Contents
1. Shooting Tips
2. Technical:
Compound Bow Limb Twist
Locating Centre Shot
Sights and Sighting
Shooting
Tips
The trouble with Archery is, that when shooting, the body is under a lot of strain
and it is very hard to relax and be comfortable under these circumstances. Yet this is the
key to being able to shoot well with a bow.
The basis for all good shooting with a bow is to be able to hold the bow at full draw as steadily as possible with no discomfort. Everything else flows from this.
The following are some of the things I have learnt about shooting well and perhaps they may be of assistance to novices. The more experienced among you will probably be aware of these things already.
Practice holding the
bow at full draw for extended periods, with the sights aligned on an aiming mark. What you
are trying to achieve is as steady a hold as possible on the target. This can be an
onerous thing to do but if you want to be any good at this sport it is necessary.
Use Area Aiming technique when you prepare for your shot. By this I
mean that since the sights will appear to waver around a lot or a little
on the target (no one can hold perfectly still),
and since you can't do anything about it, train yourself to ACCEPT
this wavering and IGNORE it - ie just let it
happen. Whatever you do, DON'T try to fire a
shot as the sights waver past the 10 ring. This will eventually lead to snatching,
punching and flinching. Now while the sights are wavering around inside your area of hold,
just concentrate on sight alignment and a good release. You will find that, all things
being equal, all of the arrows you fire will fall into a group no bigger than your holding
capacity - and that's the best you can and should expect. If you want to keep all of
your shots in the 10 ring, practice holding until your sights never waver outside the 10
ring.
Many shooters don't realise it but at the moment of release, they allow their bow
hands to drop - a little or a lot - and/or twist. This is an insidious error that will
eventually cause all sorts of problems. Practice concentrating on keeping the bow hand
perfectly still and relaxed at the moment of release.
Try to learn from an early stage, to enjoy the feeling of the sights sitting
nicely in the middle of the target as you go through your release process. Practice
visualising this as often as you can, particularly just on waking of a day and just before
going to sleep. Try to see the sights clearly in your mind and carefully go through the
shot sequence. See the sights imposed squarely in the middle of the 10 ring as the arrow
leaves the bow. It WILL make a difference.
Learn to make your technique repeatable ie use precisely the same technique from
shot to shot. This is the pathway to top performance. Shoot standing on your head if you
want to but whatever you do try to ensure that everything you do in the shot sequence is
the same as for the previous shot assuming, of course, that it was correctly executed.
There are heaps of other things that are important in shooting eg stance, balance,
breathing, duration of hold etc, etc, but it's no good doing these things well if you
can't do those things listed above properly. There is simply no substitute for a lot of
thoughtful practice of the things that really matter.
I have said nothing here about the issue of target panic or gold shyness, because I don't
understand what the problem is - I've never experienced it. I really feel for those that
suffer from it. It obviously causes them great distress. I suspect from what I have seen
of people who suffer from it, that it is a combination of an unsteady hold, a poor aiming
technique and for compound shooters, freezing on the release aid trigger. I've spent a lot
of time over the years doing rifle and pistol shooting - target stuff, including Free
Rifle and International Style pistol shooting and I guess I have become comfortable with
the idea of the sights sitting squarely on the aiming point while I squeeze off a shot. It
is such an automatic thing that I don't even think about it. Perhaps those who experience
target panic in archery might want to try a bit of rifle or pistol shooting - maybe this
will break the habit. Sorry, but I can't really be more helpful than this.
Compound
Bow Limb Twist
I'd like to describe something that had been driving me
crazy for nearly a year. To the cogniscenti amongst you, I will probably appear a tad slow
(old age does this to some of us) but for the rest of you and in particular the beginners
and inexperienced shooters, there may be some value in the following.
I have read a bit about limb twist in compound bows but
never took much notice because my bow didn't appear to have a problem in this regard. But
one thing kept plaguing me and it was the fact that although I had set up centre shot in
accordance with the approved method, I was surprised to see that the arrow, when
viewing the bow from above, was pointing significantly to the left. My thought was that if
centre shot had been set up properly, then the arrow should be parallel to the stabiliser
-
see illustration >
Everyone I asked about this either didn't know why or said it didn't matter. I'm still not
sure whether it does or not. But I do know that at full draw, the effect is even worse and
worse still with split limbs which I sometimes use. I admit to having become somewhat
obsessed about this as it was nagging at my mind and unless the bow manufacturers have
deliberately set the stabiliser insert at an angle (which of course they haven't) then
there should be some logical explanation for this phenomenon. Recently, I changed over to
shoot-through cables for a variety of reasons and had to set up centre shot again. Imagine
my surprise when this time the arrow lined up almost perfectly parallel to the stabiliser.
