Making a single-pin sight tape

A sight tape is a narrow paper or sticker strip with yardage tick marks, applied to the slider housing of a single-pin movable sight (HHA Optimizer, Spot Hogg Fast Eddie, Black Gold Ascent, Axcel Landslyde, and similar). In the field you spin the wheel until the target yardage lines up under the indicator, then aim with the single pin. The tape is the entire user interface for the sight: get it wrong and every shot past your zero is wrong.

Multi-pin sights don't need tapes — the pins themselves are calibrated to fixed yardages. Tapes are for archers who want one clean pin and the ability to dial any yardage between 20 and 80+ yards.

Tapes can be pre-printed (HHA ships an A-Z set; you pick the letter that matches your bow) or custom-printed from a calculator. Custom tapes are more accurate when calibrated correctly — they reflect your bow at your draw length with your arrow weight, instead of the closest of 26 generic options.

The naive way to make a tape: enter your chronographed arrow speed, assume a drag coefficient, and let physics predict the trajectory. This is what the cheap free web calculators do. The problem is that two of those three inputs are wrong.

Chronograph speed is measured 6 to 12 inches in front of the bow, before any meaningful drag has acted on the arrow. By 60 yards the arrow has lost 10–15% of its initial speed to drag — and how much it loses depends on shaft diameter, fletching geometry (vane height, length, helical or straight), insert weight distribution, and the air density on the day. A drag coefficient of 1.8 vs 2.2 is the difference between a 5-inch group and a 12-inch group at 80 yards.

Calibration marks fix this. By measuring where the wheel sits when sighted in at 20 yards and 60 yards, the tool back-solves an effective drag rate that fits your real flight. The rest of the tape is interpolated from that fit. The 20- and 60-yard marks are exact (you measured them); 30, 40, 50 are accurate to within a millimeter of wheel position; 70 and 80 are extrapolated and should be verified.

This is the approach Archer's Advantage and OnTarget2! (the desktop gold standards used by most pro shops) take. The calculator on this site uses the same calibration-first method.

Two marks: minimum viable

Two marks (typically 20 and 60 yards) let the tool fit a straight line through your trajectory. This is wrong in detail but right in the middle: your 30- and 40-yard marks will be close, your 50-yard mark will be slightly off, and 70+ extrapolations get worse fast. Acceptable for a first-pass tape; not what you'd take into the field for a 70-yard elk shot.

Three marks: the standard

Three marks (20, 40, 60) unlock a quadratic fit, which is the correct shape for a drag-corrected projectile trajectory at typical hunting yardages. Every yardage between your shortest and longest mark is now accurate to within a fraction of an inch of wheel position. This is what most hunters should aim for.

Four+ marks: gold standard

A fourth mark (e.g., 20, 30, 50, 70) extends the calibrated range and lets the tool flag inconsistencies. If your fourth mark doesn't fit the curve fit by the first three, you've either measured wrong or one of your sight-ins was off — either way, worth knowing before you commit to the tape. The calculator surfaces this as an "INCONSISTENT" warning.

This is the part of the process that requires actually shooting. Plan a range trip with a chronograph, calipers (digital or vernier), and your hunting arrows.

Sight in at 20 yards

Shoot a tight group at 20 yards, dial the wheel until the group is on the bullseye. Mark the wheel position on the housing — this is your zero. Note the wheel reading if your sight has an etched scale.

Walk back to your longest mark

60 yards for hunters; 80 yards for target/3D shooters. Re-sight at the new distance using the same form, anchor, and release. Don't rush — three to five tight groups will give you a confident wheel position.

Measure wheel travel

Easiest path: print the setup tape from the calculator (a blank 4" measurement strip with 1/8" ticks), stick it alongside your sight before the range trip, and read each indicator position off it directly. If you'd rather use calipers, measure the linear distance from your 20-yd mark to your long-yd mark in inches to the nearest 0.005". Either way: your 20-yd mark is the zero (0.000"), your 60-yd mark is the measured travel (typically 1.4–1.8" for hunting compounds).

