Im fairly new to archery and have had 2 right handed bows. I've never gotten to serious about archery and now desided to swich and shoot left handed since Im left handed. So I dont really know what bows are capable of.
Well now I want to start shooting again but don't know what is considered ok accuracy.
On an adverage day with a trad. bow what kind of groups do YOU get at say 20 yards?
Also would a #40 recurve be a good weight for small game? Thanks
Tree....40#s is enough to kill a deer as well as small game.
If ya can keep every shot on a paper plate at 20 yards, go kill something. There are a lot of good shots out there but there are way more average shots by far. What I have seen is that not quite half the guys shooting can do the paper plate thing at 20 yards and I mean every time no flyers. Shawn
sorry I posted pretty much the same question earlier today but didnt see it until now. (Im knew at this form)
Check out the results of the online tourney and see where you compare!
Interesting that you a switching hand. I am starting to shoot both right now. I was amazed that shooting right handed ( I am a lefty who is right eye Dom) I was able it get fairly accurate in only a week. I usually shoot left handed but am now wondering if I can get more accurate a a righty over time.
Good luck!
At 25 yds (the length of my indoor basement range), on an AVERAGE day, a DOZEN (not 3-5, but a DOZEN) arrows go into 6 inches.
(http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o232/Ottodude/PICT1139.jpg)
And it only takes 2 little brain farts to screw up a REALLY good 25 yard group.
Everybody gets a slinger every now and then Otto...thats some good shooting buddy
Otto I am sooooooo jealous, I wish I had 25 yards indoors :thumbsup:
EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, And it depends on your passion for the sport and practice received. I spend alot of time shooting and UNDERSTANDING my shot so that they are better than good, and I shoot with people who have been shooting for decades that can barely hit a 3D deer target at 15 yds. I want to be the best at wht I do and I put the time in. do the same and oull be fine, 40# is plenty for many Large Game animals.
you should switch right or left based on dominant eye being right or left, not which hand you do things with.
I can do everything left handed except writing...but my shooting right handed is because of eye dominance.
IMO...(here we go)
How many arrows you can put in a plate or the dot or whatever never moving your feet means little in the bowhunting world. It's how often you can put that ONE arrow in the kill zone everytime. If you can't do it consistantly at 20 yards, don't shoot at a critter at 20 yards.
Pretty simple actually.
Packing arrows into the pieplate might help with form but in bowhunting realities, only one arrow counts.
Alot of it depends on how you practice. I think it's hard for trad shooters to stand in one spot and nail arrow after arrow into a target. Maybe it's just me and my short attention span, but if I shoot just one arrow, retrieve it and then shoot again, I'm much more consistent with my accuracy.
Biggie is right on the money!!! What can you do with one arrow. dino
Thank You Biggie and Precurve... I could never understand why "Shooting Groups" would be important to a hunter. What game animal will stand there and give you a second shot?
Shooting groups is good for short range form practice or target archers. Also important for some new archers. For hunting practice nothing beats stump shooting or roving! Make Your First Shot Count. Then you will be very accurate in hunting situations.
My 2 Cents Worth ... ;) ...
... mike ...
PS... Best Of Luck Tree! :thumbsup:
`Like Biggie, one shot one kill. The other thing is not to get to hung up on yardage. I kinda roam around the yard taking shoots from different angles and yardage. I might be 5 yards away or 35, I don't know but that's how hunting shots are and on the 3D range so that's how I practice. Works for me.
In my opinion the best shot,obviously,needs to be the first shot.That's how I made the choice which bow to shoot this last year for hunting season.I would go and shoot each bow the first thing in the morning.I would alternate between bows from day to day.After a few weeks one bow stood out as being able to pull off that first shot better than the others.That's what I hunted and practiced with the rest of the year and it worked out great.The bow for me is a Shrew.I think it's the grip.For someone else it might be completely different.
Biggie and others are correct. It's that 1 arrow in the breadbasket that counts.
I shoot groups because that's my way of honing my form such that when I do loose an arrow at a critter, that I KNOW it's going to go where I want it to. Shooting groups does that for me. Others may do it by spot shooting or stump shooting or some other means. The fact is a fella has to practice. Because some of us like to see how well we can stack arrows against one another doesn't make what we do useless or wrong. It's just a different form of practice. The implication that a guy who can shoot small groups is a lousy bowhunter...well, that's just...shall we say...uninformed.
