Crowthorne Nationals Shoot Report 25th July 2010

It was that time of year again late July with the typical English weather and time for the Crowthorne Nationals. As usual it was to be held at Edgebarrow School in Crowthorne. As usual I would be shooting the New National, with my light longbow, but John would be shooting the Junior National this year. In addition to make up our longbow team, in the hope of retaining the cup, was Will shooting a Short Junior National.

With the weather fine but cloudy, nice to have a bit of cloud cover, as seems to be usual these days I have been doing more Field Shooting than target so it was going to be fun getting back into shooting at a target 100 yards away and I soon began to regret not brining the Warbow.

This year I would be shooting with Colin Young (same a last year), Martin Bale, Grant Ballentine (Junior after the free Junior New National record) and Phil Warnes who was shooting Barebow. With 4 longbow archers and a barebow we could all shoot all our arrows and have a cup of tea before the target next to us had finished their first 3.

Avalon Shoot Report 17th & 18th July 2010

When this shoot first appeared in the calendar it classed with Jim's Jungle Jaunt which was not great because I wanted to shoot both. Fortunately Avalon moved their shoot date and so I could shoot both. Having watched the weather with interest the week before I was not quite sure what we were going to be in for but as luck would have it the rain of the previous week (although I understand they had none in Sandy anyway) had disappeared for the weekend and it promised to be warm and pleasant and rather entertaining especially on the Sunday but more of that later.

As usual the course layers at Avalon did an exceptional job providing an entertaining and at time rather difficult course that was changed over night by the sadistic pixies. We only had one issue on the second day with the course which required target 40 to be removed.

To all those Archers who were complaining and swearing about the Cub that had a ricocheted off the back of the Leopard, that was target 40, narrowly missing the marshal taking photo on target 2. Just think if the course had not been layed the way it was it would never have happen. All he did was highlight a fault in the course. 

But enough of whining archers back to the positives and as I have already said the course was well structured and very entertaining.

As this was going to be Ruth & James last shoot for a while, because of an impending sprog, Sam & Owen had requested to shoot with them so John and I would be shooting with Emma and Trevor, from Goshawk, both shooting Unlimited. An interesting combination 2 Unlimited and 2 Longbow archers. Two taking the time before the shot calculating distances for their guaranteed hit and 2 spending time after the shot hunting for stray arrows.

Making a BLBS Standard Arrow (Well Almost)

In a previous blog entry "Making Your Own Arrows In Four Easy Steps" I discussed how to make your own Longbow Arrows. This used standard off-the shelf (well off the web) materials and allowed you to quickly make your arrows. Since then I decided that I would start making some British Longbow Society (BLBS) Standard Arrows, well almost, with the exception that I wanted to use then for Indoor and very short distance so hence the "Well Almost". The key difference between my arrows and those specified as BLBS Standard Arrows is the Pile because I need to shoot at my GNAS club and a Brass 125 grains bullet point was more appropriate. Given this 1 minor deviation the details below are an accurate description of how to make a BLBS Standard Arrow.

Making Your Own Arrows In Four Easy Steps

This blog entry was originally published on my Sun blog back in 2008 but I have since decided to republish it here to provided consistency across my Archery Entries. In addition I will be linking back to this entry from a future entry on my experience make British Longbow Standard Arrows.
This article is aimed at those longbow archers, or those with an interest, who would like to starting making there own equipment. Personally I think their is a big difference in shooting equipment you have made rather than bought and simple act of working, in my case in the garage, on something associated with you chosen pass time is a pleasure in itself and a good way to relax after the working day. So less of the waffle and on with the article at hand, which I hope to be the first of many, covering the simple steps of making your own arrows and in truth the hardest part of this process is choosing your fletching colours.

Jims Jungle Jaunt Shoot Report 3rd / 4th July 2010

Every year the Americans celebrate the 4th of July and this year I also would be celebrating the 4th of July as well as the 3rd. This has nothing to do with American Independence and everything to do with what is, undoubtedly, one of the most entertaining shoots in the NFAS Calendar Jim's Jungle Jaunt and this year was the 25th Anniversary Shoot. Having seen the weather report this was going to be a glorious weekend and Saturday was looking at being particularly hot. So it was out with sun cream and plenty of bug repellent.
We mustered at 09:00, as usual, with the expectation of starting at 10:00 but if you have ever shot at Jim's you'll know this doesn't usually happen. So having spent a pleasant hours or so eating the beacon butty and catching up we were off to the pegs to start the shoot.