# What Reticle Do You Use on Your Scope?



## Bikeman CU (Nov 27, 2005)

If you like the fiber use a lighted fiber set-up ( Zebros, Specialty, etc.) You can adjust the intensity and color on some. You need to practice holding in the middle, you are heading somewhere you don't want to go, fix it now. Hold in the middle and let down, shoot every other time until you are comfortable holding in the center.
I have used a black circle on the lense, no dot, too confusing. Concentrate on the center, do not look at the circle, it will center it self.
I use a 6x lense with a black dot for indoors. Outdoor Field a 5x with .019 blue F.O. and Specialty light.


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

Tough to find an all purpose setup without specializing a scope for it, and even then it may or may nor be the best setup for that particular game. In my experience I've found that nothing beats a CORRECTLTY SIZED black dot for any game on a yellow target face. Lighting doesn't matter in this case as you're shooting black on a bright face, ultimate contrast. Dot size depends on you and what you want to see, have to experiment with it. I personally use a 4x lens and a .125" black dot for all indoor games (including 5-spot). For me that size dot and magnification covers about 80% of the yellow or white depending on the target, as long as I keep the dot inside the yellow it hits an x, never worry about losing the dot in arrow holes or worry about off-center holes, its big dot in the middle of big circle. 

For a 5-spot specific scope I used to run, it was the same as my field scope, a 4x or 5x (depending on the day this varried) with a .015 green up pin with a light on it. Outside I didn't need the light kit, the fiber was bright enough. Inside I used the light as at the time I was more comfortable on that face with a pin than I was with a dot until I found the above solution for ALL my indoor.

Field/3D/Safari I used that .015 up pin setup in blue or green (no real difference comes down to personal preference though with blue you will need a light). No real issues with target vision or anything but I still like you wanted kind of an all in one scope to limit the changes going from game to game.

I am testing my single setup solution at the moment, however because of what I have learned to prefer for indoor I will still need at least 2 maybe 3 lens setups for this scope. I'm testing the Ultraview UV3, indoor with a .125 black dot on yellow faces, indoors with a .060 green or pink dot for 5-spot (with the ultraviolet light the dot glows). Outdoors for yellow target/Field I'm thinking of a pink .060 dot, and a .019 center drill or .040 flo dot for 3D/fiber, color to be determined. So one scope, potentially 2-3 lenses. I picked the UV3 because I have lenses that fit it, and couldn't touch the price point of the no-lens target kit when putting together a one or two scope setup with a light kit that does all of this. My testing is in its infant stages, but maybe more to come on that. 

If you prefer just a .019 fiber for everything, or even a small flo dot, for everything the UV3 is still the best bang for buck all inclusive single scope setup available right now.


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## Bricktoast (Jan 1, 2021)

baller said:


> Tough to find an all purpose setup without specializing a scope for it, and even then it may or may nor be the best setup for that particular game. In my experience I've found that nothing beats a CORRECTLTY SIZED black dot for any game on a yellow target face. Lighting doesn't matter in this case as you're shooting black on a bright face, ultimate contrast. Dot size depends on you and what you want to see, have to experiment with it. I personally use a 4x lens and a .125" black dot for all indoor games (including 5-spot). For me that size dot and magnification covers about 80% of the yellow or white depending on the target, as long as I keep the dot inside the yellow it hits an x, never worry about losing the dot in arrow holes or worry about off-center holes, its big dot in the middle of big circle.
> 
> For a 5-spot specific scope I used to run, it was the same as my field scope, a 4x or 5x (depending on the day this varried) with a .015 green up pin with a light on it. Outside I didn't need the light kit, the fiber was bright enough. Inside I used the light as at the time I was more comfortable on that face with a pin than I was with a dot until I found the above solution for ALL my indoor.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info! It's exactly the insight I was looking for!

I am looking for just one setup for everything but it might be best to run a different setup for each game. However I definitely do not want to sight in every time as I like to practice different games all the time. 

I like the idea of just switching lenses to different spots/fibers depending on the game. I really like your idea of using a black dot indoor and being able to hit the x if you put it in the yellow. 

If you switch lenses, are you able to retain the same point of impact or do you need to sight in your scope every time?


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

Bricktoast said:


> Thanks for the info! It's exactly the insight I was looking for!
> 
> I am looking for just one setup for everything but it might be best to run a different setup for each game. However I definitely do not want to sight in every time as I like to practice different games all the time.
> 
> ...


A lot depends how good you're center reference is on your lens and how good you are at putting dots on them. Most of my main lenses are center etched and are pretty true. The ones I use sticker dots on like the one I'm testing for the .060 flourescent dot, I use a center drilled lens and put the dot over the hole as a reference. In most cases I'm within a few clicks with each setup, five or take, considering most of the time when I switch games I'm also switching arrows as well. For outdoor I run a sight marks program on my phone for different arrow builds, only printing a tape for major events just for ease of use. Indoor is indoor, every venue, and even every session is a click or two different from the last one.


