New Equipment

28 August 2007 - A sad departure, and a new arrival

Now playing: Another one bites the dust - Queen

My beloved Everest Pro's decided that after 9 months of service (3 times a week) they'd offer themselves up for an early retirement at the weekend. I'd only shot 5 dozen of the Hereford round I was shooting - didn't even make it to the lunch break. But they let go, the entire limb tip came apart, and they were gradually eating their way through my bowstring in the process of delaminating. Thankfully it was noticed by an observant archer between ends, and not whilst I was at full draw. Now I know why my score was so bad too - I was getting ends of 9,9,9 followed by 3,3,1 at 80 yards. I'm know I'm bad, but I'm not THAT bad! Having to sit around all afternoon watching and chatting to the others wasn't exactly riveting either!

So I trotted off to Stan at Aim4sport who kindly allowed me to swap them for whatever he had in my size/weight, which turned out to be a choice of either a pair of Samick Extremes or Hoyt G3's. (plus a £50 top up on the cost of the Everests).

Now I'm not a great one for buying something "just because everyone else has got it", and I have to admit that the G3's were already on the back foot before I'd even tried them, purely because I like to be a little bit idiosyncratic. But I shot about 3 dozen with each pair at Stan's shop yesterday, and the difference was quite remarkable.

By comparison, the G3's felt like sponges to draw, and if I hadn't read the labels on them with own eyes, I'd have said they were 2lbs lighter than the Extremes. They were sluggish, lethargic and generally felt like something that costs £100 less than they should.

The Extremes, on the other hand were fast, punchy and raised my sight marks by 2 points across the entire scale. And dead quiet too.

No contest really - if you like your limbs to feel like a wet lettuce, get the G3's, but if you like a bit of 'zing' in your shots, I can highly recommend Samick Extremes.

I then spent the entire afternoon up at the club getting the feel of them, and I think I'm going to like them!

26 July 2007 - Shooting with the Helix (properly!)

Now playing: So in Love with You - Texas

Finally managed to get some decent shooting time with the Helix last weekend and again this evening. Sadly though, it was back to square 1 with regard to tuning, sight marks and clicker setting, so I think it might be a while before I'm feeling totally comfortable with it yet.

Firstly, tuning - the pressure button goes a lot further through the riser than it used to with the Eclipse, as it's a thinner structure. This of course affects the centre shot, and after doing a number of bare shaft tests it transpired that my arrows were shooting too stiff. Thankfully the nocking point height on the string was OK, and the height of the bare shaft was perfect with the group, although landing left. I ended up taking about 8 full turns off the pressure button to soften it, and finally got the bare shaft landing in the group at 20 yards. Windage on the sight adjusted accordingly, and all the arrows ended up in the gold at 20 and 30 yards - happy with that! 

Next comes the arduous task of getting some sight marks for the full range of distances, from 20 yards right through to 100, both for metres and yards.... *yawn*. So off I trot to the kids end of the shooting line and set up on 30, 40, 50 and 60 yards. Happy with all those. Then 80. And the first thing I notice at the first proper "long" distance is how well the arrows are now flying. It's only at 80 and 100 that the arrows have to arc their way to the target, and you actually get a chance to see how they fly. There's no longer any fishtailing and they're all going where I want them to go - this is good! Then 100 yards, and by this time it was getting late so I wasn't able to shoot as many as I'd have liked, but about 2 dozen was enough to see that all is well. Quite looking forward to the Club Championships to see where my scores are now.

Then shot 70m and 50m this evening, and after about 4 dozen at 70, which took a while to get right, the 50m shots were all looking very good indeed. The one thing I have noticed though is that my clicker setting is perhaps a little too far back, as I was struggling to get through it after about 6 dozen tonight. Need to focus on getting this set correctly this coming weekend. 

19 July 2007 - Another new arrival!

Now playing: Eight Days a Week - The Beatles

OK, I accept that me and money are easily parted, especially when it comes to shiny new archery stuff! However, this teeny weeny expenditure was the result of selling a load of my old motorcycling gear on eBay, so it wasn't that hard to justify. So I am now the proud owner of THE sexiest black Helix riser this side of the Hoyt factory, with a simply beautiful Loesch laminated grip, and for the past week or so I've been itching to get out and shoot with it. I refrained from using it at the last two tournaments though, essentially because I need some time to practice with it before I use it competitively. Now that they're over, for the past few days the weather has been conspiring against me so I've been unable to get to the range with it. 

