[biff]

I wondered if some of the bowshooters on here could list how it would help your trapshooting. I shot with a 50 lb recurve bow this weekend and found out just how weak my upper body is and how to look at the target during the lock time when I released the arrow. It was an eye opener! Biff

 

[crusha]

27 yard line?

Let me show you what the _real_ "Back Fence" looks like. Well, not quite - the actual maximum FITA distance is another 40 meters beyond what is shown in this photo.

(There is plenty of trapshooter physique evident here, however).

There are no gun shooters on earth, who are the equals of the guys who shoot matches with 50# recurves and plunk that 10-ring at 70~90 meters. It requires activation and control of muscles you didn't even know you had.


Marksmanship? Shee-eet, you don't know what marksmanship is, until you try that.


But as for cross-over benefit to trapshooting? Not very similar, except for the upper body strength you will, by necessity, have to develop.


I can still remember the first time I shot a 200 registered singles event. Got a sunburn but that was about it. I also remember the first double-900 (recurve) archery tournament I shot a few years back. After 180 (plus practice) shots holding at full draw and trying to release good shots in the wind - and walking 50~70 yards back and forth to the target to retrieve arrows every 6 shots - I was "gassed" in a way that was hard to describe. It was probably equal parts mental and physical, but I just wanted to go lay down somewhere for a few days.

 

[mette56]

The answer IMO is yes. Especially shooting a recurve with NO sights. A recurve with no sights teaches you to look at your target instead of a sight. You'll see alot of compound bow shooters (with sights) tilting their heads backwards at full draw, not forward. No good trap shooter tilts his head back on the stock...only beginners not well schooled. I'm an avid bowhunter for 56 years and shoot both compound and recurve. With both style bows, sights or not, I look through, not at anything but the target. To do this with a bow effectively, you must practice good trap shooting technique...IMO. So yes, shooting a bow will help your trapshooting point of focus, depth perception and target recognition, but only if you look through the sights, not at them!

milt

PS. That upper body weakness will go away with practice unless you're old and full of aches and pains like me...LOL

 

[snowbird]

Hi Biff.

Now you are getting it, release the trigger like you release the bow string. I know how you feel, I have a 55 lb. Fred Bear Super Grizzly recurve they are hard on old guys.

Terry.

 

[spclays1]

I have about 14 recurves. The eye/hand corridnation required for both sports goes hand in hand with everything that you do on a trap, skeet or 3-D archery shoot.

 

[Old Fowler]

I shoot and hunt primarily with a custom take-down recurve bow. Have used traditional archery equipment since 1961. A while back I tried a Hoyt Magna Tec compound with an archery release aid instead of a finger tab or glove. Although I tried, when at full draw, to release the arrow, I couldn't pull the trigger...I tried to,....I wanted to.....but I couldn't. When I finally did I jerked my bow hand so far off the target the arrow missed the 3D deer target, missed the backstop and flew out into the field at the archery club.

Funny thing, until I went to a release trigger many years ago, I used to do about the same thing when trying to pull the trigger on my Ljutic. I found out that, according to my brain anyway, a trigger is a trigger whether associated with a gun or a bow!

Hopefully when I get too weak to pull a recurve bow to full draw, there will be an archery release-release aid available. Maybe there is now, I don't know.

 

[crusha]

Fowler,

Do an internet search on "Back Tension Release." It could be the answer to your problem. There is no trigger to push or pull; you simply set a tension level on the release, and then after pulling to full draw and "arming" the release, you continue pulling backward a bit against the "wall" of your cam, and at a certain pre-set poundage beyond the set tension, the bow simply goes off.

A very different sensation, but when you get it...the feeling of smoothness in the shot, it's like no other weapon you've ever fired. You just have to be careful, when you're learning to use it, so you don't send one of your nice arrows into la-la land, punch yourself in the throat, etc. (and believe me, if you go to any decent-size indoor tournament in the winter, you'll see a half-dozen people do it, guaranteed).

 

[crusha]

...another photo on the firing line...

 

[mette56]

Fowler,

There is (or was) a "release trigger" for archery. I tested one around 1992 or so because I had target panic and couldn't get the trigger pulled in the same way I couldn't get my trap gun trigger pulled. I didn't like it because, after setting the trigger and holding on until I got the bow back to full draw, it just didn't feel natural. The release part was OK, but hard to hold the trigger set and pull back with all that torque on the string. Some did like it though. You'd need to talk to archery shops to see if the product is still around. It worked just like a release on a trap gun...

Good luck,

milt

 

[biff]

Wow! Buzz are those targets that far away?! I can hardly see the Bulls Eye! A double 900! My arms felt like jelly after pulling to set that 50# pull about 10 times! I thought it would be like the little rubber suction arrows and the 5 # toy bow I had as a kid; did get a good shot on one of my Mom's table lamps!