Add a third mid-range mark

Walk to 40 yards. Repeat. Your tape's accuracy in the 30–50 yard "hunting bread-and-butter" range depends on this mark being correct.

Enter and verify

Open the calculator, enter your chrono speed, arrow weight, point weight, and the three (or more) calibration marks. The tape preview updates live. The confidence indicator at the top of the results will show "CALIBRATED 20–60 YD · EXTRAPOLATED 60–80 YD" — solid ticks are fitted to your real data, faded ticks are extrapolated.

This is the most common failure mode of any custom-printed sight tape. Browsers and printer drivers default to "Fit to page" or some arbitrary scale percentage that quietly shrinks the tape by 3–10%. A 0.65" wheel-travel tape printed at 95% scale prints as a 0.62" tape — and every yardage past your zero is now wrong.

Set the print dialog correctly

• Scale: 100% (not "Fit to page", not "Shrink to fit")
• Margins: Default or None (custom margins can sometimes scale the page)
• Layout: Portrait
• Paper size: Letter or A4 (matching your printer's loaded paper)

Verify with the included ruler

The print view includes a 1-inch reference ruler next to the tape. After printing, lay a real ruler on top of the printed reference. If it doesn't read exactly 1 inch, your printer scaled the page — throw that print away and reprint with scale set to 100%. This check takes ten seconds and saves you a season of bad shots.

If the ruler still isn't right after setting 100%

Some printer drivers ignore browser scale settings and apply their own ("Auto-fit", "Borderless print", etc.). Open the printer driver settings (the OS-level dialog, not the browser's) and set its scale to 100% as well. A few high-end printers have a "Photo / poster" mode that prints raw pixels — use that if available.

Cut along the rectangle border with a sharp blade — scissors work but a craft knife on a cutting mat gives a cleaner edge. The tick-mark side is the side that faces the indicator on your sight.

Most modern slider sights have a recessed channel for the tape; some come with adhesive strips, others use a tape-holder cover. If yours uses bare adhesive, double-sided thin tape works (no residue), or a clear strip of packing tape over a marker-drawn copy of the print. Avoid thick foam tape — it changes the tape's vertical position relative to the indicator and throws off the yardages.

Once applied, dial each calibrated yardage and verify at the range. Then walk out to the extrapolated end and shoot a group at the longest yardage. Adjust the longest extrapolation: if your group is high, the model under-predicted drag (add a fourth calibration mark at that yardage and reprint); low, over-predicted (same).

Air density changes the drag your arrow experiences in flight, which changes drop. The two factors that matter at typical hunting ranges are altitude and temperature.

Altitude

Air thins out predictably with altitude — at 5000 ft elevation, density is ~14% less than at sea level; at 9000 ft, ~26% less. Less drag means flatter trajectory. A tape calibrated at sea level will shoot 1–3 yards "long" (high) at high-altitude Western hunting elevations. The calculator's elevation input compensates.

Temperature

Cold air is denser. Sub-freezing late-season hunts will shoot 1–2 yards "short" (low) compared to a 70°F summer-tape calibration. Set the calculator's temperature input to your expected hunting condition if it's significantly off the 70°F baseline.

Wind

Wind drift isn't on the printed tape — it's a windage problem, not a yardage problem. A 10 mph crosswind drifts a typical hunting arrow ~3 inches at 40 yards and ~10 inches at 70 yards. Hunters handle this by holding off the bullseye, not by adjusting the yardage.

