Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Ursus wrote:Bollocks. That was very fine indeed. I nearly followed your take with my entry and used my dirk instead of my sword. Is that the same seax you are pictured with in the recent MERS trek?

Well thanks! Using a smaller blade seemed logical for an archer, plus it's one of the few I have a sheath or scabbard for. But yes, same as the one from the recent trek.

Fun fact: my arrow had no fletching.

Hey wait a minute your blade WASN'T wooden...?

TaylorSteiner wrote:Hey wait a minute your blade WASN'T wooden...?

I'll save that for when we set them on fire.

I intended to take care of this today, but I may need an extension through tomorrow. I cut my finger (punctured, really...six holes in a line) with an arborist handsaw (a razor, really) right where my bowstring rests, and if I shoot it will likely jumpstart some profuse bleeding. Need to whip up a tab or something, but I'll get this one done!

I think you mean you were fighting orcs and one got in a lucky shot?

Use a thumb release!

Lol, I have zero experience with a thumb release.

Aaanywho, here we are. I wanted to do this in full kit, but we'll have to settle for my new wool tunic and moderns below for time constraints. Still, I've got a full tinderbox and a snapsack with all my hard kit for a standard trek in it, so this is a fairly reliable test all the same. Loving the Yew Long/Shortbow...my new best friend! The surcote and jerkin wouldn't have made any noticeable difference, though the cloak likely could have. Biggest speed boost I could for sure acquire would be from wrapping a nocking point on my string...makes a WORLD of a difference over the fumbling you see here.

I chose to include one near miss here to show what this is all about...figuring out how to move in the context of our personae. I chose to keep the cutting target close rather than stepping forward to engage assuming an opponent that is closing distance with me, and I held onto the bow all the way through, thinking that I'd want to keep it as an option (whether I continue to fight or flee) for as long as possible in a real-world scenario.


https://youtu.be/9X2cdRmDwks

Couldn't see in the video, but the first shot is at center, and my second went slightly left. Either way, we're easily within the span of a torso. Fun game!

Nice! This might be my favorite one that we’ve done to date. I just wish I’d had had the time to kit up for it. I love that we are building actual in world function into this challenge.

Excellent! Draw cut!

Greg wrote:Biggest speed boost I could for sure acquire would be from wrapping a nocking point on my string...makes a WORLD of a difference over the fumbling you see here.

I dunno, that was pretty fast anyway! And a topic for another discussion but I find nocking points pretty unnecessary and a relatively modern practice.

I nearly did as you and cut from the draw, so glad you went that route.

The nocking point may not be perfectly historical, but years ago here on the forum we were discussing this and I was much faster because I could use the heel of my palm to locate the string and the nocking point to keep the arrow perpendicular, all without having to take my eyes off the target like I did here. When I finish my new string for this bow I'll probably just wrap on a little bump with linen thread and call it good. You're probably right about the nocking point, but I'm not going to risk breaking this bow by pulling off-tiller, so it'll be there.

I noticed you said no fletching on that arrow (which is freaking sweet). I'm just curious...was spining it a challenge, or did you luck out?

P.S. Ursus, feel free to post the next challenge whenever!

For mounted archery, historically and often today, one also does not look at the bow nor use a nocking point. Honestly when I switched over to many of those techniques (I use a mish-mash depending on the day) I was shocked at how little difference where I nocked on the string made - usually none, honestly. This is completely counter to all that's drilled into us, but you can even make it deliberately extreme (like 6-8" off centre) - which is how you do the "shoot around an object" trick - the arrow still flies true to target. Same goes for anchor points, despite the insistence of their necessity by many, plenty of archery cultures use no fixed anchor point.

The arrow was fletchless simply because it's a cheapo and all the vinyl flights tore off. It seems to have made little difference at the ranges I practice at, though I found that for very close range practice in Kyūdō fletchless arrows (boya) are used.

Odigan wrote:For mounted archery, historically and often today, one also does not look at the bow nor use a nocking point. Honestly when I switched over to many of those techniques (I use a mish-mash depending on the day) I was shocked at how little difference where I nocked on the string made - usually none, honestly. This is completely counter to all that's drilled into us, but you can even make it deliberately extreme (like 6-8" off centre) - which is how you do the "shoot around an object" trick - the arrow still flies true to target. Same goes for anchor points, despite the insistence of their necessity by many, plenty of archery cultures use no fixed anchor point.

Fascinating, that explains why when my nocking point came undone mid competition and I had nothing to replace it with I still did OK, much to the surprise of all the other archers

What's up next?

I’m up. I attempted to get something this past weekend but we had a near constant rain. Stay tuned!