Rain effect on long range shots

So I went outside today to sling a few arrows and it was misting rain. I shot a few at 20 and backed up to 50 yards and my group was impacting 6 inches lower than normal. it seems like it doesn't affect it much until you get past the 35 yard mark. is it possible that it is slowing my arrow down that much? I almost want to change sight tapes but I think I'm going to wait another day and see what happens. I usually shoot out to 80 practicing but at the rate my arrow as dropping I wouldn't even hit the bag at that range

 

thanks for bringing this up. I've not practiced much in the rain but I do hunt then. will need to check this out.

 

I'm sure the rain has some kind of an effect on arrow drag, but 6" seems like a lot.

 

I'm definitely not an engineer or a physicist. I'm guessing the drag of the rain or the extra weight of the water may have an impact on it. I shot a buck about 5 years ago during a misty rainy day. My entire setup had water dripping off of it. When I let the arrow go it sounded like a gun going off. The shot was 37 yards. I hit just a little low. I'm assuming the drizzle effected the shot.

 

I would imagine a bow that has been sitting in the rain is going to shoot different if the strings and cables are saturated, not so sure about an arrow but probably and accumulation of many small factors adding up to what you are seeing.

 

How about the fact that when it rains, humidity is at 100% effectivley making the air thicker.

 

Yeah, probably nothing to worry about in a hunting situation. Where I hunt 35 yards is about as far as you can shoot but it has got me wondering if something has changed on my bow because it wasn't raining today and its still shooting low at 50. doesn't seem like humidity would affect it that much.

 

I've never seen an arrow be off 6" even in the rain.

Checking your bow and the entire set up would be where I would start.

 

I highly doubt rain is causing that much of a difference. The force of shooting should knock any moisture off the arrow itself. If your bow string is waxed well it should repel most of the water coming in contact with it.

 

Peep slip a little from a wet string?

 

I've had it start raining while I was practicing and I didn't notice a discernible difference even in the 60-80 yard ranges. Granted it wasn't pouring, but if that was the case I wouldn't be hunting either.

I do shoot a fairly heavy arrow though.

 

Rain will NOT cause that much of a difference on its own. I've shot a bunch competitively in the rain. It can have some effect but not 6". Most of the effect comes from the string soaking up water (wax is your friend).


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Matt, good to know, thanks.

 

That's good to know. I still don't know for sure what happened my peep looked like it was a fraction lower but I,m still not 100% sure what was going on so I just adjusted my sight to make up for it. its been windy the last couple of days so I hadn't shot much past 30