Tonight was the night though - managed to get a dental appointment for 5:00pm and I knew that I'd be able to get a good couple of hours play with my new toy straight afterwards. However as I walked out of the dentist's door (with a clean bill of health!) the skies opened, and down came yet more rain. By now I was feeling so hacked off with the weather that I was prepared to just go and shoot, and simply get wet in the process! When I got there though, just as the rain was easing off, what do I discover?  All 5 rugby pitches have been divided up into 5-a-side football pitches and there's a *&^$%*!!%* football competition going on!!! 

 AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!

So I decided to take a gamble of potentially wrecking one arrow (as I have no sight marks for the new bow) and shoot at home, and stuff the consequences. Set the bow up, put the sights to the sight mark from the Eclipse at 14 yards, and hold my breath as I release the first arrow. Buh-dunk goes the bow, ker-thud goes the arrow, straight into the centre of the boss. Wooo hooo! Another, and another, and another, all hitting more or less the same spot every time. This is goooood!  I then put the tatty old Vegas face back onto the boss just to see how accurate I'm being, and after a bit of fiddling with windage, didn't miss the target face once. I only shot about 3 dozen arrows this evening as there are still a few tweaks that need sorting out, like the rest needs moving out slightly, and I'm not yet happy with the clicker position, but that will all get sorted out at the weekend. 

The general feel of the bow though, even though I've only shot a few dozen with it, are that it's a lot heavier in the hand than the Eclipse, and much more stable as a consequence. Bow roll on the follow-through is less evident too. It makes a beautiful sound as it shoots, and it feels so comfortable in the hand as you hold it. Everyone said how good Hoyt's own grips are, and indeed the Eclipse grip was delightful to hold, but the Loesch grip is in a different league all together! It's smooth, it's warm and it just sits in the palm of the hand like it was created there.

I'll write up more on this riser over time, but these are just my initial thoughts on only having shot with it for about 20 minutes.  I love it! 

9 July 2007 - Beiter Stabiliser set

Now playing: On My Mind - Donavon Frankenreiter

OK, I appreciate stabilisers are meant to stabilise the bow, and I also appreciate this is stating the obvious somewhat, but Beiter stabilisers really DO do their job extremely well. A combination of a good deal from Aim4Sport at the Herts Open yesterday and some nifty bargain hunting on eBay furnished me with a new long rod, v-bar, 4" extender and twin rods, so I just HAD to get up to the range this evening to see what difference they make to the bow. And boy, what a difference!  Previously, my Cartel carbon gear was good but I didn't realise that the difference between a £70 set of stabilisers and a £170 set would be quite so dramatic. 

Sight marks have dropped by about 1mm, but that's no big deal when you consider that the groups I was shooting were a good 9 inches tighter than before. I'd left the sights at the 50 yard mark from yesterday, and proceeded to shoot 2 dozen at this distance - every arrow except one bad loose was at 6 o'clock in the red. Sights moved down a tad, and the next 10 arrows all went into the gold!  So let's do this at 80 yards then....  I used the same sight marks as for the 80 yard section yesterday, and (predictably) they all went low in the red and blue. Sight moved again, and proceeded with a further two ends, and I must confess I astounded even myself - four golds and two reds on both ends! This is incredible, let's do it again! Not quite so astounding this time, but two more 40 ends none the less. 

The thing that was most noticeable was how much tighter the group was - previously my groups were all (usually) blue or better at 80 yards, with the odd rogue arrow thrown in to make sure I don't lose perspective. This is approximately a group size of around 27" (three of my hand spans across the target), This evening that group had shrunk to around 18", and there was nothing outside the red. The difference really is that much. They also go some way to quietening the bow a bit too, and it sounds a lot sweeter with the Beiter gear on it. A sound investment methinks - these can stay!

PS - the clever ones out there among you will have worked out by now that my hand span is about 9", make of that what you will....

11 April 2007 - New string and a design fault on the sights! 

Now playing: Angels of the Silences - Counting Crows

Having spoken to a few people about hitting the long range targets (90m and 100 yards) and what to do about sights, there appears to be two distinct schools of thought on which is the best way to accommodate these distances. Either leave the sights as they are, and move the sight bar in towards the bow, or move the entire sight track down one setting, get a complete new set of sight marks, but still be able to leave the sight bar extended out at its maximum setting - thereby having a set of summer sight marks and winter sight marks.  I opted to go for the latter as it's a lot less mucking about with settings once it's set, and I won't be needing winter sight marks until October. Sight marks were established for all the major yard and metre distances, all the way up to 90m - had one particularly nice end of 42 at 90m (metric scoring), so all is well once again.

The only drawback I now have is that the sight mark for 90m is literally right smack bang on the bottom of the adjustment on the sight track, and the sights will simply not adjust any lower. So when it comes to shooting 100 yards, I've got no further adjustment to go down any more. Although it was perfect shooting conditions today I didn't bother trying to shoot the extra 2 yards, but when I start doing 100 yard shoots next year I'll have to figure something out. There isn't an option of dropping the sight track any lower either (although it will go) as I won't have a sight mark for 30m then, and there may well be clearance issues with the arrows too.

