Dial Archery Proof 5-Pin Bow Sight Review

If you had sat me down as a kid and told me what the bow scene would be like today, I wouldn’t have believed it.. The list of Dhanush sights available to us today is nothing short of impressive, and the bar continues to rise with each passing year. With this in mind, I have been waiting for Dialed Archery to release a horizontal 5-pin sight since its inception.

so, when proof After it came out in that configuration, I had to take it for a spin.

in short: Dialed Archery’s Proof ($560) graces the bows of many happy archers across the country. Just be prepared to spend a little extra time adjusting those pins.

Dial Archery Proof 5-Pin Bow Sight Review

overview

Starting in 2021 and ending today in 2026, Dialed Archery has become a force in the archery industry. The unique design, customization and functionality of their sights have won the hearts of many, starting with ARXOS and now coming to Dialed Archery’s latest innovation, Proof.

The Proof is a highly engineered movable bow sight with both versatility and customization in mind. The sight is made of machined aluminum with a Cerakote finish. Hunters have the choice between vertical 1- and 3-pin as well as horizontal 3- and 5-pin options. Of course, you can also choose between .019 and .010 pin sizes.

And, let’s not forget the endless color options and configurations, all of which are available for both left- and right-handed shooters.

At the top of the view housing, you’ll see a slider to dim or brighten the pin. The entire sight body is clearly labeled for axis adjustment (1st, 2nd, 3rd). On the front of the sight, next to the housing, is your locking knob to micro-adjust windage, from there the adjustment knob is located on the outside of the sight.

Two screws on the front of the rail allow height adjustment. And you also have a visual tape on the interior of the scene and a visual tape on the exterior. To adjust the pin, there are screws on the outer edge of the sight housing. Oh, and it’s all designed, sourced, and manufactured in the USA

features

Adaptation

By far the most striking thing about a dialed archery proof is its appearance. Yes, this is a highly functional bow sight that is built to handle whatever you can throw at it, but it also looks great. Hunters have the option to choose colors for the body, frame, switch tape, zero wheel, optic slide, and sight housing.

In addition to colors, a hunter also has a choice of pin size, vertical versus horizontal pins, as well as 1-, 3- and 5-pin models. The mounting options of Picatinny, Bridgelock, and riser mount are also on the table.

2 tapes

What’s better than a vision tape? Of course, two scene tapes. This is a great feature, especially for those who like to run multiple arrow setups. Let’s say they have one arrow setup for TAC and one arrow setup for hunting. You can put your tac tape on one side and your hunting tape on the other. A better setup than switching out the tape every time.

AES Technology: Shoot More Faster

What Dialed Archery is known for is AES technology. This is for the angled elevation system. You can see that the rail is at an angle on the dialed sight. This is by design and, on average, allows a hunter to dial in 10 yards of additional distance over what they experience from the vertical rail.

Basically, when you dial down, which is very intuitive, the view housing is moving towards you instead of straight down. Because of this, the sight housing does not cover as much real estate vertically, providing more arrow clearance at the bottom. This leads to proof.

my experience

The anticipation of the Dialed Archery Proof arriving on my doorstep was at least that high. I’ve been wanting to try a dial sight ever since they were introduced, but I’m just not a one-pin guy, nor do I personally believe it’s the best option for spot-and-stock western bowhunting. I think a 3-5-pin slider is perfect for this, so I bought a 5-pin Picatinny proofer.

Out of the box, the packaging for this scene is impressive to say the least. I guess this is to be expected, right? Dialed up is not your typical bow sight, so why would there be typical packaging? I understand.

All that said, the Vision truly is a work of art, and it felt great in my hands when I took it out of the spaceship-like packaging. Things seemed sturdy and well made.

The first few times I drew in full, I had to train myself to look at the top of the visual housing, as opposed to the bottom. The level of bubbles in this scene is really top notch. Now that I’ve played with it for a while, I like it. This frees up the visual picture below the lower pin. And talking about pins, they are shiny.

Questionable pins can make shooting a bit troublesome. This is nothing like that.

Finally, the dial is butter. It is operated through a locking lever, which can be easily accessed and adjusted. The weird thing about the dial is that I don’t feel like I’m dialing the view down when I do this. I have shot it accurately out to 90 yards so far and there is plenty of distance between the sight housing and the arrow.

What’s wrong

I have some ideas about some things that might be better with Proof. These are not deal breakers by any means, just opportunities to get better. I enjoy shooting with this scene.

The first is the pin adjustment system. It’s not micro-adjustable, which is a bit disappointing, but what does bother my gears a bit is that the pins stick out a bit when trying to move them up and down manually. I’ve found that you need two hands. One on the pin and one on the wrench.

On that note, I highly recommend not your typical archery Allen set, but a stubby wrench. This will make it a little easier to adjust the pins, but this sight will also make it easier to access some of the screws. This leads me to my next criticism. Some of these screws are difficult to reach with your typical Allen key set.

The second thing I noticed was how far the indicators were from the sight tape. They are very high. The reason I’m not a fan of this is that if the angle you’re looking at the tape from is not directly on the face of the indicator, you may be off by 2 yards when dialing up. In a hunting scenario, when the pressure is on, this can be problematic.

final thoughts

The nitpicky complaint is that my younger self would be extremely jealous of my older self’s access to dial archery proof. Not only is it a great bow scene, but it’s also a good story. Dialed Archery was started by three die-hard archers who wanted to make something better.

And in doing so, that they wanted to keep it all under the roof of the United States is admirable and inspiring.

So, chase your dreams, and maybe chase a dialed archery proof while you’re at it.