Shooting pellets vs arrows

little-else

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FB algorithms stink so they chuck up some very unsavoury links. A friend of mine's surname is Poacher and when he joined facebook he was recommended dozens of sites based on totally illegal activity. Not only was this uncomfortable for him but you would have thought that FB would be doing their best to delete said groups pages.
if I was an advertiser I would be livid to be associated with such things.

Now, sharing a field- I wouldnt object if a request was made to use our facilities but we have the problem of being in a very public place as far as onlookers go and we have enough trouble with dog walkers telling us we shouldnt be using all of our property when they want to let their dogs go for a dump and chase the local wildlife and even tell us they have permission to be there when their dogs chase the swans.
Malicious reports to the police have occurred and I wouldnt doubt this being a regular occurrence if people with guns were spotted on a shooting range
Chat up your field archery landowner, as long as the lead is contained I bet they would consider it. The League Against Cruel Sports have tried to shut down shooting ranges arguing that the lead pollutes the water and soil. did a load of geochemistry into this years ago and it isnt true but politicians like bandwagons rather than science.
 

Kernowlad

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Okay my views are changing; archers are actually a very progressive, modern thinking bunch compared to the far right wing lunatics that too many rifle shooters seem to be. The hate speech, the vile views and even worse, the moderators views on the two main Airguns forums are just despicable. I shall remain in the relative safety of the archery gang where suddenly some occasionally old fashioned views and funny opinions seem quite modern.
And breathe...
 

dvd8n

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I'm sure that rifle shooters are not all nutters (I know a few and they're normal people). It's social media. Once a few extremists join a group the normal people drift off and an echo chamber results.

It's a shame but it seems to happen all the time. The only fix is strong fair moderation, but if the moderators are doing it too, it's going to end badly.
 

Kernowlad

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I'm sure that rifle shooters are not all nutters (I know a few and they're normal people). It's social media. Once a few extremists join a group the normal people drift off and an echo chamber results.

It's a shame but it seems to happen all the time. The only fix is strong fair moderation, but if the moderators are doing it too, it's going to end badly.
Totally agree and there are obviously plenty of decent shooters out there but there does seem to be a weird distillation of fruit loop extremists who probably think Trump is a legend.
Even our local gun shop owner has a strange tendency to go off on one about leftys and greenies about anything he disagrees with. It’s most odd.

Anyway back to planet Earth; a dull day here today but no rain yet; it’s meant to tip it down for a few days.
 

AJBrady

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We were approached by an air riffle group who were looking for a ground share. They were surprised (disappointed?) that we only shot at targets, “What, you mean you never kill anything?” One described to us with great glee how he made ‘dum-dum’ bullets and the mess they made of small mammals’ heads.
We politely declined their enquiry.
 

Kernowlad

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We were approached by an air riffle group who were looking for a ground share. They were surprised (disappointed?) that we only shot at targets, “What, you mean you never kill anything?” One described to us with great glee how he made ‘dum-dum’ bullets and the mess they made of small mammals’ heads.
We politely declined their enquiry.
Yes that element of shooting has zero interest from me and a bit too much time is spent on what you can kill and from how far. If we suddenly had a major rat issue I might consider getting rid of a few (they’d probably outwit me) but spending a day killing dozens of rabbits, pigeons, squirrels, etc holds no interest at all. Maybe that element just attracts the odd ones?
I just like shooting targets with my kids!
 

little-else

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Not against vermin control nor even what is called sporting shooting even though it isnt my cup of tea but I think that air rifle shooting attracts an element that woulnt pass muster at say a target rifle club because they have to be sponsored and vetted so the ones living in fantasy world tend to gravitate towards the unregulated. You see the same in other hobbies including the more gentle ones like collecting antiques.
Where we can all fall down is not recognising change where it is necessary. Cricket has managed toaccpet that the shorter games are equally valid as 5 day tests far as making the paying public happy and that generates interest as far as advertisers and tellyworld goes and we should consider not whether the choice is x or y but how to incorporate technological advances so archery appeals to a wider group without pushing those interested parties into something else becasue we dotn like it or cant currently allow the technology to compete on an equal footing.
take crossbows and logbows. Neither of them are like their ancestors but one is a common sight and the other is almost an outcast. Carbon arrows- why so different to wood or fibreglass when it comes to their use on many fields.
We need to look at the classes of bows and the rounds shot. It may mean that there will be many more classes at tournaments that have only 1 or 2 entrants but t will grow because anyone who has had a liking for that bowstyle will now see a reason for contiuing with their efforts.

