Beginner question

Recurve360

Im new to Archery and picked up a petron leisure bow last week. Very basic bit of kit but wanted to start small before getting a recurve. I havnt joined a club yet as I live in Laois there are no clubs near me.
Most of my shooting is in my back yard/field. I was just wondering what is a good distance to shoot from? Im only shooting from 15 metres now but my accuracy still isnt the best. Should I shoot from closer until my accuracy and power increase or stay hallenging myself?

Another question I would like answered is where is the best place to get a target. I have been looking online and the cheapest targets are about €50. Is it worth creating a home made target?

greysides

Kilkenny hosts an archery club that does beginners lessons. Some form of instruction would be a major leg up in technique and safety matters. It would be very hard to get a decent start without some form of help.

Lardy has a thread about how he made a carpet bale for shooting into. It's a few threads below this one. Tale a read of it.

Recurve360

Cheers greysides for the reply.

I seen the club in Kilkenny. Doing a course at the minute so that takes up my time in the evenings. But once thats done I will be sure to head down to Kilkenny to the club.

Thanks for the advice

greysides

Make sure you check out field archery, be it FITA or IFAF. It adds to your skill range, it's great fun and starting off the distances can be small.

booom

a dishwasher box (or something similar) from the likes of powercity, stuff it with polystyrene, rags etc. paint a few rings on and away you go. start at 5 meters, work your way out. no need to spend money on a proper target just yet.

Recurve360

Cheers for the reply guys. Been practicing with a storage box that was filled with Fibreglass Attic insulation. It meant the arrow never went more than 2 inches in and was a sinch to take out. Bought myself a S1 Recurve bow yesterday. 36lb draw weight and still the arrows only go about 3 inches into the fibreglass, would reccomend to others to use the Fibreglass also.
(make sure its compressed or still in the wrapper as if its not tightly packed together your arrows may penetrate it.

CruelCoin

Recurve360 wrote: »

Im new to Archery and picked up a petron leisure bow last week. Very basic bit of kit but wanted to start small before getting a recurve. I havnt joined a club yet as I live in Laois there are no clubs near me.
Most of my shooting is in my back yard/field. I was just wondering what is a good distance to shoot from? Im only shooting from 15 metres now but my accuracy still isnt the best. Should I shoot from closer until my accuracy and power increase or stay hallenging myself?

Another question I would like answered is where is the best place to get a target. I have been looking online and the cheapest targets are about €50. Is it worth creating a home made target?

Its best to start from 5 metres. Practice (or take lessons) untill you are consistantly hitting the gold.

Then move to 10 metres, then 15, etc. At 15 metres or more, its difficult, if not impossible to tell what went wrong with your previous shot, and odds are you'd repeat the same mistake.

Baby steps work best.