6" right or left. Is there a typical technique flaw that might be causing me to miss horizontally noticably more than vertically?

[PA.JAY]

here you go ! If you do this correctly you will be right on at all your far shots !

Walk back 20 yds from the target in a straight line, and using your 20-yd pin, fire at the sticker.

Don't worry about where the arrow hits.

Step back in a straight line to 30-yds and use your 20-yd pin, fire at the same sticker. Repeat at 35 yds and 40 yds.

If your arrows look like this pattern "/",
move your arrow rest 1/16th inch in any direction.

Repeat the test and fire at 20 yds, 30 yds, 35 yds and 40 yds,50 yds.

Did the pattern get more vertical?
Great, move your arrow rest 1/16th inch in the same direction.

Did the pattern get worse?
Move your arrow rest in the other direction.

Keep adjusting your arrow rest,
keep using the same 20 yd sight setting, and
eventually, you will get an arrow pattern that looks like "|".

When your arrows are straight up and down,
lock down your arrow rest position.

Now, the arrows that finally look like this "|",
may be straight up and down, but they may be several inches
away from the weighted string.

Now, we adjust windage for your sight ring.

Pick a direction. Move the sight ring 1/16th of an inch.
Repeat the test and using the 20 yd sight setting,
fire arrows at 20 yds, 30 yds, 35 yds and 40 yds.

Is the vertical pattern of arrows getting closer to the weighted string?
If yes, keep adjusting your sight windage in that direction.

Is the vertical pattern of arrows getting farther away from the weighted string?
Then, move the sight windage in the other direction.

Eventually, you will have all the arrows touching the string.

Lock down the sight windage.

Your centershot and sight windage are now perfect.

[ash2042]

Vey nice PA.JAY
[align=left] [/align]

[mobow]

PA went into great length there, and he's right......Sounds to me like you have one of 2 problems....Either you are torquing the bow (canting it side to side) or you are not tuned perfectly....Most likely a combination of both. If your sight has a level, use it...Paper tune the bow so it shoots perfect bullet holes. If your bow is slightly out of tune, the arrows will "drift" right or left the farther down range you get...It may not be noticeable at 20 yards, but 40 on up you're gonna see it in the form of drift. The farther away you get, the farther left/right you shoot...

[Matt / PA]

Another thing to consider is a consistent anchor and your bow arm.......If you are anchoring in slightly different places on your face (with slightly different contours) the arrow can come off differently each time.

With regards to your bow arm, if you are shooting with a high shoulder and your elbow pointing outward it will be very difficult to hold consistently in a horizontal direction. Make sure your bow arm shoulder is turned down and locked and your elbow is pointing downward instead of out. This provides better lateral stability and bone on bone contact in your shoulder which will steady those lefts and rights.

[Dipsnort]

Thanks for the insight, guys. In my particular case, I think it may be a matter of technique instead of improper tuning or rest adjustment. I say this because at times my shots are very closely grouped in every way, and other times they miss to the left and to the right (but not up and down) while shooting from the same exact location. For instance, I'll shoot my 6 arrows from the same spot at 50 yards and they will be spread out horizontally by several inches but with very little spread vertically. I can understand the need to tune as PA.JAY suggested if my problem occurs when I shoot from several different distances. If I am wrong (wouldn't be the first time) please correct me.

If it helps, here is my stance. How are my shoulder & elbow position compared to Matt's suggestions?

[Matt / PA]

Dipsnort,
Your form for the most part looks pretty good!...as does your bow fit but there are 2 things that stick out to me from your pictures and one I suspected could be a cause of what you are describing but I didn't mention it earlier.

You are "heeling" the grip quite a bit.......you can tell this not only by the side view actaully deep into your hand, but also by the total vertical position of your fingers.
In other words you have too much hand into the grip and with no wrist sling to promote a completely free handed shot (for fear of dropping the bow) most likely you are impartingtoo muchhand pressure before the shot but even more importantly DURING the shot.
You are FORCED to grab the bow or its gone when you shoot and grabbing the bow is one of the biggest causes of left right misses. Think about it, the shot fires and your hand will unconciously snatch the handle and who knows what direction ,when, and with how much force.

