New Custom set for the Longbow

It has taken several weeks of working on and off to complete this set of arrows. I have happy with how they turned out, but definitely have a long way to go before I will call them up to my standard quite yet. They shoot really well on they test run this afternoon and I will need to practice with them to get ready for the tournaments in April. Thanks for checking them out

3D Shoot at Montgomery County Archery

Had a great day on the 3D tournament range today. Shot with friends and made some new ones in the process. Really enjoyed shooting with Mr. Herring from Bounty Hunter Traditional Arrows and sharing stories from the woods. I had a new personal best score of 244 which was good enough for 2nd place out of 8 shooters in the traditional class. Kind of alternates between 10s and 5s on the front half. Made some really good shots that I am very happy with. No pictures from the shoot, but did mange to snap a picture with my 2nd place hat pin!

Thoughts about my form

This is a bit more of a boring post so that I can collect my thoughts about the accurate arrows that I have shot over the last couple of days. I am going to start with my bow arm and then go to my string hand and finally my anchor point.

My bow arm is most accurate with a relaxed hand and with my thumb knuckle rotated around as much as I can. The real key is making sure that my bow arm is fully straight.

My string hand needs to have a deep and rigid hook with a thumb that falls below my jawbone.

The anchor point has three distinctive points right now, possibly a fourth with some fine tuning. Right now, there is the feather on the end of my nose, thumb under my jawbone and my pointer fingertip on my the bottom of my eye socket. The release is subconscious and goes off once the sight picture looks right.

The sight picture looks right when the point of the arrow is right of the desired point of impact. Recently I have noticed something about my feather that touches my nose. The top edge of the shield feather (feather is laying horizontally) is lined up with the desired point of impact. This automatically puts the the point oof my current full length GT Trad 55/75 with 125 up front to the right and allows for an accurate shot. I will need to seek advice about this arrow alignment.

Into the Grey...the last great fight I will ever know

Built a set of arrows to get ready for an upcoming tournament. Went with a simpler design in the cresting pattern because of time constraints, but really like how it turned out. If you haven't ever seen the movie "The Grey" with Liam Neeson then rent it! It was my inspiration for this pattern. I think you will see a more intricate version of this in the future

Orange Arrows

Friend of mine decided to buy a recurve after watching me shoot mine a little bit. I told him I would paint up some arrows for him just to give me some more practice. He told me that he like orange so this is what I fixed up for him. I like the way they turned out and learned a few things to apply to the next batch.

Feather Splicing - Journey of Patience

Working on some feather splicing today. It is very intricate work and is best done a little at a time. These will go on arrows for my new MOAB longbow. I still have some tuning to do before I fletch with these feathers. I will have a blog post about my tuning next time. These feathers have 6 different pieces and will have matching cresting pattern once everything gets figured out

Montgomery County Archery Membership 3D Shoot

Today was the membership shoot for Montgomery County Archery Club. It was a good turn out and lots of different classes of shooters were there. Unfortunately I was the only traditional shooter for this tournament. The first official tournament will be on the 23rd. Today I shot well for the first tournament of the year. I posted a couple of zeros on the score card, but still shot a 201 on 29 targets. Should do better the next time around. Had a good time with a few friends that just got into archery. The picture is probably one the best shots for me of the day.