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## Bricktoast (Jan 1, 2021)

Bikeman CU said:


> If you like the fiber use a lighted fiber set-up ( Zebros, Specialty, etc.) You can adjust the intensity and color on some. You need to practice holding in the middle, you are heading somewhere you don't want to go, fix it now. Hold in the middle and let down, shoot every other time until you are comfortable holding in the center.
> I have used a black circle on the lense, no dot, too confusing. Concentrate on the center, do not look at the circle, it will center it self.
> I use a 6x lense with a black dot for indoors. Outdoor Field a 5x with .019 blue F.O. and Specialty light.


I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm gonna really focus on NOT holding low and just holding on center. I think this is how people get TP and get stuck holding low. 

Do you sight when switching from outdoors to indoor?

Is your fiber an up pin or is it center drilled?


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## Bricktoast (Jan 1, 2021)

baller said:


> A lot depends how good you're center reference is on your lens and how good you are at putting dots on them. Most of my main lenses are center etched and are pretty true. The ones I use sticker dots on like the one I'm testing for the .060 flourescent dot, I use a center drilled lens and put the dot over the hole as a reference. In most cases I'm within a few clicks with each setup, five or take, considering most of the time when I switch games I'm also switching arrows as well. For outdoor I run a sight marks program on my phone for different arrow builds, only printing a tape for major events just for ease of use. Indoor is indoor, every venue, and even every session is a click or two different from the last one.


Sounds good, I might give it a try to have a bunch of drilled lenses as well. Fortunately Optix 300 is very affordable. It sounds like there is a lot of sighting in involved that I just need to get used to. I currently run just 1 arrow and bow for everything so I wanted just 1 scope as well. I am always second guessing my zero if I ever move it so I guess I just need to learn to be more confident in my zero.

Is there a reason you don't use a fiber in the center drilled lens? You used an up pin for outdoor Field/3D/Safari and it worked for me as well. Just wanted to know if there are any issues with lighting a center drilled lens + Fiber?


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

Yes I have to make sight adjustments going from outdoors to indoors, mainly because I'm also switching arrows, most of the time I'm going from 50M or 60Y with micro diameter arrows to my indoor arrows at 20y. Usually set to my 'normal' recorded 20y indoor mark i have recorded in notes, and adjust left/right to find the middle, never takes more than a few arrows to get there, don't usually shoot both indoor and outdoor in the same day.

My long time fiber setup was a .015 up pin. I'm playing with center drilled now since with the light on the UV3 I can run a much shorter piece of fiber and still see it as a dot and not see the side of the fiber. Trick with an up pin is making sure you're fiber is bright enough to be the dot you see, instead of barely seeing the fiber and seeing the up pin instead. Once it's bright enough, and you look at your target you'll only see the lit fiber floating over where you want to hit instead of the whole pin. Aiming drills can help you with this.

Another option for you is if you run a .019 center drilled fiber with a longer piece of fiber that comes out of the scope somewhere after going through the lens and wraps around the scope. Works well for lots of applications, something to try if you have a drilled lens and longer fibers handy to play with.


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

Bricktoast said:


> Sounds good, I might give it a try to have a bunch of drilled lenses as well. Fortunately Optix 300 is very affordable. It sounds like there is a lot of sighting in involved that I just need to get used to. I currently run just 1 arrow and bow for everything so I wanted just 1 scope as well. I am always second guessing my zero if I ever move it so I guess I just need to learn to be more confident in my zero.
> 
> Is there a reason you don't use a fiber in the center drilled lens? You used an up pin for outdoor Field/3D/Safari and it worked for me as well. Just wanted to know if there are any issues with lighting a center drilled lens + Fiber?


My main reason for using the up pin instead of the center drilled for outdoor is I didn't like running a light system, didn't see much improvement in my setup that way probably because of how I ran it. With the center drilled I had to run the fiber long enough to get it bright enough to see, resulted in several instances at some distances where I saw the end and the side of the fiber, wasn't a clean dot. The up pin solved both these problems, cleaned up the dot and made it brighter.


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## Bricktoast (Jan 1, 2021)

Thanks for the info! Looks like I have some experimenting to do. I'm gonna try the center drilled fiber and see if its good enough for everything. If not, then I'll go to an up pin for outdoor and a black dot for indoor.


