Beginners Kit

Rossetti

New member
Hi,

I'm a newbie to archery, still going through my beginners course.

I want to buy my first bow, I've read various threads on here and have spoken to the other club members about what to look for when setting up for the first time.

I know that spending more money isn't going to suddenly improve my scores, however from my experiences in buying fishing tackle etc in the past I also know that buying cheap is a false economy.

I've gone through lots of websites and the two bows I really like the look of are the KG Astron and the Nemesis. What's the opinion on these bows? Are they a decent starting point for a beginner? Are they overkill for a newbie?

I'd really appreciate any comments as the range of equipment seems a bit mind numbing to a novice.

Regards

Jim
 
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Compound10

Guest
Hi,

I'm a newbie to archery, still going through my beginners course.

I want to buy my first bow, I've read various threads on here and have spoken to the other club members about what to look for when setting up for the first time.

I know that spending more money isn't going to suddenly improve my scores, however from my experiences in buying fishing tackle etc in the past I also know that buying cheap is a false economy.

I've gone through lots of websites and the two bows I really like the look of are the KG Astron and the Nemesis. What's the opinion on these bows? Are they a decent starting point for a beginner? Are they overkill for a newbie?

I'd really appreciate any comments as the range of equipment seems a bit mind numbing to a novice.

Regards

Jim
Jim your best bet is to try and go and see a shop if you have one nearby....
 
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Cimbian

Guest
Sound advice but be warned of the retailer that will sell you what they have, not what you need (I'm a salesman).

Recently one shop sold a lad a sight for ?170 even though he can't really work it out or actually see very much (he has double vision) and only shoots 30 yards... the reason? It was the only L/H one thay had!!!! Yet, two months prior had sold him a whole R/H setup!

My son shot with an upside-down sight tape for over two years!

For another piece of advice... Offer to buy your club coach coffee and doughnuts if he/she would accompany you to the shop... Coaches like doughnuts. :)
 
Buy a good quality riser, arrow rest, pressure button,and a good quality sight. Just about everything else will change as you go along, so buy everything else cheaply to start with, and upgrade when your skill level improves.

As your technique & form develops, your draw length will probably change, which may necessitate a change in arrow length. As your strength increases, you may find yourself having to go up to higher poundage limbs, which may require another change of arrows. You may also end up trying out a bewildering array of different stabiliser set-ups as well, as time goes by. The list is endless, as to what you will change, as you progress. Eventually (hopefully), you will settle on a set-up which you are totally comfortable with, but it could take several months, or several years, who knows !
 
In my club, we always suggest to the beginners that they continue to use the training equipment for a few months at least, before rushing out to buy kit.

We always recommend they go to a pro shop to buy as they will get the required level of service and the bow and equipment will be set up correctly.
Many pro shops sell a beginners and intermediate level package, which usually represents good value.They may also run a limb exchange programme.

The advice regarding a good quality riser is also given as the other bits will be changed in due course.
 

soundo26

New member
My advice to any new archer is to firstly be sure of your draw weight and length, the bows that you use for a beginner's course are usually very light in draw weight and you will need to buy equipment which will allow you to shoot the distances you will want to shoot. Having said this, if you are a young archer who is still growing you must be careful not to buy a bow which will cause you damage!

You should also bear in mind that over your fist year, you will more than likely "grow out" of your first bow as your muscles and shooting style develops, for this reason you should not buy the better top class equipment as you will probably be selling it on within the year. Having said that you should buy the best you can afford at the time as some of the cheaper bows can be a bit inconsistent. I would advise that you go for a bow that has ILF limbs as then you can buy a decent riser and just upgrade the Limbs later on!
Bows come in different lengths according to your draw length, your coach or the dealer can advise you on this.
For arrow selection you should start off with aluminium arrows such as the Easton Jazz series, they are good quality, reasonably priced all-rounders which you will be able to find with a metal detector if you miss and can be straightened if you bend them!

If shooting recurve, the essentials you will need to buy are a Bow, Arrow rest, Arrows, a sight and a quiver, tab & bracer. Next on the list but not quite so essential (but you will find that you need them very quickly) would be a bowstand, a bowsling, a chestguard and a bag or case to keep it all in.
A kit list for Compound would be much the same but with the substitution of a release aid instead of a fingertab. You will also need a Scope and peep sights. I would not generally advocate going straight on to a compound bow from beginners stage although some people do and succeed! Compound bows tend to be a bit more expensive to get started with and care must be taken to get the draw length right! They are also a bit more technical and at that stage you need to be developing your basic technique rather than concentrating on these other aspects!

