Be Excellent To Each Other

Archie and Fletcher were born to do this too.

Last competition of the winter season today, a double Frostbite. 80cm target shot from 30m.

It was ridiculous, freezing cold, high winds, rain, hail! I spent most of the time trying to work out how to keep my arrow on the rest without it getting blown off by the wind. Must have drawn and let down 3 times for each shot, so I'm exhausted!

Still fun though, mostly because of everyone constantly moaning how shit it was...

My PB is 273/360 for that round... Today I shot a 164 and a 229...

**Makes notes that if I'm going to attack Trooper and stand a chance of defeating him, wait until the weather is bad**

There's some weird focussing and blurring in those photos

Yeah, probably some weird mode I left on by accident

In excellently coincidental news, the estate in which I now live on is named Archery Fields.

First proper shoot with the new bow on Sunday. 40lb draw up from 32lb, it's a bit of a difference!
Managed to shoot a full session and get a fair few golds at 30yds though, so bodes well. 50yd 252 score is the next challenge.

That's 36 arrows that need to score 7+, right?

Correct, done as the first shoot of the day. Do it twice and you get a badge and move up to the next distance.
5 zone scoring, so yellow is 9, red is 7, blue is 5, black is 3, white is 1

Sounds like a decent challenge, good luck with it!

Got my 40yd 252 at the first attempt, the 30yd took a fair few tries though. So no idea how the 50yd will go.

It'll go TWANG

It's more of a THONK with the new carbon riser

Possibly dumb question, but is the distance the only thing that changes? Same target, scoring etc?

Not a dumb question!

The distance, target size, target face, scoring etc... all changes.

Take a look at my indoor season for example:


The Frostbite was 30m, 80cm sized target using 10 zone scoring (X,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Compared to 5 zone scoring which I mentioned in another post. 9,7,5,3,1)
Vegas triple face is 20yds, 40cm sized target, 10 zone scoring but on 3 individual targets that only go from 10 down to 6. 1 arrow in each target, if you miss at least the 6 you get a zero score.


Portsmouth is 20yds, 60cm target, 10 zone scoring (but no x)
WA18 is 18m, 40cm target, 10 zone scoring
Worcester is 20yds, 40cm target, black and white target face with only 5 scoring zones.



For outdoor stuff it gets more and more complex!
https://www.burtonbridgearchers.co.uk/a ... ry/rounds/ is good example fo the type of stuff you shoot.

232, was on track first half then shit the bed in the second half. Next time though...

That's still pretty damned good! Nice work.

Damn Troops, you're in deep

...and it turns out that was still good enough for second in class

Woo! Nice one, mate.

I paid the fee for the beginners course that I'm starting soon -- 6 weeks starting May 14th. Eek!

Good luck! If I can help with anything, don't hesitate to ask

Busy day out there today, most people we've had in a session for a long time.



First time shooting at 60m, mine are the arrows with the white wrap. Pretty happy with that!

Stop the press! Archery club winter league results just in!

Frostbite : I came 7th out of 19 participants
Worcester : 3rd out of 5
Portsmouth : 3rd out of 8

Decent, do you get a medal for the bronze positions or are they not those kinda competitions?

No, but I do get badges for getting over a certain score

Sounds very Scout-y

It absolutely is

Got to have badges on your quiver, to strike fear into the hearts of your enemy archers when you are on the competition line.

New bow is taking some time to settle into, so the obvious thing to do is buy another bow! English Longbow this time, off to buy one next weekend with a couple of folks from the archery club

I did come first in the Novice category for the Bedfordshire vs Northamptonshire Frostbite competition though.

Let me know if you no longer need any of your 'beginner' bows...

I definitely have a riser and limbs I don't need any more, it's the bow I brought to the cottage...

'ow much? I'm not starting the course until May 14th so I probably won't need one until after then, but good to start thinking about these things...

Good question, probably around 150 for the riser, started limbs, button, string, rest etc...

But you really need to make sure you can use it, which you won't know until you do your course it's a 25 inch riser with long limbs at 22lb, so it all depends on your draw length and other stuff which you will find out about!

I think we need a jargon buster on this thread.

I recently watched the mythbusters epsisode(s) where they investigated the 'splitting an arrow clean through with another arrow' (I never watched this show until my kids recently sowed an interest, so now we are working through them as a family).

