Bow Cant: Causes, Effects, and How to Control It

Bow cant is the angle your riser makes relative to true vertical when you hold the bow at full draw. It refers specifically to the lateral roll of the bow — tilting the handle left or right — and is distinct from bow torque, which is a grip-pressure twist, and bow tilt, which is a fore-aft lean.

How Cant in Archery Affects Arrow Flight

The mechanical problem with an uncontrolled cant in archery comes down to lever-arm geometry. Your arrow sits very close to the bow's pivot point — the deepest part of the grip — so it moves through only a small arc when the riser rolls. Your sight aperture, mounted much farther from that pivot, swings a far larger arc. The result is that windage and elevation alignment between the arrow and the sight break down. The arrow will travel in the direction of the cant, and that error compounds with distance: a slight bow lean that produces a negligible miss at 20 yards can push a shaft well outside the scoring rings at 70–80 yards.

Bow cant is also a common reason groups drift wider as you step back. If your arrows walk left or right consistently as distance increases, cant is the first variable to check.

What Causes Bow Cant

• Dominant eye alignment: Archers sometimes cant the bow unconsciously to bring their dominant eye directly over the arrow shaft.
• Grip fit: A grip that doesn't suit the hand can introduce unintentional bow lean at full draw; adding grip pads or changing grip shape can reduce this.
• Shooting style: Traditional longbow and barebow archers often use a deliberate, repeatable cant to keep the arrow on a shallow shelf during the draw cycle. Compound and Olympic recurve archers generally aim for a consistent vertical hold.

Controlling Bow Cant

For sighted archers, the most reliable management tool is a bubble level. At full draw, a centered bubble confirms the riser is vertical before the shot breaks. Critically, the level must be calibrated after mounting — a sight screwed onto the bow without adjustment will not give an accurate reading. For a full walkthrough of setup and calibration, see the guide to how a bow sight level works and how to set one up correctly.

For compound archers taking steep uphill or downhill shots, calibrating the sight's third axis is a further step that prevents cant-induced horizontal error at angle. When the third axis is off, centering the bubble can actually introduce a hidden bow cant rather than correct for one.

For archers shooting without a sight, a repeatable bow cant relies entirely on consistent anchor position, grip, and head alignment. External feedback — a coach or video review — is especially useful here, because proprioception alone rarely catches small shot-to-shot variation in bow lean.