Target distances is another one where tradition outweighs common sense and even expediency. Why not 25m and 40m or 70 yds? This is where I can see the attraction of field shooting, you can choose your own distance when setting out the field.
Why x dozen arrows rather than multiples of 5 or 10. 100 arrows is easier to shoot than 144 when it comes to logistics and scoring ex 1000 on a metric scoring system makes it much easier for an outsider to comprehend what a good score is in terms of what is possible.
An old fashioned air rifle scoring system was a simple hit/miss as the range increased or the target got smaller. Reactive targets are something else that would make things interesting, particularly for enticing people to give it a try.
 

dvd8n

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Why x dozen arrows rather than multiples of 5 or 10. 100 arrows is easier to shoot than 144 when it comes to logistics and scoring ex 1000 on a metric scoring system makes it much easier for an outsider to comprehend what a good score is in terms of what is possible.
I agree with everything that you say apart from the dozen thing.

The thing is that 12 is what you call a 'highly divisible number'. It's divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6. And even above 6 you get 8 = 2/3, 9 = 3/4 and 10 = 4/5. And obviously this applies to multiples of 12 too like 144 and (especially) 60 as that drags in the 5s and 10s as divisors too.

So doing things in dozens lets you shoot ends of 2, 3, 4, 6 and know it'll work out. You can put half, quarter, third breaks in and know it'll work out.

With multiples of 10 you're stuck with 2s, 5s, and, well, 10s unless you go for well chosen numbers. This is why so many of our old ways of doing things revolve around 12, 60 and 360. Like time and angles and buying eggs and bread rolls. Our ancestors weren't so dumb.
 

geoffretired

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I agree with dvd8n about 12 and divisibility and breaking things down into halves etc etc. It allows families to share things out; which is helpful when keeping things fair.
When it comes to managing numbers; the metric system wins almost every time.
We shoot arrows in 5's for a Worcester round and the scoring is easier as there are fewer shots to score each end.
Sometimes, though, changing from dozens to tens involves a great deal of new " paperwork" converting scores for handicaps / classifications etc.
When our money system went metric it was much easier to calculate( in your head or on a calculator) but there was a lot to do in the background by others and they did have a very good reason for making the change. I don't see archery needing to change with such urgency.
 

dvd8n

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I agree with dvd8n about 12 and divisibility and breaking things down into halves etc etc. It allows families to share things out; which is helpful when keeping things fair.
When it comes to managing numbers; the metric system wins almost every time.
We shoot arrows in 5's for a Worcester round and the scoring is easier as there are fewer shots to score each end.
Sometimes, though, changing from dozens to tens involves a great deal of new " paperwork" converting scores for handicaps / classifications etc.
When our money system went metric it was much easier to calculate( in your head or on a calculator) but there was a lot to do in the background by others and they did have a very good reason for making the change. I don't see archery needing to change with such urgency.
The metric system only wins because we already count in base 10. If we were starting from scratch base ten would never be our first choice for our counting system. Best would be 12 (highly divisible, so good in human terms) or second, 16 (good for computers) (although some would argue with my ordering). It wouldn't be third (8) or fourth (binary) which both suffer from 'not as good as, and more cumbersome than, hex'. Yet both are still better than base 10.

Base 10 has the dubious advantages of being 'not obviously worse than base 6' and 'better than all the odd bases' (3, 5, 7, 9, 11 etc).

Really, evolution would have done us a lot of favours if it had given us an extra finger on each hand...
 

geoffretired

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The metric system only wins because we already count in base 10.
Yes, that is true. There is evidence that we counted in twelves in earlier times, I think.
We have words for numbers up to a dozen, then we change to...... ten plus three; thirteen; ten plus four; fourteen. etc.
I guess the 12 idea is best suited to items shared in families of different sizes.
I think the simplicity of the metric system is easier to learn from scratch, as the units tend to be simpler.
One thing that I find interesting is the way 11 plays a part in quantities.
22 yds in a chain 220 yds in furlong. And 11 even gets involved in metric to imperial conversions. 90 m = 99yds almost
5 litres = 1.1 gallons ( 50 litres = 11 gallons almost)
 

little-else

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I was thinking from the perspective of someone who hadnt seen archery before watching a shoot and trying to quickly calculate how well someone was doing. You could argue that scoring in metric gives you the advantage of orders af magnitude so 10, 100, 1000 etc easy to determine.
In olympic shooting the first stage is scored ex 600 (ex 100 for clays) and that was divided into cards of 100 so a doddle to see who was in a good position at the end of a detail by looking at the points dropped. the brain quickly realises that any score of 2 digits is worse than a score of 3 digits regardless of the actual numbers. That is also the basis of simple automated computation so I suggest that a system based on dozens and grosses came about due to spatial ordering rather than counting- ie putting things into boxes in a 3x4 pattern is more space efficient and has a better aspect ratio than a 5x2 box. The same applies to the navy using square plates, easier to manufacture and store rather than a round on of the same area.
As for chains and furlongs etc, they are divisions of a mile rather than a unit that was invented, like the metre and then multiplied for bigger numbers. the Roman mile was 1000 paces but the pace being measured as a left-right rather than just a single step hence arriving at 1760 yards as this was how far you got marching rather than striding or pacing out distance.
Metric fluid and weight measures also match in so a cubic centimetre of water is a centilitre and has a mass of 10 grams and everything ties together so when you build your swimming pool you should be able to calculate the volume of water and its mass very easily whereas if you use imperial measures can you do the same quicky in your head for a 25 yard x10yard x4 feet deep pool?. What unit for measuring mass would you use if you decided to use hexadecimal for counting?

