Time for a new bow

Well today was a good day having ordered a Gary Evans and Bob Powell from Wales Archery they had finally arrived. So it was off down to Crick to try out both the bows and make a decision which to have. Little did I know how difficult this was going to be to choose between them. Although both the bows were custom orders for 75# @ 30" Graham, at Wales Archery, was happy if I bought one, both or neither so I was under no pressure to buy.

Having finally arrived at Crick manor, the old M48 Severn Bridge was close West Bound, I set to testing both the bows. The Gary Evans bow was Bamboo and Rosewood whilst Bob Powells was Bamboo and Ipe. Both were beautifully constructed and looked very similar rosewood being similar in colour to ipe. I specifically did not ask the price of the bows because I was not going to let that influence my decision and would leave it to how I felt shooting the bow.

So it was time to get out my field Arrows and start shoot on the range at the back of Wales Archery. First up was Gary's bow it was slightly larger and thicker than Bobs and felt good in the hand and in fact it fitted perfectly. Two dozen arrows and I was getting the feel of the bow it was fast, sweet and easy to draw with a great straight trajectory. Next up was Bobs the ipe belly meant that it was slightly smaller bow with a correspondingly smaller hand hold. Again I shot 2 Dozen arrows to get the feel of the bow and again it was fast (slightly faster that Gary's bow), sweet and very easy to draw.

I literally had nothing to choose between the two bows so it was back to shooting arrows alternating between them trying to find some difference on which I could make a decision. After about 45 Minutes of trying the bows I finally made my choice and opted for the Gary Evans bow for no other reason that it was thicker around the middle and hence had a thicker handle which fitted more comfortably into my hands.

With the choice made and boy was it hard because both bows were of exceptional quality it was time to pay, and order a spare string, before heading home looking forward to tomorrows shoot down at South Wilts for their Pre-Nationals shoot. I almost bought both the bows but could not quite rationalise buy two 75# @ 30" bows so if anyone out there is interested Wales Archery have a Bob Powell 75# @ 30" bow for sale.

I will certainly be going back to Wales Archery with a similar request when I decide to order the 100# bow and who knows maybe this this the Bob Powell will be a better fit.

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.

Company of 60 Shoot Report 13th June 2010

It's been a while since I have shot at the Company of 60 and on that occasion I broke a fair few arrows. Having just arrived back from a trip to San Francisco (on Saturday) I was expecting to be some what Jet Lagged to say the least so we arranged for James to drive. I was working on the theory that if the Jet Lag was a problem their was plenty of wood around to stop my arrows.
Although the weather the previous week had been slightly damp Sunday was expected to be a fine day and hence it was on with the t-shirts and off we went. On arriving it was time for a quick Bacon and Sausage butty and a quick chat with Carol whilst she was making them. For a change the shoot was not fully booked and their was plenty of spaces which was quite handy because our booking had been wrongly assigned to the previous shoot. Not a problem we booked in and Ruth, James, John and me were shooting together with the rest of the, attending, Westcott crew on the target behind ready to find our lost arrows not that their would be any as it turned out.

Fleet Ibex Shoot Report 23rd May 2010

Now the funny thing is you know whenever you shoot at Fleet Ibex you ARE going to get wet. It has never fails to rain when you shoot there but this Sunday was going to be a novel experience for all. With the Sun blazing through the trees throwing shadows all over the place we were praying for a bit of rain by the end of the day just to cool us down. But as always with British weather it does what it wants and we must have had the hottest day of the year, so far, so it was a case of factor 30 Sun Cream and plenty of bug spray.
With hot sunny weather like this their was a chance of seeing Adders but alas, for John, this was not to be the case. Quite fortunate in one way because he would have had me catching them to take home Hmmmm. John also decided he was going to be shooting the Junior pegs today, rather than the cub pegs, and this provided him with an extra challenge but given his new bow the distances were no problem.

