Lake Joondalup Archery Club

Archery Equipment

Before buying a bow, you will need to determine if you need a right hand or left hand bow. There are two schools of thought as to bow hand selection. Firstly, eye dominance determines whether you need a left or right hand bow ³⁰, and secondly your dominant hand makes that determination ³¹. To determine your dominant eye, hold your hands out in front of you at arms length, palms outwards and fingers pointed upwards. Cross them with thumbs at the bottom forming a small hole. Pick out an object you can see through the hole. Now close one eye, and see if you can see the object. Do the same with the other eye. Whichever eye can see the object is your dominant eye ¹¹. If you saw the object with your right eye, and you are right handed then you need a right hand bow. If you are left eye dominant and left handed then you need a left hand bow. The vast majority of people will fit into one of those categories. In the event that your dominant eye and dominant hand differ, then it is probably best you select the bow you feel most comforable with. Eye dominance can be retrained ¹².

In an addition to an armguard, the following equipment is necessary regardless of what type of bow you use. Longbows do not use stabilizers or wrist straps.

Compound bows and Accessories

At present, the majority of members at our club shoot with compound bows. Choice of type of bow is purely personal. Compound bows are generally more powerful and accurate than recurve bows. Recurve, in turn, are generally more accurate than longbows. To compensate for expected accuracy, scoring requirements are adjusted in accordance with the FITA handicapping system ¹³. The resultant handicap should be the same, regardless of what type of bow you shoot. No bow is better than any other, it is your choice.

Compound bows have two wheels (cams) at the end of their limbs. A cable system works in conjunction with cams to store energy and then release it when the archer lets go of the string. Arrow speeds in excess of 300 feet per second are not uncommon. When the archer is at full draw, most compound bows allow some relaxation (termed "let off") of the poundage held by the archer. This allows the archer to aim for longer periods with less expense of energy ¹⁴. The compound bow is the most technical of all bows. Australia will be entering a team of compound archers at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 to be held in New Delhi, India.

As with any other bow, there is no point buying a bow that you cannot draw. This is a common mistake new archers make. Remember, you will need to draw the bow back at least or over 144 times in a FITA tournament ¹⁵, not once or twice. Hunters may shoot with high poundage bows (70lbs or more) due to the heaviness of the arrows they shoot. They also don't shoot as many arrows as a target archer. Target archers are not permitted to shoot with more than a 60lbs draw ¹⁶. All our Mens Open compound archers shoot with poundages ranging from 50-60lbs in order to reach 90m with accuracy.

When buying a bow, the draw length is critical. A rough estimate of draw length is taking your height (in inches), take off 15 inches and then divide the result by 2. For example, if you are 6 foot tall, your height in inches is 72 inches, take off 15 inches, the result being 57 inches. Dividing 57 inches by two results in an estimated draw length of 28.5 inches ¹⁷. An alternative is to take your height (in inches) and divide by 2.5. Only buy arrows once you have a bow that fits, as the arrows must then fit the bow. If the arrows are too short, you won't be able to use them at all, if they are too long your accuracy will suffer. Prior to tournaments, bows, arrows and release aides must pass a safety and compliance inspection. No electronics of any type are permitted to be affixed to a tournament bow ¹⁸.

Archery uses both metric and imperial forms of measurements. Most compound bows are made in the USA and are manufactured with imperial measurements. FITA, the governing body of Olympic and Target archery works with the metric system. Hence, your draw length might be 27 inches to match the specifications of your compound bow, but you will need to shoot up to 90 metres (in accordance with FITA regulations).

Recurve bows and Accessories

Archers are commonly introduced to archery with recurve bows. A basic recurve bow is generally a lot cheaper than a compound and are therefore an affordable option for a club when providing introductory and/or hire equipment. There are minor differences in technique. Good quality recurves are similarly priced to compounds.

As with any other type of bow, recurves need to be set up to suit you, the archer. The poundage must not be excessive as the bow will be hard to draw and even harder to hold when aiming.

Recurve bows are considered as more traditional. Arrow speed is considerably less and therefore removing arrows from targets is generally easier. There is no let-off of poundage at full draw, so they are harder to keep still at full draw. They are currently the only type of bow permitted in the Olympics ¹⁹. Both recurve and compound bows are used in the Commonwealth Games.

Always use a stringer when stringing a recurve, for safety reasons, as a string flying off when being strung can cause serious eye damage ²⁰.

Longbows

Longbows have a long and distinguished history. In 1415 they made their presence felt at the battle of Agincourt where Henry V famously vanquished the French army with hails of lethal arrows. Although outnumbered, strategic placement of his archers won the day. ²⁸ Robin Hood is depicted with a longbow and tales of his amazing accuracy are legendary. The English only replaced the longbow as a weapon of choice in the 1600's, with the advent of gunpowder. The longbow is so named as it relates to the height of the archer. ²⁹ According to the Guiness Book of Records, the record poundage pulled is a little over 200 pounds.

Longbows vary in poundage and, as with all bows, must fit the archer in terms of size and poundage. Chris Binyon (one of the world's longbow champions) provides specialist coaching for members. His training is goaled at becoming competent to compete at an international level.

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