I Wasn’t Sold on Slider Sights. Then I Shot This: Black Gold Modd Bow Sight Review

I’ve been hunting with 5-pin horizontal fixed sights since I began my late-onset hunting journey. They’re all I ever knew, and they’ve treated me well. Three arrows slung, three awesome animals down, and all at different ranges using the old pin-gapping method for every single one.

So when I heard everyone talk about adjustable bow sights, even ones as supposedly brilliant as Black Gold’s new Modd sight, I always assumed that you’re trading the ability to dial an exact yardage for a perfect shot for increased complexity and speed at which you can get on your animal during those fast-feeling moments. Add just how expensive these slider sights have become, the fact that some of the new ones are going toward just one or three pins, and why even bother?

It felt like a downgrade for what I aim to do with my bow.

Then I shot the 3-pin vertical Modd. Black Gold created what feels as close to my Leupold rifle scope as I’ve ever felt on a bow. Add all the microadjustability you’d ever want, and it’s hard to miss the target, even when you’re stretching legs out past 100 yards.

In short: Though the price might put a lot of people off, what you get with the Modd Bow Sight ($629.95) is the ability to control your sight to such a degree that, if you miss the 12 ring or lungs and heart, it ain’t because of it. It’s absolutely on the squishy bit holding the bow. 

Black Gold Modd Compound Bow Sight Review

For years, Black Gold was the sight maker. But as with all things, the industry moved. Outfits like Ultraview, Dialed, Option Archery, Axcel, HHA, and Spot Hogg all pushed the envelope of what was possible in the sliding bow sight world, making them more durable, more accurate, more adjustable, and everything in between.

Black Gold, it appears, was biding its time. Waiting, building, engineering, and ensuring that once the Modd dropped, it blew the competition out of the water. And that seeming want for perfection is baked into everything with this sight, as not only is it adjustable to the nth degree, as the name implies, it’s also modular to the point that it can be a sight for just about everyone.

One Sight, Multiple Setups

When you buy a Modd, you’ll not only have access to a 1-, 2-, or 3-pin vertical setup, but also a 5-pin horizontal. Only one pin size is available, and that’s .015. However, even if you buy one setup, Black Gold made the Modd, well, modular, which means that you can buy a 5-pin horizontal or 3-pin vertical and, if you want a different setup, Black Gold will let you buy the other housing and be able to swap it in with only an Allen wrench. The sight is also compatible with 2X and 4X magnification lenses for competition use.

Mounts include dovetail (which doubles as a Mathew’s spec Bridgelock) or Picatinny, with the bar itself being movable forward or back, allowing the archer to set up the distance from your peep to however they like. Black Gold’s photochromatic fiber system, which encircles the housing, also makes your pins light up like Christmas even in low-light situations. And where legal, a rechargeable 5-position UV light gives you even more glow.

You also get 1st, 2nd, and 3rd axis adjustments, which I absolutely need to talk about.

Setting It Up Took A Single Day To Shoot Out To 100 Yards

Microadjust sights are nothing new to the archery world. Even my old fixed-pin CBE CX-5 had microadjust elevation and windage, and let me dial that housing to almost perfection. Black Gold took that to its logical conclusion, making the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd axis adjustments all microadjust.

Crack a single or set of Allen bolts on each axis adjustment, then slide in a smaller Allen for the adjustment screw, and you’re off to the races. Just turn the screw and see the levels move in tandem. My first and second were set within minutes of being on my vise. My 3rd, usually the most difficult to get right, was set to an almost perfect standard in my office, too, though I chose to do the final fraction of a millimeter adjustment by actually shooting it in. All in all, the overall setup took less than an hour to get it to dead-set level for all three.

Microadjustable Pins

What’s cooler, however, is that with the 3-pin vertical setup I have, those individual pins are also microadjustable. So when you are sighting in, you can adjust it to however much spacing you’d like. I set mine in 10-yard increments, so when it’s at dead-stop 20 yards, I have 30 and 40 already ready to go. And the corresponding dial indicators are just as easy, with a simple Allen key’s turn, though there’s a little bit of space between the indicator and the tape, which can marginally throw off your yardage.

The whole sight, however, just seems so well thought out.

Finding the right sight tape was equally easy, though there is one thing you absolutely need to set before you go further, and that’s your arrow’s clearance and the elevation gang adjustment.