South Wilts Shoot Report 2nd May 2010

The South Wilts Bluebell shoot was our first field shoot of 2010 (not sure why) and I was looking forward to getting back into the field. John had a new, Gary Evens, longbow and was looking forward to shooting in his preferred environment. Having just completed a new set of arrows for John he was ready with completely new equipment and give him his dues he quickly got used to them. In addition John had decided that he would be shooting the Junior pegs rather than his Cub pegs so that would give me a chance.
For a change we did not have our usual / traditional Bacon Butties before registration but instead John tucked into so leftover pizza from his party the day before. Today we were not shooting with Ruth and James but instead teamed up with Mike, Mike and Trev a longbow, true, archer and two Darksiders for what was forecast to be a very wet day but at least their would be the Bluebells and a mixture of 3Ds and paper faces. As usual the course layers did an exceptional job making this a great shoot regardless of the fact it cost me 3 smashed arrows ....trees.

Bowmen Of Burleigh Christmas 2009 Fun Shoot

With Christmas rapidly approaching it was time for The Bowmen Of Burleigh Christmas Fun Shoot. As with last years shoot the we would be shooting indoors at Embrook School and the day would be split into the morning and afternoon sessions.

Our Fairy Paramount for the day was going to be Ruth with her Rabid Reindeer husband scaring people into submission and resolving all disagreements.

This year we only had 6 targets because we had managed to miss-lay the turkeys but as long as we don't do that on Christmas day that's no great problem. This year we were also shooting mixed group with the Juniors and the Seniors shooting together and given that some of the targets were at 10 Yards this was often more difficult for the Seniors than the Juniors.

Each archer started on their designated target and shot 3 arrows and the scored. The catch was that no-one knew what the scoring was going to be until they reached the target but it was a good bet that the smaller the target the more it scored. Once they had shot the 3 arrows it was off to the next target and so on until they had shot on all six. This was then repeated and the scores totaled.

Whilst our Fairy Paramount was busy adding up the scores and sorting out the winners we set up our team shoot that was a variation on the 12 Days of Christmas and an Archery Darts target. The archers were split into two teams and they each had to go through the 12 days of Christmas without shooting the balloon (on hindsight we should have made the balloon bigger) and once the team had shot all the 12 days they needed to shoot the balloon.

Following the bang to signal the end of the team shoot it was off for the traditional prize giving and the end of a fun session shooting.

The session was repeated in the afternoon with more juniors and fancy dress, as can be seen from our Elf and Safety photo, and they finally finished off the targets. Well a good portion of the snow from the Snowmen was stuck in the bosses.

With this Christmas fun shoot finally over we have 12 months to prepare for the next one but I suspect it will all be done the week before.

Rabid Reindeer

Fun Targets

Santa's Little Helper

Elf and Safety

12 Days of Christmas

Severn Valley Yeoman Foresters October 2009 Shoot Report

I was looking forward to the S.V.Y.F shoot following the course they laid at the Nationals and it had been 12 months since I was last at their Ombersley woods. Yet again they managed to organise a Sunday shoot in late October where the weather was perfect, slightly overcast but clear and dry. After an early start and a good trip it was time for registration, a Bacon Butty and a cup of tea. Today was going to different because it would be the first time I have shot a Field round without John by my side and surprisingly I was going to miss his, almost, constant banter. Having broken his arm he will not be shooting for some time but looking at it from and alternative point of view there was a positive side because he was not going to beat me.
At 10:30ish we were all ready to walk out to our peg and because I had been put on target 1 I did not have far to go and so starting my Sports Tracker application on the phone it was off to the first peg to meet the group I was going to spend the day. My group of five consisted of Trev, Mark, Mark, his Daughter Zoe and me all shooting varying styles so their was going to no long delays for sighted archers.

Bowmen of Burleigh Junior Halloween Fun Shoot

The Bowmen of Burleigh Junior club organised its end of the outdoor season Halloween fun shoot on the 28th September 2009. Ok I know it was not officially Halloween but it was close and as it was the last Monday evening the juniors would be shooting outside we decided a set of Halloween based fun targets would be a good way to end the season.
Fortunately the weather was with us and we were set for a fine evenings shooting. The juniors would be presented with six targets and would shoot on a rotation basis. Having shot all six they would then take a break for soup and brownies before shooting the round again before finally adding the scores and waiting for the prizes.