I'll run this past the good people of AIUK and see what they recommend, and talk to Merlin about how to gain the additional 3-4mm I need in adjustment. I do think it's a design fault in the sight though, as the sight pin holder is quite large and squared off at the bottom. If it was slightly smaller, or rounded at the bottom it would give an additional amount of adjustment. Pictures below - the area in question is circled.:

17 March 2007 - New A&F tab, faced with "Oberon" 

Now playing: 4am Forever - Lost Prophets

After hearing a lot of debate and discussion about this strange, space age and somewhat secretive material on AIUK, and lots of archers testing it out over the past 6 months or so, I bought myself some to try out.  I also bought myself a brand new tab to cannibilise too, rather than wreck the tab that I've been using for the past year. Shooting with it this morning, firstly at 60 yards, and then at 80, one of the over riding things I noticed was how cumbersome it feels on the string.  The face material is significantly thicker than the leather of my old tab, but I guess it's a bit like trying on a new pair of shoes, and it needs to bed in to the shape of my fingers and string before I get fully accustomed to it.  I've also kept the thin layer of leather (that goes against the fingers) on the new tab, so the Oberon material is a direct replacement for just the face leather.

I shot about 6 dozen at 60 and a further 2 dozen at 80, and the one thing I was struck by, was the fact that my groups were all significantly lower using the new material, than my old tab. The shot process was however, very smooth and the string left the fingers very easily and very smoothly. I'm not sure how much the new material will soften with use over time, in the same way that leather does with use, but I'll keep trying with it - I'm not sure I'm ready for it to become my main tab just yet though!

Then I remembered that I have an indoor tournament shoot next week, at Arrowheads. Having just shot 60 & 80 and putting my windage over to accommodate those distances, I needed to get some accurate sight marks at 20 yards.  Fortunately there were still a couple of targets left out from the beginners course, so I shot on those for a few dozen to make sure I was back on target again. Windage adjusted, all arrows grouping nicely, exactly where I wanted them, (with the old tab), and I'm happy that we're all OK for next week. I then try the same distance using the Oberon tab, just to see if such a short distance would have any effect on anything, and low and behold, ALL the arrows land about 6 inches lower than the previous group! Not sure what this could be down to, but it's clear that it's the tab that is responsible. I'll keep trying to get it to bed in by using it on practice days, but in my opinion the jury's still out!

17 February 2007 - Traveller Spotting Scope

Now playing: Boliviana - Ibrahim Ferrer

Not sure it counts as "new equipment" as such, but I found this fantastic deal at ALDI Supermarket through the AIUK website, for a spotting scope with 20-60mm zoom, 60x magnification, and a 60mm front aperture lens for a mere £25! 

Shooting 80 yards today it was easy to make out my lime green nocks on the target face, and very easy to distinguish my arrows from the others on the target - and at full zoom it takes the view right up to the face so that only the red and gold are visible. It's got an angled eyepiece, which makes viewing easier on your back, and all I need to do now is find a sturdy tripod on Ebay to hold it with - It's the deal of the year in my opinion, and I wish I'd now bought half a dozen of them, and knocked them out for a profit!

23 Dec 2006 - Merlin Omega Classic Recurve sight

Now playing: Wonderwall - Oasis

Santa came early this year, and he brought a shiny new Omega Classic sight from Merlin Archery! I also asked him to put a Beiter sight tunnel onto it, which he dutifully did. It's extremely well made, and has nice crisp clicks to adjust it for both up & down and windage (left to right). The sight marker itself is a needle positioned along a ruler which is in approx 1mm increments. 

The nice thing about it is that the adjuster knobs (both top and bottom) move the sight block about 1mm per click, which is great for the accuracy required for indoor shooting and nice for outdoors as there's also a button which disengages the thread mechanism and allows the sight block to slide in larger movements. The Beiter sight tunnel was a recommendation from Duncan K and it really does make a difference to just viewing the target through a black cross-hair. The light seems to collect in the ring, and gives a "glow" to the reticule, making viewing the gold on the target much easier.  

Shooting with it this morning, it felt nice and solid on the bow, and all I need to do now is try to work out some accurate sight marks, which will develop over the next few shoots.

All in all it was well worth the £80, and a bargain when compared to other similar sights such as the Sure Loc, which retail for a good £50 more. The only thing I could criticise is the fact it comes with no hard case to keep it in - although a £12 visit to Ebay for a pistol case soon sorted that!