Anyway, at one point they got a professional archer in and he was clearly kitted out with great gear and was stunningly accurate and precise, super smooth. However, he was drawing the string back with this little handheld gadgety tool that could clip on and 'hold' the string until a little button was pressed to release the string. I dunno what it was called, it looked neatly clever and helpful but also to my inexperienced and untrained eyes it looked a little.... cheaty or cheap. What's the view on those things amongst people that actually know what they are doing and aren't just some guy lazily watching TV and (like me) judging things they know nothing about?

Riser (the bit you hold)
Limbs (stick on the top and bottom and do the bendy springy bit)
string (string)
rest (the bit you put on your riser to stop the arrow falling off when you are trying to shoot it)
arrows (the bits that stick into stuff)
stringer (big black dude is surprisngly english you learn in later years)
other stringer (the thing you use to put your string on your bow)
tab (protects your fingers from the string cutting them in half)
armguard (protects your arm from the string cutting it in half)
arrow puller (to get your arrows out of the target)
bow stand (so you don't get it dirty)
sight (for cheats who can't handle barebow)
finger sling (so you don't drop your bow after you shoot)
stabiliser rod (sticks out the end for some reason, I guess I'll find out one day)
plunger button (no idea reallym, apparently it helps the arrow fly straight, but who knows how)
quiver (somewhere other than the target to put your arrows)
bag (to put it all in)

Mechanical release, used with compound bows as they are higher poundage. You'll destroy the nerves on your fingers without one.
Depending on your point of view, compound bows are either the pinacle of bow engineering, or point and shoot for cheaters Magnified scope, cam system so there is little weight to hold at full draw, mechanical release you you don't have to worry about that part of your shot etc...

Well that's why you've gone for a longbow, right? Take it right back to basics, proper old-school!

Bling!

New bow day! Cheapest one in the shop at £80. 40lb "Longbow" (can't actually be used in longbow competitions as it doesn't have horn string nocks, as has a cut in the stave to allow the arrow to pass through easier, which technically isn't allowed)
It'll be perfect for just turning up and lobbing some sticks at a mannequin in the grass 80yds away though My recurve takes about 5-10 minutes to setup each time, this one you just pull the string on and start shooting.

This is good fun, 120yds!

This woman is going to get annoyed with me...

Did my first archery lesson on the beginner course earlier.

I hit the target with all the arrows, vaguely in the middle. I’ll take it

Good stuff! Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, it was really good fun! It was a bit slow going while they got everyone set up with their kit and explained the safety procedures etc. but once people got confident with what they were doing things moved a lot quicker.

Managed to get off 5 details of 3 arrows each in the time available (5 targets spread across 17 people!) and seemed to be able to hit fairly accurately and consistently -- but the target was literally 10 yards away.

Got to start somewhere! All the beginner courses do it at 10yds to start with, saves a lot of walking around looking for arrows
17 people is quite a big group, ours had 10 to start with and a couple dropped out.

Week 2 done and dusted. Learned proper technique for holding the bow, using a finger sling (and was given one to keep!) and also using a sight for the first time.

My groupings were really consistent, generally within 2-3 inches which I'm happy with at this point! They moved our targets back from 10yds to 18yds halfway through the session this time and, after adjusting the sight, my groupings remained largely the same!

That's good! I'd be super happy with a 3 inch group at 18yds now!

I contacted an archery school a year or two before Covid. Turned out the guy who ran it had 'died suddenly' and I wasn't sure if that was code for him getting shot with an arrow in the head or something and I never got around to finding a place after that. I'm kind of keen to give it a go. I live somewhere semi-rural so there has to be somewhere around here that does it. We've got fields for days.

Week 3 of the course tonight, and the two main tutors were off on holiday so the subs came in and took us to their field archery course. No instruction, just standing at a 'firing point' (not sure if that's the right term, it would be for rifle shooting -- a numbered peg in the ground on the shooting line where you shoot from), firing our 3 arrows at various targets, and then moving to the next peg along after collecting.

Tremendous fun, I had a blast. I was the only person in the group to successfully hit a lizard target that was about 50-60m away from the firing point.

Photos! https://imgur.com/a/632bxbY