It immediately became clear to me that the CABLE GUARD causes the
cables to impart significant limb twist to the bow particularly at full
draw. In addition to this I found reference to a centre shot set-up gauge
produced by Golden Key, on the Internet. I'd never heard of it before but I could see what
the idea was and made one up myself. On applying it to the bow I found that the rest had
to come over a little more with the result that the arrow now lines up perfectly parallel
to the stabiliser - see illustration >
The reason that this twist is still there a little bit with the shoot-through cables is
that the string wheels are slightly off centre at the limb tips. I wonder if putting
alternate right and left wheels/cams at the tips and playing with the spacers, one could
centre the string wheel and eliminate all twist altogether?
Anyway, I managed to solve the problem and put my mind to rest to my satisfaction. Does
any of this matter? I honestly don't know. I'm not a good enough shot to be able to
determine what effect all of this has on grouping capacity. All I know is that my bow
groups really well and my mind is finally at rest - and that will do me. Anyone out
there have any views on this?
Locating
Centre Shot
Do this using your bow square. Keep it flat against either the outside or
inside of the riser, mark where the string centre is on the cross arm of the square,
transfer this mark to the other side of the cross arm, then reverse the square, still
keeping it hard up against the riser and move the arrow rest until the arrow lines up with
the transferred mark. Voila!!
Sights
This is one of those subjects
that I hate talking about because everyone has an opinion on it and no matter what you
say, someone will think that you are wrong. However with nearly 30 years of rifle and
pistol shooting under my belt and most of it at a high level, I do know something about
this subject. Just to clear the air right at the start. There is nothing mystical about
shooting, and in particular, sighting, with a bow. In general terms you use the same
process with a bow as you do with a rifle or pistol - or at least you should, and if you
don't, then perhaps this is the cause of YOUR particular problem.
Let's look at sights. I'll be talking mainly about compound bow sights for target shooters
although some of what I say will also apply to recurve target shooters. First up, I want
to say that virtually no match rifle shooter anywhere in the world uses anything but APERTURE
fore and rear sights. The rules don't limit them to these, so you really should ask
yourself why this choice is made. The lay answer is that the eye is able to accommodate
circles better than any other shape and when peering through a succession of circles at a
circular object, the eye finds it very easy to centre the object in these circles and
minor errors in alignment are easily detected. See illustration of typical target
rifle sight picture (the black centre spot is the aiming mark on the target)
With
a match rifle, the steadier the position (eg., prone with sling), the smaller the
apertures can be because the rifle is very steady and mental tensions are low because
there is very little discernable movement of the sights. In the standing position,
however, the stance is much less steady and there is, relatively speaking, quite a large
degree of movement of the sights against the target. Most shooters choose larger rear and
front apertures for this position. The reason for doing this is to minimise the mental and
physical strains involved in trying to keep a 17 lb match rifle as still as possible on
the target. Many shooters choose large apertures for prone as well as the degree of
accuracy obtainable is virtually the same as with small apertures but the mental stresses
involved are greatly reduced.
If all of these reasons are good for rifle shooters, then they should be equally good for archers. Regrettably many archers use cross hairs and small dot aiming marks. I say regrettably because these sights make it difficult to discern minor alignment errors and also create great tension in the archers mind as they try to keep these tiny aiming points still in the target centre. None of this is necessary. A large aperture front sight element will be just as accurate as a small dot and many times easier for the mind to cope with. The other big advantage of the aperture front element is that you can focus on the target if you wish and there will be virtually no alignment errors but with a dot or crosshair, if you don't focus on the dot or the crosshair centre, you can experience undetected alignment errors. Look at the following illustrations. The first 2 show the main types of front elements available. The next series show alignment errors for both types. The amount of alignment displacement is the same for both types but is more obvious in the aperture picture. So, why aren't you using an aperture foresight element???
Sighting
An archer shooting a bow shares many of the problems experienced by the rifle shooter in the standing position. If either try to achieve a perfect aim before firing they are going to take a long time getting there and may freeze on the trigger for fear of disturbing this sight picture, leading almost inevitably to a jerk or a punch release. A perfect aim is simply not necessary. The sights on a bow or a rifle can be allowed to move about quite a bit relative to the target with little ill effect, providing the sights are kept in ALIGNMENT!!
To illustrate how important this is, consider this. If the sights are aligned and you displace the sight picture 4 inches on firing, the arrow will impact 4 inches from its intended destination. BUT if the sights are misaligned by an angle of 1 degree (and that isn't very much), then the arrow would land 1.6 metres (approx) off line at 90m or .87 metre at 50m and that IS a lot. The point is, when aiming, concentrate on ALIGNMENT.
The following illustrations show, in the first case, that providing the sights are aligned, then all of the examples shown will land an arrow in the gold, providing you have a properly executed shot:
Similarly the following illustrations show the range of error possible to keep all arrows in the 10 ring:
These examples show what AREA AIMING is all about (I mentioned this earlier). You don't have to keep the sights perfectly still and aimed at the centre to get a gold or a ten. So you can relax a bit and concentrate on alignment and if you have a front aperture, this becomes a relatively easy matter. What you are trying to do is unload tension from your mind and body.
