i recently tuned a friends bow. i asked him to shoot at the 3x3 pillow target at 20 yds straight ahead of him. he shot and missed several times. i continually adjusted bow, he shot and still missed all over the place. i thought what the heck. so i asked him to shoot at the 3-d deer and "wham" kill zone every shot. now remember that i made no further adjustments to the bow after he missed the pillow target.

heres the question why would a beginning archer not be able to hit the larger target but be able to hit the deer right in the kill zone with an ok group. got me

Maybe he is concentrating so hard on trying to hit a small spot on the pillow target that his form is breakiing down and he is actually trying to hard to hit it. When he is shooting at the deer he is probably more relaxed and in the hunting mode state of mind and figures that he better make each shot count. Therefore without him even knowing it or thinking about it he is doing everything right. I have had the same problem too. I would get so intense about trying to hit a little quarter sized bullseye that I would shoot around it without ever actually hitting it much. Then when I went to the deer target I would pretend I was out hunting and that was my only shot of the seaseon, and then I would be smacking that kill zone consistantly. Just a thought on what might be going on. Bhunter32

Sounds like target panic. Aiming at the bull's eye you want it to go RIGHT there. On a 3-D target, you don't have that little dot to look at. BHunter has it right, it's more relaxing to shoot at a big 3-d target than a little dot.