Let the string settle first
A new string is not stable in its first few shots. The bundle is still equalizing, the servings are still seating into the cam grooves, and the twists are still settling to their working geometry. Installing a peep on shot one of a new string means the peep is going into a bundle that will change shape in the next few draw cycles. Wait a little.
The realistic rule: about ten shots is enough for most modern pre-stretched strings. A properly pre-stretched string does most of its final equalization in the first few draw cycles on the bow. If the string was not pre-stretched, wait longer — twenty or thirty shots — but nobody expects an archer to shoot a hundred shots without a peep. That is not a practical instruction, and the string does not need it.
How you can tell the string is close to settled: brace height and ATA measure the same before and after those first shots. Any temporary reference mark on the string is not rotating shot to shot. If those two things hold, install the peep.
Press the bow, then split the strands
The peep sits through the string, not around it. Half of the strands go on one side of the peep body, half on the other. Getting the strands cleanly separated without damaging them is the whole mechanical trick.
Put the bow in a press. Draw the string forward enough to relieve most of the tension on the bundle. The strands should be loose enough that you can push a bodkin or a small peep-splitter tool between them without forcing anything. Never split the strands under full brace tension — the fibers do not want to move when they are loaded, and forcing them will nick individual strands.
Count the strands on your string. Split them exactly in half. On a 20-strand string, ten go on each side of the peep. Count them again after the split before you insert the peep body. Getting this uneven — nine and eleven, say — will cause a small persistent asymmetry that shows up as a peep that does not sit square in the string, or a peep that rotates slightly off-axis as the string loads. Even strand counts on both sides of the peep is not optional.
Slide the peep body through the split. Set it at the height you have marked. Most archers install the peep between two existing serving locations — high enough that it sits at the anchor eye position at full draw, low enough that it clears the top cam and the string suppressor at brace. If you are not sure of the exact height, install it slightly high; you can twist it down later without re-splitting the string.
Do not twist the bundle to rotate the peep
This is the mistake that quietly ruins peep installs after the fact.
The peep is installed. You come to full draw and look through it, and it is off — a few degrees off-axis, or cocked, or presenting its aperture at an angle. The instinct is to add or subtract a twist to the main string to bring the peep back into alignment. Do not do that.
The main string has a specific number of twists in it, set when the string was built. Those twists give the string its length, brace height, ATA, and peak weight. Twisting the bundle to correct a peep alignment changes all of those numbers at once. You have traded a peep rotation error for a brace and ATA error, and now the bow is out of tune in a way that is much harder to see than the crooked peep was.
If the peep is off after install, start the install over. Press the bow, remove the peep, re-split the strands cleanly, and re-seat the peep. It is a five-minute correction on a bench. Twisting the string to fake the peep into alignment is a five-month correction on the range, once the archer finally traces the mystery brace-height drift back to a bad peep install.
The check: after install, at brace, brace height and ATA measure the same as they did before the install. Take the bow off the press, come to full draw, and look through the peep. If the aperture presents cleanly to the eye, you are done. If it is off, press the bow again and redo the install. Do not twist your way out of it.
What good and bad installs look like a month later
A good install sits at the same rotation and height a month later. Peak weight and brace still hold spec. The archer has not had to touch the string to bring the peep back into alignment.
A bad install shows up in one of two ways. Either the peep is off-axis and has been from the start (the strands were split unevenly, and the archer accepted it) or the bow's specs have drifted since the install (someone twisted the bundle to rotate the peep, and traded a peep problem for a tune problem). Both are the same fix: press the bow, redo the install cleanly, and put the bundle back to its original twist count.
The Axial position
Published 2026-07-09 · Axial Bowstrings