EVERYBODY who wants to be a good shot has to do that in some form or another. If a fella can achieve that by hanging upside down shooting one arrow at a time at an old pair of bloomers hangin off the clothesline....well, whatever works for ya.
Well let me be the devil's advocate here. If you can shoot good groups, you will probably not shoot bad in the woods. Helllllllo~~~!!!
I became a much better hitter in the deer woods, when I concentrated on becoming a better shot with the bow. Shooting groups means you are consistent.
Work on becoming consistent in your form and accuracy will follow.....even that mystical, first-shot accuracy in the woods....on animals.
Instead of a pie plate, use a paper cup. Then take that form in to the woods and shoot stumps.
Learn first shot accuracy (which will come with practice and shooting a lot...even groups).
otto, I don't think anybody has implied that at all. Certainly not me.
Lemmie ask you "group shooters" an honest question.
Do you stand in the same spot, and shoot the same way every shot?
I mean, same bow angle, same stance, same distance, same anchor point?
Was It Me? Well... We all have OUR way of being accurate with our bows. Otto does make a fine point also. Grouping works for him and others. There is no way "I" can group a bunch of arrows like that at 25yds. I'm a one shot guy. Gotta move around and shoot over, through, under stuff. Maybe I get board too fast. Guess I'm an odd-ball. Whatever.... To me that is the true art of traditional archery.
... mike ... :archer: ...
PS... Leave my bloomers out of it ... ;) ...
The first arrow I shoot when I begin to practice is the one that stands out the most in mind. It's not unlike the one arrow I will shoot deer hunting.
If I'm consistently grouping arrows where I want them to go, a few flyers here and there don't upset me. Why? Because, I like to shoot and at some point ya just get a little tired. I don't get tired from shooting out of my deer stand.
Properly tuned equipment will facilitate shooting accuracy.
I have always been taught that form is the most important aspect of archery. Accuracy will follow perfect form, that is why we practice "closed, open, closed" before and after every lesson.
I tell my younger brother when we shoot together (@foam blocks, straw bales), that if we are not out in the woods trying to find one of mine, it was a good shot!
If I'm shooting in the basement (ie....it's cold as hell outside) then I'll shoot pretty much from 25 yds. But I my lean over to one side, I may hold my bow horizontal on one shot, vertical on the next an all places in between.
If I'm outside, I purposely mix it up. 15 yd shot, then a 25 or a 30, then a 17.3 or whatever. If I'm working STRICTLY on a form issue, then I'll stand there at the same yardage all day and pound the target till I fix what's wrong.
Mcgroundstalker...forgive me for being thin skinned today. I just get very tired of hearing folks say "well he's death on a target but can't hit a deer to save his arse". Believe me, I hear that alot. I recognize you didn't say that but I did have to take issue with shooting groups and hunting. It works well for me but is also ain't for everyone for sure.
well then you are not just a group shooter, then are you otto.
i agree with biggie on this one, i take one arrow out to practice with me and that is all i shoot. i go get that arrow and just start walking away from the target and where ever i stop is where i shoot from. and i just started throwing my arrow in various directions from the target and shooting from where it lands.
i believe if you only shoot groups and are a instictive shooter then your subconcious will start to make slight adjustments to move the arrow to where it needs to go. if you start to hit left then your subconcious will start to aim a little right. at least that is what happens to me.
this is not good because most of the time we have to point of the arrow in the right spot it was a mechanical error that made the bad shot.
imo, outside of working on form, shooting one arrow at a time from various ranges is better practice.
One reason why I don't care to shoot just 1 arrow is that I can't measure any improvement that way. All I can say is "yeah, that woulda killed him" or "that one was 2 inches left and down". If I do that for 10 or 12 arrows, I'm left with nothing to benchmark myself against. I'm constantly trying to be a better shooter (and so is everyone else, I'm sure) and the best way for me to do that is to shoot groups and see how what I did today stacks up against what I did last week or last month. Obviously we all have our opinions.
