Archery

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Wingman
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Archery

Post by Wingman »

I recently bought myself a very sexy entry-level takedown recurve bow, and feel the need to tell people about it. A Ragim Matrix to be specific, 34 pound draw weight, and about 66 inches with the limbs on. It's bigger and more authoritative than the 20 pound rental bow I've been using for the past while, I like it. I'm inordinately proud of it for some reason, even though I've already managed to bury two field points in solid wood within two hours. I didn't want to start hacking at store property with my knife to get the tips out so I had to abandon them, but they only cost 50 cents each so I'm not too torn up about it. And then today, while stringing it, I managed to get a finger stuck between the string and the limb. It kinda hurt.

The only problem is that the indoor range is about 2 hours journey, each way, away from where I live. Because of that, I think it's probably best to buy myself a target or two and find a spot a little closer to home, which will be pretty easy since I'm living on the NW fringes already. It's getting a bit tiring to leave home at about 12:30, and not get there until about 3, only stay until 5, and still not get home until maybe 8. One recent day in particular I spent almost 6 hours on public transit, tracking down stores only to find that they've closed or only have three total recurves in stock, none of which were takedown. Perhaps I should try calling ahead before trekking across the entire city on a whim, especially now that it's started snowing again. Yeah, snowing, in spring, yay Canada.

I've noticed that more than a few fellow packsters have mentioned interests in archery in their posts and I'm wondering if anyone would care to share.

As an aside, I found it curious that I didn't need any sort of documentation, or registration, or even a smile-and-nod with an authority figure to buy a bow. I walked in, looked through the selection, and said, "I'll take this one, some of those arrows, and this armful of other stuff." and three minutes later I had bow in hand. If I were to go out and try to buy a gun, I wonder how far I'd get before needing to fill out some sort of registration, or produce some sort of license or permit, or at least be subjected to a waiting period. Well, there was a waiting period of about ten minutes after the arrows were cut to length and the tips made pointy...but that's not really the same thing. I mean, no one even casually asked what I planned to do with it. Maybe I just look like an upstanding guy, but I received more suspicion the last time I bought a cucumber and hand lotion (totally not for the same purpose...trust me, but let me tell you it was unintentionally awkward, and amusing in retrospect), let alone a two-inch pocketknife.
Maybe it's the size of the bow compared to a handgun, kinda hard to conceal something that's almost as tall as you are, but I doubt it. Just an odd train of thought, and possibly the most enjoyable bit of research for character development that I've done to date.
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JoshuaMadoc
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Re: Archery

Post by JoshuaMadoc »

Awesome, now there's two of me!

What you bought is pretty much the same bow I rent to use in the club I go to on a weekly basis, just 14lbs. heavier in draw weight. How much did you pay for it in USD$? Because I'm getting an offer from the club that a starter bow would go as much as AUD$180. Stringing it is, yes, a pain. With modern recurves like the one you bought, I was taught to string it this way:

Image
Sorry about the messy drawing.

Buying or making your own targets complete with hay bales is always a good idea, since you'll have your own private archery range, provided you be wise in usage precautions.

As for the fact that bows don't have license requirements... Most people often underestimate the bow and arrow due to the fact that mastering it can be very difficult and time-consuming (aside from the assumption that bows are inferior compared to guns, modernist pride, etc), and making a bow that's as powerful as ultra-long-range turkish horn bows that won't break after 3 shots is even more difficult.
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PariahPoet
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Re: Archery

Post by PariahPoet »

I have a wooden longbow for re-enactments.

Something kind of interesting. I just recently found out that one of my classmates here at AC was the 1984 world champion in archery. She had never touched a bow in her life until her husband prompted her to learn to go hunting with him. How cool is that? ^^
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JoshuaMadoc
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Re: Archery

Post by JoshuaMadoc »

That shouldn't be too surprising. He must have taught her how to hunt in a rapidly changing and uneven environment, and that's usually call for demand in reflexes and "pinpointing" where you'll shoot in a split second, since the targets also move.
Wingman
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Re: Archery

Post by Wingman »

Kitestu, I bought it for $150 in Canadian-land funbucks, but I've seen it available online for anywhere between 100-220 bucks, but the cheap site didn't ship outside the US.
Yeah, that's the way I was stringing it, except I got my finger caught right up at the top as I was getting the string in place.
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