A tape is calibrated to a specific arrow flying out of a specific bow under specific conditions. Anything that changes one of those three things invalidates the tape. Re-shoot calibration marks and reprint when:

• You change arrows — different shaft, different vanes, different point weight, different insert. All of these shift the dynamic spine and the drag coefficient.
• You change the bow's draw cycle — draw weight, draw length, new cam, new string after break-in. Speed changes, trajectory changes.
• You change the sight — new sight model, new housing, new peep height. The geometry of the tape relative to your eye changes.
• You move to a significantly different climate — hunting at 9000 ft after calibrating at sea level, or hunting in single-digit cold after calibrating in summer.
• You switch from field points to broadheads — most archers print one tape with field points and accept the 1–3 yard offset; if the offset is bigger or you want exact broadhead accuracy, calibrate with broadheads on.

String creep in the first 200 shots after a new install changes axle-to-axle length and cam timing — re-tune and re-calibrate after string break-in.

• Trusting an IBO-only tape. The free web calculators that don't ask for sight marks are guessing — sometimes within 5%, sometimes not.
• Printing at "Fit to page". Every default browser setting will do this. Always verify the included 1-inch ruler before cutting.
• Calibrating with only two marks at 20 and 80 yards. The tool interpolates a straight line between two marks — your 50-yd prediction will be off by inches of group offset.
• Calibrating once and never re-verifying after broadhead change, arrow change, or season change.
• Using a different arrow for calibration than for hunting.
• Measuring wheel travel with a soft tape measure to the nearest 1/16". Calipers to 0.005" or your tape's 60-yd mark may be off by a yard at distance.
• Shooting calibration groups under different conditions than you'll hunt in (windy range day, fatigued at the end of a practice session). Calibration marks should be your best confident shooting.
• Extrapolating to 100 yards from a 20–60 calibration and shooting an animal at 90. The tape isn't trustworthy past your last calibration mark.
• Cutting through a tick mark. Lose 1mm at the top of the tape and every yardage shifts by ~3 yards.

A sight tape is only as accurate as the bow it's mounted on. If your arrows aren't grouping cleanly at the calibration yardages, tape-making won't fix that — you have a tuning problem, not a tape problem.

• Paper tuning guide — first-pass tune for clean arrow flight out of the bow.
• Arrow setup guide — spine, FOC, KE, momentum and how each affects your trajectory.

Why do I need a sight tape if I already have a multi-pin sight?

You don't — sight tapes are for single-pin movable sights (HHA Optimizer, Spot Hogg Fast Eddie, Black Gold Ascent, Axcel Landslyde). On a fixed multi-pin sight, the pins themselves are your yardage marks and you don't dial. If you do shoot a multi-pin sight, a tape isn't useless — you can still print one to know where to aim between fixed pins, but the primary use case is single-pin.

Why isn't my chronograph speed enough? Why do I need calibration marks?

Chronos read the arrow at the bow, not at 60 yards. Drag depends on shaft diameter, fletching geometry, vane orientation, broadhead/field-point shape, and air density on the day — none of which a chrono captures. Two known sight marks let the tool back-solve an effective drag rate that fits your actual flight, eliminating that uncertainty. The result is a tape that's right for your specific setup, not a generic prediction.

How accurate is the printed tape compared to gold-standard tools like Archer's Advantage?

Within calibrated yardages, the tape is exact — the fit reproduces your real sight marks. Between calibrated yardages (interpolation), expect ±0.05" of wheel position, which translates to inches of group offset at distance and is well within the precision of human aim. Past your furthest mark (extrapolation), accuracy degrades — the tool flags those yardages as 'extrapolated' and you should verify them at the range.

Can I trust the printed tape for hunting at 80+ yards?

Only if you've calibrated to at least 60 yards and verified the tape's 70- and 80-yard marks at the range. The fit becomes increasingly speculative beyond your last calibration mark because real archery trajectories aren't perfect quadratics — air density, drag at low velocity, and arrow stability all shift the curve at long range. Add a third or fourth calibration mark at the longest yardage you intend to shoot.

What changes mean I need to re-calibrate?

