Regional Stock Reports

Archery is about striking a target with an arrow shot from a bow. The bow can either be an upright bow or a crossbow, although most people think of upright bows when they hear the word ‘archery’. Within the sport or hobby of target archery, there are two kinds: target archery and field archery. The champion is the archer with the highest combined score of his arrows that struck the target.

Target archery necessitates shooting arrows, usually six, from a variety of distances usually 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres. The archers stand in a line before their targets starting at 90 metres and shoot an arrow on the order of whoever is in charge.

Then they all move forward to the 70 metre mark and shoot again on the command and so on. After the six arrows have been shot, the archers proceed to their targets and add up their scores.

Field archery necessitates walking around a course where targets are set at a variety of distances. The targets can be the traditional round ones or they may be replicas of wild animals like rabbits, elk or bears.

Traditional targets are made from straw. Handfuls of straw are tied with string and made into a kind of rope. This rope is then wound around and around itself until a target of the right size has been made. The rope is held in situ either by pinning it or tying it. A canvas or paper target is then pinned to the front of it.

Target archery can be practiced outdoors or indoors and the target sizes are different to match the different distances. An outdoor archery target can be either 122 centimetres or 80 centimetres in diameter. The centre of this target is 24.4 centimetres in diameter and there are four concentric bands around this. The indoor target is 80 centimetres in diameter. The centre of this size target is 16 centimetres and also has four concentric circles around it.

Each ring is about eight centimetres wide on the smaller target. The targets are coloured gold in the centre, then red, blue, black and white. At the centre of the gold is what many archers call the ‘pinhole’.

It is a small cross of about two millimetres in width. The target should then be placed on an easel or stand with a gradient of about 15 degrees. The pinhole ought to be 130 centimetres off the ground (give or take five centimetres).

If there is more than one archer, the pinholes should all be at the same height off the ground and the targets should be clearly numbered. The shooting line should be plainly marked and an archer’s shooting spot should be marked too. Five yards behind the archer, there should be another line, behind which non-competitors may stand.

The danger zone between the archers and the targets should be roped off to prevent spectators wandering into the line of fire. Knowing that the spectators are kept well back helps the archers to concentrate on their accuracy.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is currently concerned with longbows for sale. If you would like to know more or for special deals, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.

Archery has been practiced for a long time. Bows have been discovered from at least 2,500 years before Christ, so 4,500 years ago. It is also likely that archery goes back several thousand years before that, but because most bows were made solely of wood, they have not lasted.

In the early days, bows were utilized for hunting and keeping raiders away. Nowadays, there are still some cultures that rely on hunting with bows and arrows to put meat on the table and there are also people who decide to do it that way for sport.

The equipment involved in archery is basically a bow and an arrow, but it goes deeper than that. If you really want to get into archery, you might want to think about making your own bow, your own arrows and your own practice targets.

There are excellent kits for making your own bows, but there are too many varieties of bows for us to go into all of them in this article. However, be assured that if you do want to construct your own bow, you will find a description of the materials and the techniques on the Internet.

You can also make your own arrows and that is an easier subject to deal with. If you begin with the shaft, it can be made of wood, aluminium alloy or carbon fibre, all of which can be bought easily. Then, at the sharp end, you can choose your tip or point.

The arrow head should match the task that the arrow is meant for. If it is meant to kill, then a broadhead, if it is intended to make a hole in a sheet of paper, then a simple brass tip.

The fletching can be bought separately as well. You can feathers or plastic and with a little practice, you can use feathers that you have acquired yourself. Goose feathers were historically the ones most well-liked.

Lastly there is the nock, which is the part of the arrow that connects with the string. The nock can be as simple as a ‘v’ or a ‘u’ cut in the arrow, or it can be a plastic or metal item that is slotted over the end of the arrow.

The bow string is too hard to make oneself, unless you really want to go into that technology. The bow string is better bought.

Archery targets, the round ones, you connect with target archery are a different kettle of fish, because you definitely can make them yourself. You first have to get hold of a load of straw and then take handfuls of it. Truss these handfuls of straw into ‘ropes’ and make a circle like a Catherine Wheel out of them.

Sew these together until they make the size target you want. Put this on a stand or nail it to a tree and then fasten the conventional archery target to the face of it.

You can paint the conventional concentric circles on cloth, canvas or paper. It does not have to cost a lot to take part in archery. Remember that 5,000 or 500 years ago, people did not have much, yet they still enjoyed their sport or hobby of archery.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on various subjects, but is presently concerned with archery bows for sale. If you would like to know more or for special deals, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.