NFAS Nationals September 2009 Shoot Report

Following last years successful and enjoyable Nationals at the Heart Of England Conference and Events Centre this years were to be held at the same location taking advantage of their extensive woodlands. Summer had finally return and again we were going to be able to bask in the rays of a glorious English Summer.
As with last year we travelled up in the Friday to a local B&B (recommend by Fred and Terry our fellow Westcott Archers) and an excellent recommendation it was on arriving at the Bonnifinglas Guest House each guest was provided with a can of larger to settle us in for the night. Following a hearty full English breakfast on Saturday morning it was off to the Heart Of England for our first days shooting. As usual at the Nationals the course were split A & B for the traditional wooden arrows and X&Y for the sighted archers. So given that I am traditional I can only comment of the A & B courses and will leave the others to another blogger.
This year the A course was set by S.V.Y.F whilst the B course was laid by Excalibur both were going to be excellent courses but completely different. Where Excaliburs section of the woodland restricted them to short shots the S.V.Y.F portion of the wood provided ample room for the longer than it looks shots as I was to find out on the Sunday.

South Wilts Shoot Report 6th September 2009

The South Wilts shoot was going to be the last Faces practice shoot before the Nationals and I have some new arrows that I needed to try. Having been furiously working on then in the evening last week I finally finish them on Saturday just in time for the shoot. I new these arrows were going to shoot differently because I had switched from my normal 100 Grain Tophat piles to 125 Grain MedHeads and hence Sunday was going to be a "Learning Experience" Having shot the South Wilts 150th Anniversary Shoot I had a good idea of what to expect in the way of shots and was looking forward to a good days shooting.

As usual we started the day with the traditional Bacon Butties and registration, you have to get you priorities right, and then found we would not be shooting with the Ruth and James but instead found we would be shooting with George Spears and his son Joe. It was going to be one of those days where the Cubs showed the adults how field shooting should be done.

Windrush Shoot Report 29th/30th August 2009

August bank holiday and time for the Windrush two day shoot and because the Saturday night promised a Hog Roast and Real Ale I decided it was a good idea to camp for the weekend. So I decided that it was a good idea to travel up early afternoon on Friday and pitch the tent during daylight. This would have been a good plan if it had not been a typical English bank holiday weekend. Having arrived late afternoon at the Windrush camp site we started to pitch the tent only for it to start raining. Not to bad for me because with my tent you put the outside up first and then the inside. For Ruth, one of my fellow Westcott Archers, it was not so good because she had to pitch the inside before cover the tent.
Although I had not shot at Windrush previously it had been recommended and I was looking forward to a good weekend of shooting a combination of 3D's and paper faces although paper face are not my favourite. As usual I decided to run my Nokia Application to generate a Google Earth file of the course.

• Google Earth File

As can be seen from the file the Windrush course covers a combination of typical woodland shot and more open field shots all based around the stream that runs through the middle of their woodland. Over the weekend we were to shoot two different rounds on the Saturday we would be shooting a Woodsman round whist on the Sunday it was going to be a standard Big Game round.

Fleet Ibex Shoot Report 16th August 2009

It was that time of year Fleet Ibex were running the "Ken Dendall Memorial Trophy" shoot, the last of the season, and the weather forecast looked like it was going to be a good day. The English summer had returned and the Fleet Ibex woods were going to provide another great days shooting. Having arrived early and registered, I remember my NFAS cards this time, it was time for the, you guessed it, traditional bacon butty and a chat with some of my fellow Westcott archers. Today John and I would not be shooting with James and Ruth, our usual partners, because of Ruth's hectic work schedule. Instead it appeared we would be spending the day with Fred and Terry our fellow Westcott archers.
I was looking forward to today because I was going to be able to shoot the course using my bow rather than a borrowed bow as I had during the 17th May Shoot and I was hoping for a better score (considering what I scored in May this was not going to be difficult). Also John had decided that he would shoot the 12 - 14 pegs which meant he would be shooting his first arrow from the blue peg rather than his tradition cub peg so there was also going to be the chance that I would score more than my 10 year old son and that would be a first.

Crowthorne National Shoot Report 26th July 2009

Having seen the weather reports for the weekend I was expecting to get slightly wet during the Crowthorne Nationals. I was shooting a Double New National which was an interesting choice given I could not use my Warbow and was restricted to my light longbow but such is life. My son and his friend Daniel we also shooting, the Short Junior National, and hence we had the Bowmen of Burleigh Longbow team. With the hope that we would retain the Team Longbow Cup from last year we were all prepared to do our best.

