Shooting the Crossbow at 3Ds

I had a great Saturday morning over at Cloth of Gold (COG) with Mick the Blacksmith and Brian.
It's the first time I've shot a crossbow at 3D targets and I hadn't done much sighting in. The previous day I'd finished making some final modifications to the prod mount, adding an extra mounting screw (I'd planned on adding this once everything else had been finalised). I tried a quick couple of shots in the garage which were a couple of inches high at 10 yards, but I left it at that for fear of messing up what was reasonably good.

At COG it was just me and Mick when we started out, the first shot being a small crocodile at about 10 yards and I put 2 bolts over the top, after that I was hitting most targets with a little vertical error but very little horizontal error. It soon became apparent that either my distance judgement, or my previous calibration was a bit out at longer ranges.
After a few shots I let Mick try it at about 30 yards. I shot first to check the sight was about right, he put his shot about an inch from mine and closer to the inner kill. I was pleased with that as it shows the crossbow is pretty solid and consistent. Mick actually made a fine shot with his bow too, so I took a pic. (top left)
It was just after this target that Brian caught up and joined us.

 Basically out to about 30 yards, my sight marks and estimation were reasonable and I could hardly miss as long as I set the sights slightly short, it almost seemed too easy! Beyond that was trickier and on the longer shots I tended to shoot over, if I put one over, a slight adjustment would put the second on target.

We shot 18 targets going round once shooting from both A and B sets of pegs, this allowed us to get our shooting done in time for a ham sandwich, bowl of chips and a pint at the pub.

Unbeknown to me Brian took some pics of me cocking the bow and shooting which he sent to me, thanks Brian :-)

I'll probably leave the crossbow for now although there is plenty I could do to fine tune the performance, mostly by improving the sighting and actually making some bolts that are visible! The bolts are cheap ones with anodised aluminium shafts which are a pinkish red colour, now you'd think they'd show up, but I have a slight red/green deficiency (like many men) and in a dark woodland they don't show up in flight. White or yellow bolts would be much better, this mainly matters if you miss with the first shot as you'll know if you've missed high or low. On one long shot I simply never saw the bolts despite having both eyes open. As it happens they were all high, but I couldn't tell.
Update:- I reviewed the sight marks (on the Monday) on my adjustable scope mount by clamping it in a workmate with the scope lined up at a distant reference point. As I adjusted the mount I could see the crosshairs didn't move until I got beyond the 20 yard mark due to slop/backlash in the mechanism. Up to about 40 yards the graticule in the scope was enough to adjust for the elevation. So a fixed mount would probably be more reliable sighed up at say 30 yards, the graticule would then be used for range compensation. Sometimes simple is best!
I probably won't shoot the crossbow at an open shoot but it was fun to have a go at 3Ds shooting with friends. There are a couple of reasons why I won't shoot it much, but it's mostly that I feel it doesn't have the same intimate connection with the archer that a self wood bow has and that it would be easy to get lured into chasing perfect scores. I feel it becomes more of a distance estimation test and about scoring tactics rather than pure fun.
I tend to shun competition as it's easy to spoil the enjoyment.
Indeed on Facebook there was recently someone who said that the thought taking kneeling shots with a crossbow was cheating, despite the NFAS rules specifically saying using any part of your body for support was ok.
They said, if you take the rules literally then it's within the rules! I did ask what other way you could take the rules? The irony is that the person involved actually used a strap ,which IS arguably against the rules! (Which I quote below)
"The archer must not use a rest of any description which provides an additional point of support for the bow whilst shooting. This does not include the archers own body".
That little incident nicely sums up why I don't shoot competitively.

Anyhow, why did I make it? For the fun of the engineering challenge, to improve my skills and understanding, so I could see what it was like to shoot, so I could compare the performance against my usual bow, and so that I'd have an appreciation of shooting a higher velocity bow.

For now I'm working on the Elder stave with the Willow levers, but I reserve the right to tinker with the crossbow if I get the urge!