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Archery FAQ Frequently Asked Question
Contents Equipment (Mainly
Recurve/Olympic Bows) The Bow: Unlike the "classical" English longbow which is D shaped when strung, the ends of the limbs of a recurve bend forward again. The reason for this shape is mainly increased efficiency of the bow. Basically there are still three different kinds of recurve bows on the market:
The limbs are usually:
Compound bows: For FITA tournaments there are only three restrictions:
Arrows: Until
the mid eighties the most commonly used arrows were made out of aluminium tubes (mainly
"XX75" and "X7" by Easton). In order to get flatter trajectories (i.e.
to speed up the arrows) there have been two new types of shaft material: either a full
carbon arrow (e.g. "Diva" by Beman or "Exacta" by AFC) or an aluminium
carbon compound (e.g. "ACE" and "ACC" by Easton), with a very thin
Al-tube inside and some layers of carbon fibres on the outside. These carbon arrows and
especially the aluminium carbon arrows are extremely light so that shooting these arrows
is almost like dry-firing the bow. There are also some aluminium ultra-lights, which are
large diameter Al arrows with very thin walls but ultra-lights are a bit heavier than the
carbons. Fletching and nocks For fletching there are two options: either plastic vanes or real feathers. I would not recommend using real feathers outside, since they suffer very much from moisture. For lightweight arrows ((Al-)C) it is generally recommended to use very light and small vanes. Their angle of attack should be very small (0.5 to 2 degrees) just to ensure that the air flow comes to the same side on each vane. NEVER TRY TO SHOOT AN ARROW WITH A DAMAGED NOCK Now to the controversial subject of gluing nocks: insert type nocks (like the Easton ACE nocks or the Beiter nocks) could be shot without gluing them to the arrow, one might like to use a little glue to prevent them from rotating within the arrow tube. The other type of nocks (like the "Bjorn nocks" for example) are usually glued to the arrow. Some people only push them very hard onto the cone and twist them - if one has glued a nock onto the cone before this method will not work since the rough structure of the cone is now filled with the remains of the glue. Gluing should also be done very carefully: one should only use glue with non-aggressive solvent. The solvent of many glues causes structural damage to the nocks (for non opaque nocks one can see this with a magnifying glass, if the structure is damaged one will see many tiny little lines (fractures!)). Stabilisers: Stabilisers should steady the bow when shooting. They are made out of the same materials as arrows. A popular setup would be: long rod, v-bar, two short rods and a v-bar extender, sometimes there will be an additional short rod on the upper part of the riser section. View from above: /short rod
/
long rod | ###
===============|==### riser and between v-bar and riser the
| ### v-bar extender
v-bar \
\
Some newer stabilising systems do not require the use of Torque Flight Compensators (TFCs) for the short rods. And it is questionable whether one needs TFCs at all, except for adding weight... Competitions: Target: FITA: The target face consists of ten rings made out of five different colours The scoring is 10,9 (gold), 8,7 (red), 6,5 (blue), 4,3 (black), 2,1 (white) from inner to outer. The rings all have the same thickness (except for the compound competitions where the ten is made smaller). GNAS Rounds (U.K.): These rounds use the 5 zone scoring which counts all of the gold as 9, the red as 7, the blue as 5, the black as 3 and the white as 1. Rounds As taken from the GNAS handicap and
classification tables. Outdoor - metric rounds (10 zone scoring) 122cm face 80cm face
90m 70m 60m 50m 40m 30m | 50m 40m 30m 20m 10m
FITA (Gentlemen) | 36 36 | 36 36
FITA (Ladies) | 36 36 | 36 36
Metric 1 | 36 36 | 36 36
Metric 2 | 36 36 | 36 36
Metric 3 | 36 36 | 36 36
Metric 4 | 36 36 | 36 36
Long Metric (Gentlemen) | 36 36 |
Long Metric (Ladies) | 36 36 |
Short Metric | | 36 36
Long Metric 1 | 36 36 |
Long Metric 2 | 36 36 |
Long Metric 3 | 36 36 |
Long Metric 4 | 36 36 |
Short Metric 1 | | 36 36
Short Metric 2 | | 36 36
Short Metric 3 | | 36 36
Short Metric 4 | | 36 36
FITA 900 | 30 30 30 |
Indoor (10 zone scoring) FITA 18m 60 at 18m, 40cm face FITA 25m 60 at 25m, 60cm face Combined FITA 60 at 25m, 60cm face and 60 at 18m, 40cm face Bray 1 30 at 18m, 40cm face Bray 2 30 at 25m, 60cm face Portsmouth 60 at 20yd, 60cm face Stafford 72 at 30m, 80cm face
122CM Face Only 100yd 80yd 60yd 50yd 40yd 30yd 20yd York | 72 48 24 Hereford | 72 48 24 Bristol 1 | 72 48 24 Bristol 2 | 72 48 24 Bristol 3 | 72 48 24 Bristol 4 | 72 48 24 St. George | 36 36 36 Albion | 36 36 36 Windsor | 36 36 36 Short Windsor | 36 36 36 Junior Windsor | 36 36 36 New Western | 48 48 Long Western | 48 48 Western | 48 48 Short Western | 48 48 Junior Western | 48 48 Short Junior Western | 48 48 American | 30 30 30 St. Nicholas | 48 36 New National | 48 24 Long National | 48 24 National | 48 24 Short National | 48 24 Junior National | 48 24 Short Junior National | 48 24 Outdoor American metric rounds (10 zone scoring) 122cm face 80cm face
90m 70m 60m 50m 40m 30m 20m | 50m 40m 30m 20m 10m
FITA 900 | 30 30 30 |
Junior Metric 900 | 30 30 30 |
Cadet Metric 900 | 30 30 30 |
Metric Easton 600 | 20 20 20 |
Metric Collegiate 600 | 20 20 20 |
Boys Modified Collegiate| 20 20 | 20
Girls Mod. Collegiate | 20 20 | 20
Boys Collegiate | 20 20 | 20
"720" Collegiate | | 24 24 24
Indoor American rounds NAA 300 Indoor 50 at 20yd, 16in face scoring 5,4,3,2,1 Chicago Indoor 96 at 20yd, 16in face scoring 9,7,5,3,1 This is a study of archery techniques and practice, designed to help archers at all levels to look at their performance in a new light. Topics covered include: a fundamental assessment of archery technique; a study of the method and mental approach of a champion archer; picture sequences of top archers in action; tournament tactics; and equipment and bow tuning. Available to buy at the Archery Bookstore Click Here
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