I believe that one should practice as they intend to operate (i.e. practice shooting outdoors if you hunt). So I decide to go to a 20 yard indoor range yesterday. My groups were very tight......shooting on top of my arrows but they were a little low and to the right. I was talking to one of the staff instructors and he was telling me that shooting indoors will change my point of impact a bit. Has anybody run into to this or noticed similar shooting patterns when shooting indoor and outdoors?
Well when you shoot indoors you take a lot of the variables out of the shooting equation. You no longer have to deal with wind, the target is almost eye level, it's a more true distance... As far as point of impact, 20 yards is 20 yards...
I could see your patterns being tighter indoors but, I agree with indynotch50, 20yd is 20yd regardless. Your sights could have been knocked out of whack durring transport maybe. Other than that I don't really see any other reason why they would be off.
Lighting changes from outside to inside. It is very common to see a left and right difference in impact. This is especially an issue if the pin isn't perfectly round. This is one reason you don't want to use a lighter to burn the end of your pin. Also colors like red have a bad halo effect outdoors, making the issue worse.
tfox that is exactly what the archery instructor told me at the indoor range. So I go out the next day to the 70 yard outdoor range I use and my 20 yard was back to normal and I did not change anything. Maybe it is the lighting at the indoor range.
Thats interesting. I have never shot at an indoor range only outdoors. There is a new one that opened about 20-25 miles away so I will probably try it out before the season opens.
I have always practiced from the ground different odd and even distances, and once my bow is on it's on! I will still be on shooting from the tree...