The morning session started at 10:00 with fine weather and a light breeze. Shooting a 100 Yards for only the second time this season (I have been doing more Field Shooting than Target) it took me 12 Arrows to find my mark and yes that meant the first 6 scoring arrows were not exactly up to scratch. Anyway with these out of the way my second 6 arrows were a storming success with a nice 25 scored (not bad for a longbow at 100 yards) and this instantly put me in the lead. Shooting continued in much the same way for the 4 dozen at 100 yards and then after a short break the targets were moved to 80 yards. At this point Roger, who had been shooting on the same target, found his mark and started scoring rather well. The net result was that by the end of the morning session Roger had more than recovered and lead Colin, Rene and myself.

With the morning concluded and lunch out of the way it was time to shoot the Second New National of the day. At this point there were only Roger, Colin and myself shooting with Rene having only shot half a day. Over lunch the weather had definitely changed with the air becoming thicker and heavier. This was to prove the undoing of all three of us we all scored lower than in the morning. Given that I had shot 4 Dozen arrows in the morning you would expect that I new where to aim for the afternoon. No the change in weather meant that I, and the others, were having difficulty hitting 100 yards. After a few brief showers the 4 dozen at 100 yards was over and we were down to 80. This did not seem to do any good for Colin and me because we continued to shoot badly whilst Roger managed to claw back some respect by improving his score.

After an excellent, if entertaining, it was time for the awards. Roger won the gold for the Gents Double New National whilst I managed Second but Burleigh won the Longbow team trophy and I suspect that this was due to the impressive score (680) that my son put in for the Double Short Junior National.

All the results for the day can be found on the Crowthorne Site.

South Wilts 150th Anniversary Shoot Report 19th July 2009

This was my first trip to South Wilts and I was looking forward to a recommended shoot, although having seen the weather I was expecting to get damp if not wet, and as usual we travelled down in our usual Westcott group. On this their Anniversary shoot South Wilts had organised 40 3Ds set through their woods and into the opens fields surround it. This provided a variety of entertaining shots especially when the wind picked up.
The course layers at South Wilts placed a camouflaged back stop behind each of the targets that did not have a natural bank and the net result of this was that the shoot progressed rapidly. Having these backstop saved me, and I suspect other archers, a number of lost arrows and I would recommend them to more of the field layers especially with the camouflaged covering which meant they were not distracting. But the end of my comments on the pros of backstops and onto the a summary of another excellent days shooting; for those interested I have again been using my phone to track the course and the file can be found below.

Longbow Heritage - Jim's Jungle Jaunt Shoot Report 4th & 5th July 2009

After the excellent shooting last week I was looking forward to another entertaining weekend shooting Jim's Jungle Jaunt; near Shackleford. Carol always organises a good shoot but this year she managed to surpass herself not only because of the target layout and shooting lines but primarily because of her commitment to run the shoot even though one of her neighbours managed to burn down Carol's house along with the rest of the block. All credit to Carol for putting on the shoot and as usual a fun shoot it was.
Jim's Jungle Jaunt is a two day shoot in the woods around an organic farm near Shackleford which this meant that we had real live piglets roaming the woods. As such we we under strict orders not to shoot anything that moved apart from the eagle. Although the weather forecast warned of showers the weekend turned out to another glorious two days with sun cream a mandatory requirement for the shoot and a prolific amount of water a must.
Again for those interested I recorded a Google Earth GPS file that records our days travel around the 3 loops of the shoot.

Avalon Archers 3Ds Shoot Report 27th & 28th June 2009

Having finally recovered from my shoulder injury, thanks to time and my Osteopath (Marcus Vaz), I would finally be able to shoot my longbow again. So I was looking forward to a couple of good days shooting regardless of what the weather forecast had suggested. I had never shot Avalon before and had not realised what I had been missing and to say that the Avalon course is one of the best I have shot is putting it mildly this was on a par with the 3D Nationals course. I say this because I do like variety in a shoot and Avalon had a lot of that to say the least.
For those who have never shot Avalon their woods are based just outside Sandy in Bedfordshire and cover some rolling woodland providing a number of interesting and entertaining ups and downs. The varied trees and undergrowth allowed the course layers to devise some devilishly difficult shots for the average height freestylers never mind the tall longbow archers as you can see from the photos. Yet again I decided to records the Nokia Sports Tracker application a go and recorded the route, for posterity, as a Google Earth file below.