Human symmetry is part of a much longer evolutionary process, look at the symmetry of starfish, sea urchins etc. how many petals do 3 out of 5 families of flowers have? We were never going to have 8 fingers per hand just so we could invent computers 100,000 years later. 5 fingers so 5 arrows per end so certain people can work out if they have shot all of their arrows and missed or just left them in the quiver. It may change the face of limited over cricket as well. 60 overs of 6 balls an over? At least you only have to get 10 people out, not 11 or 12.
 
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geoffretired

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As for chains and furlongs etc, they are divisions of a mile
That sounds back to front to me. How did anyone know how long a mile should be?
I would have thought ordinary people measured short distances first, with their feet and hands, and strides.
 

geoffretired

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Or spans and cubits... rods poles and perches. heehee.
I would guess that measuring started small and moved on later to larger units.
I could imagine rods or poles being used for things bigger than a stride.
Anything much longer, would mean using the pole several times end to end. Perhaps those who needed to measure items of several poles length, found it easier to use a rope of the right length and even a chain which would last longer.. And perhaps that's how the measurement "Chain" came into being. Chains were used to measure cricket pitches, I believe.
 

4d4m

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That sounds back to front to me. How did anyone know how long a mile should be?
I would have thought ordinary people measured short distances first, with their feet and hands, and strides.
"Mile" comes from the Latin "mille passus", a thousand paces. As little-else mentioned, a Roman pace was a left-right not a single step. There's a wider question of why they decided it should be a thousand rather than 100 or 2000. Despite not having place-based numerals they did use a decimal counting system so it is a round number, but I presume it's based on how far a legion could march in some time period. It seems a bit low for an hour though.
 
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geoffretired

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I am not disagreeing with where the name came from. I am not convinced by the idea that some measures are just sub divisions of mile. I would have thought mile was a whole lot of shorter units added together.
I can easily imagine that measures would eventually become standardised( up to a point) so that amounts of materials could be fairly given out or paid for etc etc.
But was an inch a small part of a yard; or was a yard a certain number of inches; or were the two never really compared with one another?
measuring land would be a fair way of sharing out the fields round a village perhaps. Strip farming, if done fairly would give each worker a strip of land "so wide" and " so long". That could be measured out with rods or poles of wood. One pole in width let's say and ten poles in length.
I can understand that longer distances might require a rope as long as ten poles, just to make life easier. Or a chain to make it harder for someone to cut the end off the rope and give short measure.
So, my question is still; how did the mile become as long as it is if there were no shorter lengths to say how long a mile had to be?
If its a thousand paces, then paces were there first. Mile is a collection of paces; not paces are sub divisions of a mile.
 

little-else

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The mile to yard conversion will take a bit of suposition, an inch is approximatey the length of your little finger top joint so you use that as a measure, a foot is about er a foot long, a yard about the distance between your fingertip and your nose so measured in feet or inches fairly easy to standardise. yes the romans were the first to decide upon a stadard distance and troops marched 20 x milles a day to earn their salt ( salaria=salary these days)
Now I got my cadets to march a roman mile along a muddy track and it worked out pretty well. Easy to check against features on a map but these days your phone GPS will tell you how near the paces are. Chains and rod and pole and perches are multiples of yards and fractions of miles so a cartographer would get his chain gang (originally the ordnace survey tramped around so they could map out military roads to and in Scotland to put down furhter rebellion) to march all over the countryside whilst he stared down the sights on his theodolite. The land area of an acre whas how much a person ploughing could cover in a day and the shape determined by the size of the parcel of land he worked in the 3 field system of the medieval period.
It is all a matter of who decided to use the measures and standardise them as they are rather than being literally paced out or measured with your fingers.
The Metric system was a calculation based on distance from the N pole to Paris and is now calculated by a multiple of the number of wavelengths of light emitted by a particular atom and that has changed in recent years and you get a fractional answer so the original is a peculiar length whe compared to the natural world.
 

4d4m

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Well a mile was a whole lot of shorter units, as it was a multiple of "passum" - pace. :D

But I get what you're driving at. In history, I don't believe measurement systems were created systematically with different units all derived from some base unit. Units were arrived at by convention depending on usage in different contexts. The context of the mile and pace were in terms of soldiers marching. Inches, feet, rods etc came out of different contexts. In the case of inches, feet and cubits, based originally on dimensions of body parts. Clearly these differ between individuals, so (much) later comes standardisation, which needs a suitable authority to enforce it. A standard also needs something immutable to base everything on, which is quite hard to define.

Once you've got a standard base unit, you can make all the other units fit the system by choosing appropriate multiples or fractions.
 
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