The
Beginners Guide To Archery
The best place to find all the
information you need when starting at archery.
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2. Common Bows and Equipment
RECURVE OR OLYMPIC: This is the only type of bow allowed in Olympic competition, as yet. Its limbs curve away from the archer. This is the direct descendant of the bows of antiquity, differing only in the materials used and refinements. The force required to pull an Olympic bow increases directly with the distance pulled.
Bow
handles (risers) are made of aluminium alloys and are machined for a combination
of strength and lightness. Some bow handles are made of a magnesium and
aluminium mixture. Some lower cost, beginners bows have wood risers, these also
are commonly used by young children to. Some hand-made bows also have wooden
risers.
Bow limbs are generally constructed of man-made materials, such as fiberglass, carbon and syntatic foam. The limbs store the energy of the draw and release it to the arrow. The string and the limbs are commonly removed from the riser when the bow is not in use, allowing for easy storage this is commonly known as a "take-down" bow.
Bows have stabilisers to reduce torque (twisting) in the arrows upon release. They also have sights to aid in aiming and rests to help align the shot.
Most bow strings are made of either "Fast Flight", also known as "Kevlar". The important point to be made about the string is that it must not stretch under normal environmental conditions, as that would change the bows pull weight and make consistency impossible. A layer of string material called the serving is placed where the arrow is nocked to snugly match the notch on the arrow, and a small ring is permanently placed on the serving to mark where the arrow rests when nocked. A small button, called the kisser button, is often used to assure that the back end of the arrow is always pulled back to the proper, repeatable anchor point. When properly drawn, the kisser button rests right between the lips.
An arrow is pulled back to the anchor point using the middle three fingers of the draw hand. These fingers are often covered with a glove or a leather "tab" which protects the fingers. A tab may have a metal shelf built in so that the two fingers on either side of the arrow do not squeeze it.
On Olympic bows a clicker is a small, spring-loaded lever that is held out away from its resting point by the arrow. When the arrow is drawn back to exactly the same point each time, the clicker slips past the tip of the arrow, producing an audible "click", which tells the archer he has the arrow at the same, repeatable release point. This causes very close to the same amount of tension to be used on every shot, so the arrow flight is the same.
A sight allows the archer, when the arrow is properly drawn, to line the bow up with the centre of the target by eye. The sight generally has adjustments in up-down and left-right dimensions with calliper-style read outs so that ageing equipment, weather, temperature and distance to the target may be accommodated. Olympic archery allows for sights which do not have lenses or electronics associated with them.
Arm guards and chest protectors protect the skin from string burn, as well as provide a low-resistance surface that the string may skim over easily upon release. A pair of binoculars or a sighting scope allows the archer to see the arrows in the target, and thereby make corrections to the sight as required. A quiver to hold arrows and other equipment completes the archer's accessories.
A Compound Bow: The Compound bow, unlike the Olympic bow, is never taken down between uses. The great tension pre-set into the lambs can only safely be countered when the bow is couched in piece of equipment called a bow press. The cams are synchronised when this is done, and are held in place by the tension. Compound bow cases must be able to accommodate the entire bow.
Because the Compound bow's forte is accuracy, equipment which increases the accuracy is deemed fair for compound use while it is not for Olympic archery. The site may include electronics and/or lenses to increase accuracy, and a release aid, rather than fingers, may be used. A release aid is a mechanical "finger" that grips the string and releases it when the trigger is pressed by the draw hand.
Arrows
Arrows in the recurve (Olympic) bow events can travel in excess of 150 miles per hour, while compound arrows can fly in excess of 225 miles per hour. The shafts are made of either aluminium or aluminium with carbon fibres. Aluminium arrows are more uniform in weight and shape, while carbon arrows fly faster and provide less cross-wind resistance, and are therefore more useful in long distance outdoor archery.
One end of the arrow is weighted and tipped with a target point, designed to penetrate but a short distance in the target butt. The other end features a nocking point, a plastic cap glued or otherwise attached to the end of the arrow. Its fingers grip the string until flung loose, and it provides a protection for the shaft by deflecting hits from later incoming arrows. This generally destroys the nock, but leaves the arrow reusable. Sometimes, of course, the aim is too perfect to deflect; the resulting "Robin-Hood" is both spectacular and expensive, as both arrows are usually destroyed.
On the shaft itself fletchings are glued to stabilise the arrow's flight. Sometimes they are glued in such a way as to cause the shaft to spin around its long dimension, further stabilising its flight at a cost to its flat trajectory. The fletchings are generally three in number, one of which (the index feather) has a different colour than the other two.
Fletchings may be plastic "feathers" or solid vanes, in a variety of shapes, lengths and, of course, colours.
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