My suggestion, get a wrist sling.......set it so that its not to tight not to loose. You need to get used to the feel that you have a safety net there so you can concentrate on not closing that bow hand at the shot.

Next you need to change your bow hand position. I'll edit this post with a nice illustration I found that will show you proper hand placement.

Also in the one pic I see you are touching the string to your nose.......while the next pic down you are floating off of it. Not sure if that was just the timing of the picture taker but if it isn't......yeah, problem.

Without actually seeing you shoot my, best educated guess isthat your left right inconsistency is from a combination of anticipating the shot (Commanding, punching ) combined with snatching the grip when the shot goes off. Thats a double whammy.
You'll do a couple in a row nicely and then something will change in your release and the other hand takes over and its a flyer.

Shoulder and elbow look good, bow fit looks pretty good too considering the short ATA length........hand placement and lack of a sling are hurting you.

EDIT:
Ok I'm striking out on finding the exact illustration I wanted that was perfect so I will try to describe the proper hand placement for you........
What you have in your pictures is essentially a pistol grip, your forefingers are stright up and down like you would have them on the grip of a handgun. Thats wrong.You'll wind up with pressure on your thumb and your heel and you'll grab the bow guaranteed.

What you need to do is prior to drawing your bow stick your arm straight out in front of you and with your fingers relaxed place your knuckles at about a 45 degree angle. THAT's what your hand should look like at full draw. Put the grip into the meat of your thumb and off the heel of your hand.......your fingers should remain in that 45 degree angle, relaxed and OFF the grip. Just let the bow do it's thing.
Also set your hand placement BEFORE you draw. DO NOT grab the grip and then try to slide into a proper placement later at full draw you just can't do that consistently. Get into the habit of setting that hand angle on the grip, relax the fingers and then draw.....without changing your hand at full draw.
Now with the wrist sling in place and giving you the confidence to shoot without fear of dropping the bow you'll be able to shoot with a completely relaxed hand and will stop grabbing the bow. If your fingers aren't on the front of the grip its much harder to induce lateral pressure before during and after the shot.
Much like a rifle shooter needs a surprise and free floating shot to be accurate so does an archer.......learn to shoot with back tension, or at the very least squeeze the trigger slowly and don't try to anticipate exactly when the shot will go off. Just concentrate on aiming, keeping the hand relaxed and letting the bow act naturally every time.

Here's one picture I found that is OK for showing a better hand placement like I am describing.
http://jousimetsastys.net/drupal/imgs/f5567859994c1fcc39ff3c778a859acc-16_640x480.jpg

Good luck with it I hope it was of some help!

[walks with a gimp]

Try this on hand placement. Go to any outside corner in your house and place your bow hand on and lean against the corner with about 50 pounds of your weight. You'll fine that it's not comfortable anywhere on the soft tissue on your hand but the base of your lifeline where the two bones of your wrist come together are less sensitive. Place that lifeline base against the center or towards the outside edge of your bow's grip. This will give you close to a 45 degrees knuckle placement to the riser of the bow instead of your knuckles parallel to the riser.

[ijimmy]

Dipsnort , your form looks excelent , 3 sugestions

Make sure your arrow is dead on for spine

Your draw may be slightly 1/4 inch or so short on draw length , I see you not ancoring off of your nose in the second picture , a 1/4 inch can make a big diferance .

Your grip looks good to me , but I never liked hoyts grips , they make them in 3 veriaties now I believe , depending on the model year bow you have and thats from the factory , there is allways aftermarket grips that may help with your consistancy .

If you are shooting fat arrows in the wind say 24 -25 -or 26 series alluminum shafts in 10 mph plus wind , left to right groups are the norm , skiny shafts do better in the wind .

[BGfisher]

Another thing to look for is draw length. Although your form looks pretty good overall, an adjustment in draw length of as little as 1/8" can influence right/left scattering.