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How was your session today?

BrokenArrows

Hi All,

I'm just getting back into archery now after a 10 year break.

In an effort to spring some life back into this forum how about we post how our training is going.

How about everyone post a scoring attempt and we can keep track of how we are improving. Whether its 5, 10 or 20 ends. Just say to yourself im going to score the next X rounds and post them here.

So today after 45 minutes of practicing I decided to score the next 10 ends to give myself a benchmark.

18 meters - Olympic Recurve - 10 ends = 162 (5.4 average per arrow).

Hopefully ill get back to my 8+ average from many years ago.

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greysides

Good going.

BrokenArrows

Haven't been shooting much lately but managed to win a WA18 competition in my club at the weekend. Qualified with 523 and managed to win the head 2 head rounds.

greysides

Archery will be hard to learn without contact. Not impossible, hard. Errors will be ingrained before being pointed out. You'll need to get archery savvy quick. Make the most of books, videos and websites. Best ofluck.

BrokenArrows

Firblog wrote: »

Thanks for the praise I think that was by far the best set of 12 I've managed

It was a recurve (30lb) olympic archery kit from merlin in UK, got one for the OH as surprise for Christmas, and then she got me one when it I took a liking to it.

As I said I've managed to get to the maidencity archery club in Derry twice now, - every second Saturday morning - they've put the nock point in the correct position, and pointed out a few basic issues I had. I'll most likely join the club for 6 months to see how I go over the summer; but in that time I'll only get there max 12 times so I'll need the weather to be kind to get some practice in.

Which such few trips to the club then i definitely recommend youtube. There is a huge amount of great information regarding olympic recurve shooting.

Look at the videos on how to tune a olympic recurve.
Stuff like (as you already got fixed) the knocking point, brace height, tiller, correct release, correct anchor point, correctly holding the bow etc etc.

There are a million and one tiny things that you can do that will have a tiny impact on your shot, but all combined it creates consistency and accuracy.

Also be patient. When you try something new which is supposed to improve your performance , your shot will always get worse before it gets better. It takes a while to get used to a new element in your shot.

I changed the way i held the string in my finger tab last night. Spent hours with terrible shooting before it finally clicked and my shot went back to the way it was before. I changed the way i held the string because i was getting a numb middle finger, so i distributed more of the weight onto the first and third finger.

Firblog

Thanks for the praise

I think that was by far the best set of 12 I've managed

It was a recurve (30lb) olympic archery kit from merlin in UK, got one for the OH as surprise for Christmas, and then she got me one when it I took a liking to it.

As I said I've managed to get to the maidencity archery club in Derry twice now, - every second Saturday morning - they've put the nock point in the correct position, and pointed out a few basic issues I had. I'll most likely join the club for 6 months to see how I go over the summer; but in that time I'll only get there max 12 times so I'll need the weather to be kind to get some practice in.

BrokenArrows

Thats nice grouping for only doing it for 2 months and from 30 yards.

What setup do you have?

Firblog

I'm an absolute beginner to archery, only got the bow 2 months ago, I've had two beginner sessions with the archery club in Derry, it's a fair bit away from me and can only get there every 2nd Saturday.
I've used a bale of hay (€4 from your nearest farmer

wrapped in that plastic you see round bales in) to pin my target to. I have been hammering away at that, 60cm target from about 30yrds outside.

Took this of my first bullseye

greysides

Shooting in the wind is a big topic and not going to be answered in a nice short post.

As I understand it, in a constant breeze changing your sight is an option, in a gusting wind aiming off is better.

In either event shoot a strong confident shot as the effect of the wind on the archer is greater than its effects on the arrow. Try to time your shots so you bring up the bow as the wind quietens and are ready to shoot in the lull.

BrokenArrows

One of the local clubs is starting their outdoor season this weekend.
They will be having 30, 50,70 and 90 targets.

Ive never shot outdoors so this should be interesting.

My indoor club is setting up a 25m target on friday to help prep for the 30m outdoor targets. Hopefully ill get sighted in on that on friday and will only need minor adjustments at the weekend to up to 30m.

I dont think ill be attempting anything greater than 30 on the first day.

When shooting outdoors do people constantly adjust their sights to adjust for cross wind, or do they just shoot off center for what they think the wind is?

BrokenArrows

Competed in the County of London championships at the weekend.

Very happy with a personal best of 530 which took second place. However I actually took home the gold because the guy in 1st place isn't living in London so isn't eligible and was shooting for fun.

Bit of a low score to take gold, but a win is a win.

Wabbit Ears

Banbh wrote: »

"Never heard of it."
Maybe clout shooting doesn't exist.

Ashbourne Archers runs an annual clout shoot on the clubs birthday.

Its not a popular type of archery but it is a lot of fun.

I'm terrible at it.

greysides

Banbh wrote: »

I was only shooting at about 80 yards, six arrows at a time. They should rename it aerobic archery.
Are there any clubs that organise clout shooting?

There's an annual clout shoot in Wexford around Christmas/New Year, every year. I think its one of the IFAF clubs that run it, possibly Wexford Archery.

Banbh

"Never heard of it."
Maybe clout shooting doesn't exist.

BrokenArrows

Banbh wrote: »

I was only shooting at about 80 yards, six arrows at a time. They should rename it aerobic archery.
Are there any clubs that organise clout shooting?

Never heard of it. I had to Google what it was.

Just back from the club. I did a scoring round for the monthly club league. Shot pretty well, but had two misses which prevented me breaking 500.