Anything that changes the arrow's mass, balance, or drag, or anything that changes the bow's draw cycle: new arrows, different point weight, new fletching, broadhead change (broadheads typically print 1–3 yards 'long' vs field points), draw weight or draw length change, new string after break-in, peep height change, new sight, or major altitude change (sea level → 9000 ft Western elk hunt is enough to need a new tape).

Why do my broadheads hit different than my field points even though my tape is correct?

Broadheads have more drag (steering wings) and more side-force in flight if your bow isn't perfectly tuned. Most archers print one tape calibrated with field points and accept that broadheads land 1–3 yards 'long' (slightly higher) at hunting yardages. If the offset is more than that, your bow likely needs paper or broadhead tuning — see the paper tuning guide.

What about temperature and altitude — should I print a different tape for cold weather?

For most hunters, no — the tape calibrated at 70°F at sea level is accurate enough for most North American hunting. The exceptions: Western elk hunters at 8000+ ft will see arrows fly 1–2 yards 'long' (less drag in thinner air), and sub-freezing late-season hunts will see arrows fly 1–2 yards 'short' (denser air). The calculator's environment controls let you generate a cold-weather tape if you hunt in extremes.

What if I can't measure my wheel position with calipers?

Print the setup tape from the calculator (the second print button next to the tape preview). It's a blank 4" strip with 1/8" minor ticks — stick it on your sight, sight in, mark each yardage's indicator position, then read those positions back into the calibration form. Alternatively a ruler with mm divisions converts (1 mm ≈ 0.0394 in), or the etched scale on your sight works if it has one. The verify-at-range step is your real check either way.

My printed tape doesn't fit my sight's tape window. What do I do?

Real sight tapes are typically 0.4–0.7" wide. The generated tape is 0.7" so it can fit numbers on both sides — if your sight's window is narrower (HHA Optimizer Lite is ~0.4"), you may need to trim the tape's edges and/or lose one column of numbers. The tick marks themselves and their spacing are what matter; the numbers are for orientation.

Why are the numbers printed on both sides of the ticks?

Single-pin sights mount on either the left or right of the riser, so the indicator may sit on the inside edge or the outside edge of the tape. Both-sided numbering means the tape is readable regardless of mounting orientation. It's the convention real factory tapes (Gunstar, Pinwheel, HHA pre-printed) use for the same reason.

Single-pin sight

A bow sight with one aiming pin on a slider that the archer rotates to pre-set the pin for a specific yardage. Examples: HHA Optimizer, Spot Hogg Fast Eddie, Black Gold Ascent, Axcel Landslyde.

Sight tape

The narrow printed strip applied to the sight's slider housing, with tick marks and yardage numbers used to dial in the pin position for a target distance.

Calibration mark

A {yardage, wheel-position} pair you measure by sighting in at a known distance and recording where the wheel sits. The calculator's quadratic fit is anchored to these.

Wheel travel

The linear distance (in inches) the slider has moved between two calibration positions. Measured with calipers from a fixed reference mark on the housing.

Drag coefficient (Cd)

A unitless number describing how much air resistance the arrow experiences. Typical hunting arrows fall in the 1.8–2.2 range depending on fletching and shaft diameter. Calibration back-solves an effective Cd for your specific arrow.

IBO speed

A bow manufacturer's published speed rating measured at standard test conditions (30" draw, 70 lb peak, 350 gr arrow, no string accessories). Useful as a comparison spec; not accurate enough for tape-making on its own.

Indicator

The fixed reference mark on the sight body that the moving wheel scale reads against. Determines which side of the tape needs to be visible.

Quadratic fit

A second-order polynomial fit to three or more calibration marks. Matches the shape of a drag-corrected projectile trajectory; vastly more accurate than the linear two-point fit.

Extrapolation

Predicting tape positions for yardages past your furthest calibration mark. Less accurate than interpolation; the calculator flags extrapolated yardages as "verify at range".

Peep height

The distance from the peep sight to the sight axis (typically 4–8 inches). Affects the geometry that converts wheel travel into apparent drop at distance.