Being in the public eye, as the President of the Heroes Hunting Foundation (www.facebook.com/HeroesHunting100), I get a lot of messages and emails from product creators or sales reps to endorse their products/products page. The staff of Heroes Hunting will not endorse any product that we do not either use or truly believe in.
That being said, when I got a message from the creator of the “Peep Eliminator” on Facebook, I did what anyone should do, I went to the page and started to check it out. After doing a thorough read and research of different websites and videos, I was caught being intrigued by the product. The “Peep Eliminator” is a bow sight that removes the peep from the string, changing the rear sight into a rifle type sight.
My military background is as an SDM (Squad Designated Marksman) in the Army. I’ve spent a lot of my time teaching soldiers not only how to shoot, but shoot accurately, effectively, and better. Ava, my 9 year old daughter, has always been one of my best students and is a near “sniper” on her .22 Cricket rifle with iron sights. Ava’s #1 Christmas wish list item was a bow. Having tagged her first deer ever on her first hunt ever this past youth season, she was eager to move on to a bow. I realized I had the best and most neutral test subject possible, Ava.
As any avid hunter that uses multiple platforms to harvest all kinds of animals would know, switching from a rifle to bow, isn’t just changing the style, but a whole different aspect of how to aim. Ava had easily mastered iron sights (front post with split rear sight) so when I saw the idea of the “Peep Eliminator” I thought “…well, I can reinvent the wheel with her, while teaching her proper technic with an entirely new shooting platform, also teaching her an entirely new way to aim, OR I could take what she already knows and apply it to a bow.”
The “Peep Eliminator” makes a lot of claims, most of which I have heard 100 other times with other products. The claims that you’ll find on their website (www.peepeliminator.com) and on their packaging are “Shoot Earlier. Shoot Later. Shoot Quicker and Shoot Better with Rifle-Like Accuracy! Consistent Accuracy Shot After Shot! Simplifies Archery!” The website goes on to state “You will immediately shoot tight groups with consistent accuracy!” When I see claims like these, I generally HAVE to get the product just to see how completely wrong and off they generally are. When I’m looking into a product I am looking for these four main points: Install/Setup Simplicity, Complexity of Operation, Improves, and Claims.
Scoring – 1-5, 5 being the best
Install/Setup Simplicity: 5
More often than not, install and setup are one in the same. In this case they are completely different. You really can’t get more simple in regards to install. You remove the two screws that are already installed holding your pin sight housing to the riser. Next you put the buffer on the riser, matching the holes, using the same screws from the riser you removed, install the “Peep Eliminator”. With the Original you sandwich the “Peep Eliminator” between the main beam and your pin sight housing mounts, matching the screw holes. If you are using the Extender Sight (I recommend), the pin sight housing goes on the end opposite the strings. All in all, if you can loosen and tighten screws with an allen wrench, you can install this product.
SETUP: 3
I didn’t find the instructions to be the easiest to read and understand, but in general, you want to drop your lowest pin (using a multi pin sight), close your eyes, draw, and that is your neutral point. At this point, you can see if you need to raise or lower your sight housing. Once you have this done, it’s just a matter of setting each of the pins above to the correct set points for the distances you want.
Complexity of Operation: 4
There seems to be two different schools of thought for shooting. You can either set the pins so that you adjust your anchor point for each one, and aim just like you would with a rifle iron sight. The other option is to set the pins at the distances desired, then you aim by putting the bottom pin between the rear sight dots, then place the distance pin, IE: 20 yard pin, on the target you are aiming for. I didn’t care for the first option, as you have to change your anchor point for each distance. I found that using the “peep eliminator” this way could only be easily done if one is using a thumb release. Personally, I believe in doing the same thing every time, so adjusting my anchor point didn’t feel comfortable with me. At first I thought this was a crazy way to aim because I want to only look at a pin like I would with a peep, but once you find your neutral point with the sight, drawing and the bottom pin automatically falls between the rear sight dots, you really only double check to make sure it is in the proper place when drawing.
Complexity of Operation starts off as a low score until you work with it for a couple days, and then it becomes very good. After shooting the “Peep Eliminator” for a couple weeks, I’ve noticed that I only flash a look at the front and rear sight to make sure I’m on, then I am looking at the target and level on my sight just like I would with a peep.