When buying a bow, make sure you try it out first, this is essential, each bow is different and one bow of a given poundage can feel entirely different to another of the same weight even with a bow of the same make, so it is important you feel it for yourself and bear in mind that if you are thinking of going on to shoot tournaments, you will be drawing the bow 150 times through the day, so that bow which feels easy when you are fresh in the shop will not feel the same as it will for the last couple of dozen arrows near the end of a shoot!

Before visiting a dealer to buy kit, you should always check at your club as there is often good beginners (and intermediary) kit up for sale there as last years beginners move on, there are often some bargains to be found!

Lastly, visit the links section of this forum, in there you will find a free book that you can download called the Archers Reference which will give you lots of good information, it's well worth a read!

Hope this helps, good shooting!
 

DenzilS

New member
Agreed, don't rush into buying anything. By all accounts the KG bows are very good, but if you find you want a higher poundage in a few months you may regret having spent so much early on.

It may be tempting to buy a higher poundage bow straight away, but resist it. Too many people buy bows that are too heavy and it destroys their technique.

Having said that, if you are a strong enough to comfortably control a higher weight bow for a whole shoot, then you could consider it. Just be careful and do take advice from a coach or good dealer who can check you out and see what is best for you.
 

Skybone

New member
Having just bought my first kit, I can say that pretty much all of the above is right.

I've been to the KG shop, and it is well worth a visit if you can get over there. They were friendly and willing to help when I was there a few years back, and when I said I was looking for a starter kit, they told me that they'd make one up for me. Their kit looked excellent, well made, and a few people in the club I joined back then used KG's, and recommended them. It's kind of fortunate I didn't buy any kit back then, because I had to give up archery for a few years (lack of time/money/etc).

The only thing with my new kit is that I've had to buy mail order, simply because my nearest archery shop is a few hundred miles away!
 

Whitehart

Well-known member
Sound advice but be warned of the retailer that will sell you what they have, not what you need (I'm a salesman).
From my own experience I am surprised if you consider that any dealers have real sales people and I can think of only one dealer that pays commision on sales - more likely passionate, well trained, informed experienced archers that can help people what ever their ability and able to cut through the maze of the b%^&$ht floating around from all directions.

(AWS FInstSMM):eek:ptimist:
 

Rossetti

New member
Thanks for all of the advice. It certainly seems to make sense in spending the majority of the budget on those things that won't change as I gain experience and ability.

I'm lucky in that I work only about 20 minutes away from KG so I'm hoping to get down there next week to try out a few bows and look at sights etc.

At my age and size, (getting old and built like a brick s***house), it's unlikely that I'm going to change so much that I'll need to make massive differences to my set-up but I'll bear in mind the comments.

With regard to sights, again there's such a wide range and I've read various threads on here about the quality of sights. I know cost isn't a particularly accurate measurement of quality but for reasonable sights what sort of price range do I need to be in?

I'd appreciate any advice on what I should look for in a sight, (apart from the dot:duh:)?

Regards

Jim
 

Nightimer

New member
Dont be in a rush to buy a bow this early in your archery career.
You will gain nothing by rushing.
Use the club bows (if possible) until your form starts to settle down.
Forget about scores just try to shoot correctly.
My club always tells beginners to carry on using club equipment for as long as they feel they need to.
By all means go and buy a quiver,tab and bracer but allow some time before buying your bow.
 

soundo26

New member
Thanks for all of the advice. It certainly seems to make sense in spending the majority of the budget on those things that won't change as I gain experience and ability.

I'm lucky in that I work only about 20 minutes away from KG so I'm hoping to get down there next week to try out a few bows and look at sights etc.

At my age and size, (getting old and built like a brick s***house), it's unlikely that I'm going to change so much that I'll need to make massive differences to my set-up but I'll bear in mind the comments.

With regard to sights, again there's such a wide range and I've read various threads on here about the quality of sights. I know cost isn't a particularly accurate measurement of quality but for reasonable sights what sort of price range do I need to be in?

I'd appreciate any advice on what I should look for in a sight, (apart from the dot:duh:)?