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## pengu (Jul 28, 2021)

I shot a .019" green fiber (up pin) for a month, but realized that I would lose the fiber in the gold of a vegas face. I started to get annoyed that I couldn't see the fiber under certain lighting conditions so I switched to an orange fiber to see if it would help. Didn't get much better so I ended up switching to a medium sized black dot on the lens and I have been loving it so far.


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## Texashunter07 (May 26, 2020)

baller said:


> My main reason for using the up pin instead of the center drilled for outdoor is I didn't like running a light system, didn't see much improvement in my setup that way probably because of how I ran it. With the center drilled I had to run the fiber long enough to get it bright enough to see, resulted in several instances at some distances where I saw the end and the side of the fiber, wasn't a clean dot. The up pin solved both these problems, cleaned up the dot and made it brighter.


Baller have you tried both the up pin and dot together? So you can leave the pin for outdoor and just switch out the lens to one without a dot?


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

I have, and with the right scope setup it can work very well. The down side to some setups is if the up pin is toward the front of the scope, and the lens is toward the back of the scope, with the scope mounting screw in the middle of the two, you can end up with difficulty getting things to line up perfectly. The dot has to be precicely in the middle of the lens (or etched on a machine) and the up pin has to be straight and centered. If these are proved to be true individually, and your 2nd and 3rd axis is correctly set you won't have any problems, and you end up with a built in torque indicator, however with other solutions like an etched dot with a center drilled fiber or a sticker dot on a center drilled lens with the fiber through it, you really don't need the up pin unless you want a really bright fiber. Even then the lighting solutions available now are good enough to still run a drilled lens, and in some cases i prefer a drilled lens when I can achieve definite contrast between the target face color and the pin color. Blue works well for me for most indoor faces for instance, but I have found that my mental game prefers a bigger dot on the vegas face, not so much on a 5-spot. 

My current tested and tournament ready setups are (all on a 29mm shrewd scope):

Vegas face 4x lens with a .125" black dot
5-spot I've used the 4x .125" and also a 5x .075" black dot with good results on both
Anything outdoor with a yellow face - 4x .060" black dot
Field/3D - 4x with a .015 green fiber up pin

I am testing at the moment:

Vegas will stay the same
5-spot - Ultraview 3 scope, 4x lens with a .75 flo yellow dot (glows almost green under the ultraviolet light, a crisp clean dot).
Yellow faces outdoor will stay the same
Field - UV3 scope 4 or 5x lens with a dot that covers about 50-60% of the spot on a 50y field face....either flo yellow or flo pink....still testing
3D - UV3 with a 4x .015 drilled lens and really short (1/4") piece of fiber....or UV3 with a .040 flo colored dot color pending

We'll see how everything goes.....


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## mgx1138 (Mar 29, 2019)

baller said:


> Tough to find an all purpose setup without specializing a scope for it, and even then it may or may nor be the best setup for that particular game. In my experience I've found that nothing beats a CORRECTLTY SIZED black dot for any game on a yellow target face. Lighting doesn't matter in this case as you're shooting black on a bright face, ultimate contrast. Dot size depends on you and what you want to see, have to experiment with it. I personally use a 4x lens and a .125" black dot for all indoor games (including 5-spot). For me that size dot and magnification covers about 80% of the yellow or white depending on the target, as long as I keep the dot inside the yellow it hits an x, never worry about losing the dot in arrow holes or worry about off-center holes, its big dot in the middle of big circle.
> 
> For a 5-spot specific scope I used to run, it was the same as my field scope, a 4x or 5x (depending on the day this varried) with a .015 green up pin with a light on it. Outside I didn't need the light kit, the fiber was bright enough. Inside I used the light as at the time I was more comfortable on that face with a pin than I was with a dot until I found the above solution for ALL my indoor.
> 
> ...


Could you tell me what brand of "stick on" lens dots and rings you use? Thanks.[/QUOTE]


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## baller (Oct 4, 2006)

mgx1138 said:


> Could you tell me what brand of "stick on" lens dots and rings you use? Thanks.


[/QUOTE]
Precision Archery Reticles. They’re on Facebook and have a website, can pretty much make anything you want










Precision Archery Reticles, Huntsville, TX


Precision Archery Reticles develops and manufactures reticles and scope mask for archers. We offer a variety of reticle options, as well as scope masks.




www.precisionarcheryreticles.com


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## Texashunter07 (May 26, 2020)

Good choice on reticles! Great guy out of Texas!


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## kballer1 (Aug 31, 2010)

Don't like dots or pins as cover up the center that I am tryin g to see & aim at. Use a Tru-Spot lens that is ground in the center with 6X & use a 3/32" peep w/o clarifier & can see the X on the target if not shot up to bad. Will self center like Bikeman CU said, can also use the Specialty double vision lens which has replaced the Tru-Spot lens. Nothing to interfere with seeing the X ring.


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