Improves/Does Nothing/Useless: 4
I’m lucky enough that I have two exactly identical bows. I have a Bowtech Insanity CPX set up for guillotine turkey hunting (125 grain heads) and the exact same bow set up for everything else (100 grain heads). I do this because of the different weight arrows I need for each. Referring back to Ava, I put the “Original Peep Eliminator” on her Diamond Infinite Edge and within 20 arrows, she hit a couple bullseye, but at a minimum was hitting the block at 10 yards. Not knowing exactly what she is seeing or if we are zero’ing the sights like she needs, her groups where still pretty large. Keep in mind, these were the very first arrows she had even shot, so she isn’t the most stable either.
Attached, I have pictures from cold firing both of my bows. I went to 20 yards, using my peeped Insanity, threw the arrows at the block. I’m not going to claim this is even remotely close to my best grouping, but having not fired a bow in some time, this was an honest depiction of what happened. Next, I picked up the “Peep Eliminator” Insanity, and the second picture speaks for itself. I then continued out to 50 yards. It goes without saying that it would take some pretty special circumstances for me to even consider taking a shot at 50 yards on an animal, but after shooting this third group pictured at 50 yards, I may be more confident to do so.
Claims: 3 1/2
When a product makes large claims or a lot of them, I’m generally a little giddy to start testing them and finding the BS that most generally are. The “Peep Eliminator” not only makes large claims, but makes a lot of them on their packaging and on their website. To say I was anxious to test this was an understatement.
First up, “Shoot Earlier and Shoot Later.” There is nothing that will make you shoot any later than you would a normal peep’ed sight. If you want to put an LED light attachment on your pin sight, you can do the same with the “Peep Eliminator”. This sight does NOT make it any easier to the see the pins than it would without it. I would say this claim is pretty unfounded. If you can’t see the pins with a peep, you won’t be able to with the “Peep Eliminator”.
“Shoot Quicker and Shoot Better with Rifle-Like Accuracy! Consistent Accuracy Shot After Shot! You will immediately shoot tight groups with consistent accuracy!” The “shoot quicker” comment was one of the most intriguing statements of the claims. You should always take your time, acquire your target, and take a good clean shot, but if you can do all that more quickly, that is even better. After you set up the “Peep Eliminator” and then shoot with it for a while, you do indeed start to acquire your target faster and you do end up shooting more quickly. This was one of the more surprising claims which was true. Shooting better and with better accuracy is still up for debate. This is something that can’t really be judged because it is all still in the hands of the shooter. “It’s usually not the arrow, it’s the indian”, I was always told. You DO have all the tools to shoot tighter groups, but only if you are already technically sound on your sight and techniques. Anything you put on your bow is not going to make you a better shooter. It may help, but becoming a better shooter has more to do with the shooter and practice than anything you could possibly attach to your bow.
“Simplifies Archery!” Referring back to my 9 year old daughter, Ava, this is the statement I was most interested in for her, being as I was going to be teaching a 9 year old how to shoot a bow for the first time ever. The “Peep Eliminator” did make it easier to explain what she needed to do to shoot the bow and hit what she was aiming at. However, she was only able to do this because she was previously taught how to shoot a rifle with the same type of sights. When I taught her how to shoot a rifle, I used diagrams and cut outs, so that she would know what to do. If you did this with anyone else, you could do it the same way. On the up side, it did take one thing away that she didn’t have to try and focus on when trying to shoot, which is lining up the peep and the sight housing or halo’ing.
All in all, I’m leaving the “Peep Eliminator” on my bow and plan on using it for the season. I’m not 100% sold on it, but I do like the groupings I’m getting over using just my peep, specifically at distance. There is still some refining to do and I want to see how it works for a full season, versus just using it a couple weeks. In the end I would recommend at least giving it a shot. If you are “old school” or have been shooting a bow for a very long time, it might be an awkward adjustment to make such a drastic change in sighting, but it is definitely worth looking into.
Final Score: 16 1/2 out of 20 = 4 1/8
Sgt Perkins, Patrick