In the end, all any of us can offer is what works best for each of us.
Shooting groups can draw your attention away from accuracy.IMO Too many arrows in the way to get good concentration. If you can put a single arrow in the kill zone at 20 yards any time you shoot then you are accurate enough. Pat
"Shooting groups can draw your attention away from accuracy.IMO Too many arrows in the way to get good concentration."
Not if your shooting small groups. If you're shooting small groups, then trust me dude...you ARE concentrating.
Shooting good groups from any distance builds confidence...
Someone, (I think Ron La Clair) a while back wrote that to determine one's true hunting accuracy, or, "hunting group" size, that they should fire 1 cold shot (no warm up shots) into a target at the same given distance each day for 5 days.
The group at the end of that 5 days would be representative of that hunter's average size group as it relates to shots at game in the field.
I tend to agree with that, but I also think that if you hunt from a treestand or from a ground blind, you should shoot your groups accordingly as well.
YB
Otto, I have never had the opportunity to shoot more than one arrow at a deer while hunting. My practice consists of shooting at 3D deer, one shot at each. When I shoot at a butt to keep myself in shape, I have a small item suspended about 4' in front of the butt and that is what I shoot at. When I hit it it gives me a moving target to shoot at.
When I try for groups my shooting gets inconsistent. I believe it is the other arrows that distract me. Everyone has their own practice methods. The ones above work the best for me.
Even at 3D shoots, I don't keep score. I buy a score card to support the shoot but when I keep score I worry more about the score and my shooting goes down hill. I shoot for kill shots and in my experience sometimes a shot in the ten ring would mean a wounded deer in real life because of the angle of the shot. Pat
If your 1st arrow isn't in the bullseye, do you still shoot a group around that 1st arrow? Do you shoot AT that 1st arrow, or try to hit the bullseye the 2nd arrow then start grouping?
Biggie, I never shoot at bulls eyes. Either at the kill zone on a 3D target or I pick a non-descriptive spot on whatever I'm shooting at. Pat
Keeping on with Biggies" statement. If you can't do it at 20, don't shoot critters at 20....but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it at 10 or 15 (if you CAN do it at that range.) As you get better...expand.
ChuckC
Biggie
I'm always aiming for the bullseye or if I'm shooting at a 3D target, then the 12 ring. If the first arrow misses 2 inches left or right or where ever, my second shot is still aimed for the bull.
Shooting groups or roving isn't an either/or proposition. There's no reason why a person can't benefit from both.
Have a look at the online tourney. It will let you know what the average person is shooting at 15 yards. The average score has been been 46-48 points. Have a look at the targets you'll get an idea.
Week 1 (http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=054389;p=1)
week 2 (http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=054662)
Week 3 (http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=054969#000000)
Week 4 (http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=055310#000000)
I'm the one shot type from different yardage and angles. I avoid shooting groups from the same spot for one thing once I have an arrow in the target that usually gives me a nice bright fletch to shoot at and makes picking a spot a whole lot easier.
If you shoot instinctive that spot is crucial a good many times on the 3D course that first shooters arrow good or bad will suck the following shooters.
On small game I use blunts or judos a hit is usally fatal or non fatal so I don't worry much about taking an ethical shot.
Well, I am new to traditional archery, but a longtime bowhunter/shooter. As for practice, I do some of everything that has been mentioned. I don't do any of them as well as I would like to, but at least for now, I can blame that on being new to instinctive shooting.
I don't understand how a person can be a good shot during one type of practice and not at another though. To me, a person who can shoot accurately, should be able to shoot accurately regardless of whether they are shooting groups at known yardages, stumping, one shot from unknown yardages, or otherwise. If you concentrate and put forth the same effort on each shot, I would think that accuracy would be the same regardless of practice routine.
I do think that practicing in various different ways can only server to better your accuracy(IMO).
I think everyone should shoot groups AND a single arrow from different distances and positions.Both kinds of practice has it's merits.
What I hate to see,and I'm not calling any names,is some guy shooting singles that misses by a mile most of the time but only seems to remember the few he lucked in.And the ones that miss half the 3-D targets in a match but claim if it had been a live animal they would have nailed it.
Everyone misses sometimes.What matters is what happens most of the time.