Terry, other than your chart, I now understand why you break so many 100 straights and are so smoothe with your shot delivery!!! Looks like this archery thing for me would have to be just for fun/non competitive with about a 35- 40# recurve and a bulls eye about the size of a clay target--not those aspirin size ones those real men are shooting!!!!Thanks, Biff

 

[comp 1]

Keep in mind bow shooters put their weight on their BACK foot.

 

[Dednlost]

I'm waiting until the coach posts to decide if this will help my trapshooting. I'm sure he is a factory tech for 3 or 4 brands of bows.

 

[antidote]

Bow shooting will greatly increase the perceived recoil a shotgun which is also compounded by the noise factor.

 

[ivanhoe]

buzz-gun are those targets at fifty or sixty meters? It is hard to tell from a pic.

BTW there are other types of target archery. Some places still shoot Field Archery.

Bob Lawless

 

[Bill Hom]

biff
I own a Archery Pro Shop and I am a certified NFAA instructor and a tournament shooter. Trapshooting is a great sport, archery is a disipline. The only relation between the two is that they both require extreme concentration to do well at either.

mette56
There is still a couple of companies that make the same release as you were speaking of,and you are right. they are very hard to get used to. However there is a T-handle style - Relax release that like a shotgun, you come to full draw, set the trigger with your thumb and hold - aim and relax thumb to fire. It is called a Cascade Relax Release. You can find it on spothogg.com

Bill Hom

 

[ivanhoe]

Bill Hom where is your pro shop, in what state?

Bob Lawless

 

[FN in MT]

I'm assuming the compunds and the recurves are two distinct classes?? I'm amazed to even see a recurve. Takes a lot of time, dedication and practice to master one. Most people want the easy way out and go compound with sights and a release it seems.

I still hunt with a couple of old recurves. One was a birthday gift when I was in high school....forty years ago!

FN in MT

 

[mette56]

FN,

I still have the 1st bow my dad bought me 54 years ago. It's a Hoywatts "Eldorado Granada" recurve. At 37 pound draw weight. I still have some of the Fred Bear original cedar arrows with the bear broadhead. I also still have my original quiver, a Ben Pearson solid leather (1954 model I believe). I shot archery as a youngster at Camp Tecaboca (Texas Catholic Boys Camp)and fell in love with archery there and was a standout marksman at camp. After dad bought the Howatts for me, dad took me rabbit hunting with it and the first rabbit that we saw ran full speed broadside past us. My first shot ever at wild game hit the rabbit perfectly. My dad was so proud and I heard him boast of that event until I became an adult. Great memories afield!

milt

 

[crusha]

Parenthetical note for those who asked, targets in photos are 50 yards (not meters). Since this tournament was "American" style, they used the "large" target faces at 50 yards, where as in FITA (International), the large faces are only used at 70 and 90 meters (not yards), and a smaller face is employed at 50m and closer.


So at the maximum FITA distance of 90m, the targets would be almost exactly twice as far away as in the photo above. (Olympics are now shot completely at 70m, and the 90m is only a World Cup distance...for a while yet).


This sport made me realize how spoiled we trapshooters are. We think the world is turned upside-down by moving our adjustable ribs from 60/40 to 80/20. In outdoor recurve archery at the long distances, archers score "zeros" on their first shot at a new distance because they forgot to move the sight pin to the next setting (there was a well-publicized example of an American shooter losing an Olympic medal in '88 for that very reason). If a small flap of your shirt sleeve works its way loose and brushes the string while firing a shot, you better hope the match director brought a metal detector, or else you may never find that arrow (at $500 a dozen, that hurts!).


My 20-inch shotgun pattern, that goes right where I point it, now looks awful forgiving in comparison.

 

[BMC]

My McPherson compound is set at about 60-65 pounds. Before I got that one I was shooting a #50 Matthews every day after work. The increase in resistence going up to the McPherson took me a while to get used to. I shot it for about two weeks straight until I became "fit" for it. Then I could shoot 50+ shots every evening with no problems or aches or pains. I haven't shot either now in over a year. I did pull it out a few months ago and just drawing it back was tough. There is no doubt that archery uses different muscles than shooting does, or maybe its just the muscles used are the same, but the type of muscle use is different. For either trapshooting or archery I believe a person will only do their best when the muscles they use for either are toned for that application. I wouldn't expect that having the conditioned upper body muscles for archery would aid me in trapshooting or vice-versa. I started doing #65 weight curls about three to four days a week in the morning, just a few sets, and I quickly realized how much it helped me over the course of a trapshooting day. I'm not fatigued by that 10 pound gun after 300 rounds. I could be wrong but I don't believe their are notable physical comparisons, but surely mental comparisons between the two disciplines. And I believe target archery is much, much more difficult than trapshooting. In trapshooting there is some forgiveness in every shot. There is zero forgiveness in every archery shot.