15 Nov 2006 - New Limbs and Arrows

Now playing: Into Your Arms - Lemonheads

Wow! What can I say that will do justice to the new limbs? Compared to pulling the Samick Universals (which were OK, don't get me wrong, just an "entry level" limb) the W&W Everests are like pulling on pure silk. They are so smooth to draw, right through the clicker, and there's not a spot of stacking right the way up to full draw. I definitely think I made the right choice!  The arrows fly much much faster than the X7's do, and along a much flatter trajectory.

It took a while, with Frank's help, to sort out the windage on the sight, and ended up coming in almost 3 full turns, as the arrows were all going way over to the right. With that sorted, and some new sight marks dialled in, I was able to get some lovely groups right up to 80 yards. I shot about 20 arrows at each distance from 20 yards up to 80 yards, and I'm feeling happy with the way it went. It was quite a blustery morning, so there was no chance of doing any fine tuning with the button just yet

It's amazing how different the bow now feels, the different noise it makes as it shoots, and I'm noticing a significant "jolt" forwards now as I release - far more so than the Samicks used to give me. And as I'm now coming to terms with gripping the bow less, it's giving a little kick as the arrow leaves the bow, and I'm noticing it slightly rolling round forwards after the shot - which is all good! I need to work on my follow-through now, and make sure that my drawing hand finishes somewhere near my right shoulder. 

11 Nov 2006 - A shade over £400 less in my wallet!

Now playing: Never be Lonely - The Feeling

After having spent the time between April and November 2006 getting accustomed to the Samick Universal limbs and X7 arrows, I've now gone out and bought some Win & Win Everest Pro limbs, along with Easton Navigator arrows (aluminium/carbon 610).  

A quick mention for Aim4sport.com here, in Sandy, Beds (http://www.aim4sport.com/) Recently set up by the former manager of Chiltern Archery, and his prices knock spots off people like Quicks!  A bit of a hike from west London (about 45 minutes up the A1) but well worth it in my opinion. On the above limbs and arrows alone, I've saved over £120 compared to Quicks prices.

I've decided to go up a few pounds on my limbs from 34lbs to 38lbs to give my arrows a flatter trajectory, and the carbon arrows should fly faster than the aluminium X7's.  Now I have to go out and get a whole new set of sight marks, and re-tune the bow (centre shot, button pressure etc) to make sure they all work together properly. The first time I shoot them could either be a dream or a complete nightmare!  Either way, I expect my scores to suffer for a while, which is why I chose to upgrade in the winter, and to give me time to get used to the new equipment before the outdoor season starts again in the spring.

17 Sept 2006 – Shooting with a clicker for the first time

A lovely warm late summer’s afternoon, and I had the range to myself. Shooting into the sun was never going to be very pleasant, but I was just really keen to get some practice in with my clicker. Having been told by a few of the guys at the club that I should wait at least year before starting to use one, and everyone else on AIUK saying I should use one as soon as I’m feeling ready – well, I feel ready! If I’m going to use one eventually, then let’s get on with it!

So today I decided to shoot a Long National (4 dozen at 80 yards, 2 dozen at 60 yards). I’ve always like the National sets of rounds, as the average arrow score for a classification seems to be lower than the Warwick, Western or Windsor.

Clicker primed, sun in my eyes, opened up the 80 yards with a 56 for the first dozen – not bad I suppose, but I know I can do better. The next 3 dozen come in at 41 (one miss), 60, and 58. So – pretty average.

Target moved to 60 yards, and I’m getting the hang of the clicker now. Next two dozen come in at 80 and 58. The last end was pants, and the sun in my eyes was pissing me off, so I rushed it – foolishly! Anyway – the score came in at 353, and it’s my first ever Second Class score, so I was well pleased. Sadly I can't enter it as I was shooting alone and there was no one to corroborate my score.

My thoughts on using the clicker – I’m surprised by how much more time it gives you at full draw, and that teeny weeny push on the bow hand is enough to make the clicker click, and then the release. My opinions on that are that (for me anyway) it gives me MUCH more time to aim the shot than I used to give myself, and that’s highlighted by the fact that I achieved a higher handicap rated score than I’ve ever managed before, so I reckon it’s giving me more time to aim properly, and also draw to a more consistent length. Some of my groups at both 80 and 60 were pretty darn good, and I hit a 48 for one end at 60, so that was good.

The one thing I will criticise it for though, is nocking the arrow – it’s a right pain in the bum – holding the clicker open, sliding the arrow through (with a tab on), and making sure the clicker doesn’t spring under the arrow as you’re sliding it through. There must be an easy way to do this?

All in all though, I feel comfortable using the clicker, and I’ll continue using it now in preparation for the Double American at Aquarius in October. It helped me today, and I think it can stay on my bow!