Sky Kite
New member
I'm still a newbie to all this and am a curious soul so, at the club shoot yesterday, in light rain and no wind, I shot my first 'flight arrow'.
Well, without especially trying at all and using the bog standard club training bow, I was pretty surprised about how far it went.
After going into the next field and searching around a bit, I eventually found my arrow. It was lodged in the (soft muddy) ground at about a 30 degree angle, sunk up to about 1/3 of the way along the shaft.
I paced the flight distance as being 213 metres (233 yards). (Having also measured that 35 of my paces was the equivalent of 30 metres). This was across fairly level ground but it was also quite muddy, so I'm guessing that the arrow actually went somewhere between around 200 and 220 metres (220 to 240 yards).
This was with a Club Training Recurve Bow, which pulls 28lbs at 28 inches & I guess I overdrew it by about an inch (my normal draw is around 27 inches and I took it to near my ear). The arrow weighs 22.5 grammes (8 of them weigh about 180 grammes on the kitchen scales).
My understanding from other threads etc is that, in Medieval times, a standard test for an archer joining the English army was for them to shoot at least 220 yards, i.e. the same distance I shot yesterday.
Given that they were trained since kids and pulling draw weights of anything up to 100 lbs and more (though they were also shooting arrows that weighed anything up to 1/4 lb), I'm thinking that this clearly demonstrates the improvements gained by modern technology !
Is this sort of distance typical for a bog standard modern recurve training bow of this kind of weight ?
Well, without especially trying at all and using the bog standard club training bow, I was pretty surprised about how far it went.
After going into the next field and searching around a bit, I eventually found my arrow. It was lodged in the (soft muddy) ground at about a 30 degree angle, sunk up to about 1/3 of the way along the shaft.
I paced the flight distance as being 213 metres (233 yards). (Having also measured that 35 of my paces was the equivalent of 30 metres). This was across fairly level ground but it was also quite muddy, so I'm guessing that the arrow actually went somewhere between around 200 and 220 metres (220 to 240 yards).
This was with a Club Training Recurve Bow, which pulls 28lbs at 28 inches & I guess I overdrew it by about an inch (my normal draw is around 27 inches and I took it to near my ear). The arrow weighs 22.5 grammes (8 of them weigh about 180 grammes on the kitchen scales).
My understanding from other threads etc is that, in Medieval times, a standard test for an archer joining the English army was for them to shoot at least 220 yards, i.e. the same distance I shot yesterday.
Given that they were trained since kids and pulling draw weights of anything up to 100 lbs and more (though they were also shooting arrows that weighed anything up to 1/4 lb), I'm thinking that this clearly demonstrates the improvements gained by modern technology !
Is this sort of distance typical for a bog standard modern recurve training bow of this kind of weight ?