Im 150lbs, and wouldnt mind spending anywhere from 200 to 300 dollars on a beginner bow for target shooting.
I hear recurve bows are good but im unsure why. I’d like a quality beginner bow that will last me a while if necessary. Im unsure as to If I should use a sight or what other accessories I might want. Also, I really want to develop my skill naturally at first, any advice on how to do this?
Thanks for the help snipers.
Ah target archery, my type of guy. It all depends on what you want to do with it, do you want to compete some day?
A recurve will give you a good start for one primary reason. Once you’ve learned to shoot it properly, and it’s very hard to do it improperly with a recurve and still hit the target, you can usually switch to any other type of bow (compound, longbow, etc) with little problems. Recurve is somewhat of a middle of the road bow. It requires technique to shoot properly, you can’t use sloppy technique, like you can with a compound, and still hope to hit what you’re aiming at. With a sight on a recurve, you will eliminate one variable in the shooting form and that is aiming skill. With a sight, all you have to do is point the sight at the target and shoot, if your arrows are spread over a wide area, you definitely know it’s your form that’s the problem and not aiming. Without a sight, if your arrows are all over the place, you don’t know which is at fault, form or aiming.
There is a basic, fundamental form to archery. While there is no one good form for everyone, certain aspects of the archery form is the same. For instance, everyone stand straight up when shooting as this is the easiest stance to get done properly, outside of a circus you don’t see too many archers shooting with their feet. Anchoring is the first skill you need to learn, that is attaching the back end of the arrow to your face. That might sound painful, but actually it’s just a matter of touching the string to your chin and the top part of your index finger to your jaw. This fixes the rear of the arrow relative to your eye. There are many other methods of anchor, the string to chin method is the most solid, and a luxury you get for using a sight. Barebow shooters don’t have that luxury and have to rely on other forms of anchor that puts the rear of the arrow closer to their eyes
Here is the basic archery form, it used to be called the 9 steps, but now NAA revised it to the 10 steps. At the beginning, ignore step 7
http://www.learnarchery.com/basicarcheryinstruction9steps.html
As for bows, if you want to learn target archery properly, you have to start with light bows, very light bows. I’ve been doing this for 8 years, and when I need to learn a new form I drop my poundage to 20 lbs. That gets costly, because you need to buy a lot of limbs. The alternative to that is to build up your form and strength using other people’s equipment. By that I mean, go to a range and usually they have equipment that you can borrow. If you’re in the US, go to www.usarchery.org and find one near you, if you’re lucky you can find one that does it for free.