I flipped my arrow around so that when I slid it into my drop-away rest, my DCA Mini Sabre vanes would be pointing forward. Before I actually slid it in, I cranked the slider all the way down and popped the elevation gang adjustment bolts. I then slid the arrow in and manually adjusted the elevation gang to the point where I had the smallest space possible between my vanes and the bottom of the sight’s housing, leaving just enough to clear if the arrow flexed. Again, simple and easy.

Tapes Included

Black Gold sends you a sleeve of possible sight tapes, and there are a few methods you can use to find your right tape. I chose what the company says is the most accurate, which is to take a provided blank tape and then find your marks starting at 20 yards and then spacing out in 10-yard increments to as far as you can accurately shoot, marking with a pen as you go. Then, after you’re done, match your marks to a provided sight tape that lines up.

I shot it out to 80 yards, the furthest I’d ever shot to that point.

After I found the tape—for reference, I’m shooting a 478 grain Day Six HD arrow through a 63 pound Elite Omnia set to 75% let off—and having spent only about an hour finding those marks and getting used to the 3-pin vertical setup, I felt so confident already in it, I couldn’t resist trying to shoot out further.

So when the wind died down, I cranked the elevation all the way to its furthest yardage, 103, and sent the arrow. My half-sized deer target would’ve been dead after just two arrows. The first was in its butt—I punched it—while the second was in the 10 ring against its shoulder for a heart-and-lung shot.

My Experience

The Modd came right at the start of my elk season and, while many of my newly found hunting friends hazarded against swapping my old CBE CX-5 for the Modd, what they failed to understand is that I’m constantly searching to better my lethality. Not because I want to kill everything that moves, but because once you loose that arrow, everything is over. You can’t take it back. It’s a final act, and each of the three times I’ve killed a big game animal—I started just four years ago—I’ve had a moment of, “Oh (expletive), what did I do?” thinking I screwed up, yet making great shots.

And I wouldn’t shoot an arrow if I didn’t feel comfortable behind the scope’s housing.

Yet, as I said when I was just getting my sight tape on lock, it just clicked with me, and I spent the next week dialing that sight into perfection before the season really got going. Utah is weird for its general archery elk season in that it starts mid-August, so the rut wasn’t going to hit for a second.

I aimed at being more accurate than I’d ever been, and that’s exactly what happened in the ensuing weeks looking through the sight. I’ve legit never been more stable and more accurate, and I found that the vertical setup just keeps everything square in the middle far better than any horizontal setup has for me.

The fact I’m now ringing 10-inch groups at 103 yards still astounds me.

My Two Concerns

Aside from being the most accurate I’ve ever been, the spacing between the tape indicators for my pins is enough to talk about here. There’s room for improvement, and Black Gold should make them sit closer to the yardage tape; as if you’re not looking straight down on them, you could be slightly off. Not enough to really cause big deviations in your yardage, but enough for the arrow to be just under an inch-ish off high or low.

My biggest concern about the Black Gold Modd, however, is how it’s going to feel against a live animal.

My season so far has been one of not seeing a lot to just not being able to seal the deal. I’ve called in a handful of bulls, but they’ve ended up either winding me or seeing movement when I was trying to get into an ambush position. Same with the handful of cows I’ve laid eyes on.

I did draw on a couple of does—no broadhead or fieldpoint attached—just to get a small sense of it, and from those experiences, the sight picture felt amazing, as while horizontal pins cover so much of the animal, the vertical 3-pin gives you that rifle reticle feel I spoke about earlier. I just haven’t had that singular moment yet, and until I do, I can’t give a full seal of approval. I’ll need to send an arrow.

Final Thoughts

What I can say is that when I’ve had the chance to sit a spot and dial the right yardages for whatever may come out, it’s been great.

Likewise, it’s handled a handful of massive rainstorms and my penchant for treating my gear with absolute disdain without issue. Even with all the rain and mud and dirt and grime that gums up your hunting gear when those storms occur, the dial still feels buttery smooth, and despite my lack of mechanical sympathy, it held its yardage and windage perfectly—something I can’t say about my old CBE going through the same conditions.

I recall one instance of my bow falling over during a rainstorm and landing straight in the mud, the dial facing down.

I still have a few more months of hunting Utah’s extended archery season, and I have both a buck and elk tag in my pocket, and I’m heading to Wisconsin to chase whitetails, too. So there’s still ample time to see how Black Gold’s Modd sight stacks up when it absolutely counts. But if I were a betting man, I’d say when the time finally comes—and I hope it will, as my freezer is emptying rapidly—I think it’s going to continue to prove to be one of the best sights around.