Regards

Jim
I've been through a few sights and the most important things I've found is that the sight should stay where you put it and it shouldn't rattle loose! That sounds like ordinary common sense but it's amazing the amount of sights that just don't do this!
If you want Quality you look for sights such as Sure Loc, Shibuya, Copper John, Axcel, DS Advantage etc. These are all around ?200 upwards (except the DS). The thing that separates these from the others is that they have a knurled wheel for adjustment of the vertical & horizontal planes which "clicks" when you turn it, these are very precise and do not move. The others where you unscrew a locking screw and slide to adjust are a waste of time in my opinion, they rattle loose and bits drop off them and they vibrate downwards leaving you wondering why your arrows are rising up the target face!
The other thing you will need to bear in mind is the weight and pin size. A compound sight has a pin thread size of 10/32" whereas a recurve sight has 8/32" and the compound sights tend to be a bit heavier because if the higher vibration levels they have to endure.
 

Polsonby

New member
I know how you feel - I just started and I really wanted my own kit. The club didn't have spare bows of the right length and weight for me to move up into, so I was shooting a bow that was too light for me with arrows that weren't matched to it.

With the approval of the club coaches I went and got a 25" SF riser, half decent limbs and so on. Cost about ?450 in all. Went for the SF Axiom sight for now - seems fine. Better than the basic Cartel sight on the club bow, which occasionally moved around on its own. I'd like to upgrade to a Shibuya Dual Click in a few months if I keep developing.

I'm happy with my decision, but the only thing I half regret is paying for new limbs. I hadn't realised that most of the people in my club buy their kit from each other.

So for the first year or more as you're moving up the weights, it might make sense to buy limbs second-hand from people in your club or through their connections. I also read of shops doing limb exchange programmes so you can swap limbs as you go up

I was worried about getting second hand stuff because you don't know how it's been treated and this is possibly true of getting stuff off ebay, but after talking to people in the club I would definitely consider it for the next pair.
 

Rossetti

New member
I just wanted to thank everyone on here for the great advice.

I eventually went to KG and the wonderful Christine sorted out everything I needed. It was refreshing to have a shop that pretty well mirrored the advice on here, to spend the most on the things that won't change.

In the end I didn't choose the Nemesis or Astron since neither has ILF fittings and opted for a Winact riser and Winstorm limbs. I'm still getting used to the set up but there has been a major improvement from using the club training bows which were just too light for me and having a sight that doesn't spin round every couple of shots has helped as well.

Thanks again to everyone who replied.

Regards

Jim
 

greygoose

New member
I just wanted to thank everyone on here for the great advice.

I eventually went to KG and the wonderful Christine sorted out everything I needed. It was refreshing to have a shop that pretty well mirrored the advice on here, to spend the most on the things that won't change.

In the end I didn't choose the Nemesis or Astron since neither has ILF fittings and opted for a Winact riser and Winstorm limbs. I'm still getting used to the set up but there has been a major improvement from using the club training bows which were just too light for me and having a sight that doesn't spin round every couple of shots has helped as well.

Thanks again to everyone who replied.

Regards

Jim
Hi Rossetti,
Yes it is a great pity that the limbs were not ILF because the more I hear about KG the more it becomes obvious that their limbs are about as good as they get.
Best of luck with your shooting.
Greygoose.
 

Rossetti

New member
So which sight did you go for, in the end?
I just went for a Cartel 2000 sight for now. I appreciate that it's not the greatest however it doesn't rattle, stays where I've set it and allows me to keep all my arrows on the boss, so for the time being I'm happy with it.

At the stage I'm at, I'm more concerned with getting my form right so that I can get consistent groups without the annoying bad releases that I can't explain. Once I've got that locked in, (slow going), then I'll probably re-assess whether I need to then upgrade the sight.

Regards

Jim
 

jshankar

Member
Hi, Looks like youve got yourself a great kit. Ive been shooting oooh lets see now...two weeks with my new kit, so with all that experience...welcome!!! :D LOL...
We went to aardvark near leeds and got the winstarII riser with samick universal limbs. And they also gave us a load of goodies for the kit (well, it was built into the pricing but you get the drift)..IM glad I ended up at a shop and didnt buy online at this stage. Maybe when we know what to look for it is a different story.
Cheers
Jay
 

Skybone

New member
Jim, great to hear you had a good experience at KG, and came away with some nice new toys to play with! ;) They were certainly very friendly when I was down there a few years back, even though I only bought a few bits and bobs at the time. They did have a great selection of gear available!

Jay, I've heard that Aardvark are very good too, great that you were able to get over there and try stuff out.
 
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