Banbh

I was only shooting at about 80 yards, six arrows at a time. They should rename it aerobic archery.
Are there any clubs that organise clout shooting?

BrokenArrows

Banbh wrote: »

I was clout shooting in a field that has been grazed bare but there's a bit of a hill so after a couple of rounds, I was puffed. There's an app on my phone that helps me to mark out 180 yards, which I believe is the correct distance, but I started at half that and nearly came within 10 yards of the clout on a couple of shots.

Will try again tomorrow and might try the beach when the tide is out. The sí who steal arrows can't get them on beaches.

That's a pretty impressive distance. How many arrows are you shooting at a time. Would be a pain to walk that distance and back each time.

Banbh

I was clout shooting in a field that has been grazed bare but there's a bit of a hill so after a couple of rounds, I was puffed. There's an app on my phone that helps me to mark out 180 yards, which I believe is the correct distance, but I started at half that and nearly came within 10 yards of the clout on a couple of shots.

Will try again tomorrow and might try the beach when the tide is out. The sí who steal arrows can't get them on beaches.

greysides

Shooting but not scoring.

BrokenArrows

Someone else has to be occasionally shooting. I can't be the only one posting in this thread. Haha.

greysides

Good work.

BrokenArrows

Another good tuning session today.

One of the club members noticed my arrows were fish tailing a lot as they left the bow so spent a while tuning with a bare shaft.

1. Determined the arrows were too stiff for my poundage.
2. Increased the poundage to the maximum by screwing in the tiller bolts the whole way.
3. Evened them out so that the distance from limb to string was the same at the top and bottom.
4. Adjusted the brace height to give maximum arrow speed.

Bare shaft was initially about 80 CM to the LEFT of my group. After the above adjustments it was about 30 CM still to the left.

5. Softened up my button & adjusted the center shot a little.

6. Bare shaft still about 15 cm to the left but better than it was and fish tailing is significantly reduced.

7. Shot a bunch of ends to readjust the sight as it had changed significantly with the above adjustments.

So the conclusion is the arrows are not a perfect match to the limbs. I also confirmed this by consulting the Easton charts. Theyre just a bit too stiff.

Options remaining are to add some weight to the front of the arrows which should help but ill leave that for the moment. Competition coming up next month so want to practice with what i have for the moment.

Also ill probably be increasing the limbs poundage at some point this year so according to the Easton chart they should match a 40-44lbs limbs at 29" draw which looks like a good step up for me.

Either way at the end of the session i was grouping in the 9/10 area with a few ends with all 4 arrows in the 10.
And because of the reduced fish tailing my bad shots should be a little more accurate.

BrokenArrows

Banbh wrote: »

Congrats BA on your constant improvements. Do you have a link to where I might get a target like yours as, at the moment, I'm using a bag of rags tied to the side of a shed.

They're the targets at my local club.

Google "layered foam butt". There are plenty of suppliers.
It's just a bunch of high density foam strapped together with ratchet straps.

If you have any furniture makers near by, they use this foam for cushions. So maybe you could strike a deal with them for any scrap off cuts.

Edit: lots of people use scrap plastic bags as DIY targets. Here is a pretty good one. https://youtu.be/-4zhWIpX61w

Banbh

Congrats BA on your constant improvements. Do you have a link to where I might get a target like yours as, at the moment, I'm using a bag of rags tied to the side of a shed.

BrokenArrows

Amazing session today.

I installed a clicker. From what I was told I was expecting weeks of struggle to get used to it but within 30 minutes it was running smoothly and it had a drastic impact on my groupings.

I was shooting 4 arrows an end and more often than not 3 of the arrows were in the yellow and occasionally all 4.

Very happy with myself.

Edit: and as a side effect it completely eliminated my remaining target panic. So strange, I suddenly had no issues sitting on the yellow waiting for that click. The mind is a very strange thing.

BrokenArrows

I created a removable grip and it feels nice but i havent shot with it because with my regular grip my shooting has been massively improving every session.

Had a 3 hour session today and make some adjustments to my stance and anchor point.

I also made a change where im slowing down my draw to try and be as close to the yellow as possible by the time i anchor. This made a very big difference.

At the end of my session i was still having very nice groupings.

Below is the last shot of the day, which based on my previous long sessions is very good.

Wabbit Ears

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I guess the trick is molding it so that it forces your hand into a single position, and then mounting the grip so that its in the correct orientation.
Might give it a go and see how it turns out.

IMHO molding a grip to your hand, if you're not completely sure of the best grip, exasperates a problem rather than fixing it as now you have a comfortable, but wrong, grip.

greysides

Use google then work away.

BrokenArrows

Another good session last night.
Those 9/10 groups are getting more frequent and misses less frequent.

The change in grip seems to have made a major improvement.

I was wondering what peoples opinion was on a custom molded grip.
I have all necessary bits lying around the house to make a plastic grip molded to my hand.

I guess the trick is molding it so that it forces your hand into a single position, and then mounting the grip so that its in the correct orientation.
Might give it a go and see how it turns out.

BrokenArrows

Another good session yesterday.
I didnt score but misses were way down.

I also made a small change to my hand position which seems to have helped. It feels like a more stable position which reduced the bow movement which obviously increased my accuracy.

greysides

Concentrate on concentrating. Form! Get more consistent. You're getting there. Balance the scoring with form work, biased towards form. Score yourself out of 10 based on your technique ignoring arrow score. Build your feeling of the shot. It's your guide and feedback mechanism.