New arrows! Back to the butts...and questions
Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:30 pm
A very fortuitous warm spell hit at the same I had some post-Christmas cash and some time off - so today's been tromping back and forth to the hay bale with a glouriously full quiver for the first time in ages. Couple things I've learned today...
A. My winter coat had a hood, not unlike a cloak's hood. Hood up, can't aim well. Hood down, gets in the way of putting arrows back in the quiver. Anyone else run into that? What did you do?
B. My left arm had a Ravenswood "Sherwood" bracer -
In principle a wonderful concept. No more cuts over my thumb from fletchings - awesome!
Downside - the leather padding over the thumb area tends to bunch up with use, and pooches up above the hand a bit, almost making an impromptu arrow shelf. Trouble is it's an inconsistent height. Not certain how to solve that problem, other than constantly rechecking and pulling it down tighter. What do you all use? A guard of some kind on your hand? Arrow shelf?
C. I can mostly tell when I'm not quite square on the string - but I'm thinking of adding a nocking point to my string. Too modern? Anyone know any period answers to the problem? Or is that overthinking it?
D. Technique this time - somewhere recently I'd heard the idea of actively pulling the fingers off straight back off the string. Not quite "plucking" but a similar concept.
Doesn't seem to work for me. I went back to the "just go limp" method and things got better.
E. Technique problem found and isolated - I finally noticed I wasn't getting consistent anchoring. I've been using my jaw as a anchoring point, but without applying any pressure. As a result sometimes my anchor was pressing into the flesh a bit, sometimes almost hanging in space, barely in contact. Problem fixed, pattern tightened a little bit. Only gosh knows how many problems to root out.
Finally - what sort of accuracy standard are y'all getting - and where do you want to be?
What do you consider acceptable - and what's good?
A. My winter coat had a hood, not unlike a cloak's hood. Hood up, can't aim well. Hood down, gets in the way of putting arrows back in the quiver. Anyone else run into that? What did you do?
B. My left arm had a Ravenswood "Sherwood" bracer -
In principle a wonderful concept. No more cuts over my thumb from fletchings - awesome!
Downside - the leather padding over the thumb area tends to bunch up with use, and pooches up above the hand a bit, almost making an impromptu arrow shelf. Trouble is it's an inconsistent height. Not certain how to solve that problem, other than constantly rechecking and pulling it down tighter. What do you all use? A guard of some kind on your hand? Arrow shelf?
C. I can mostly tell when I'm not quite square on the string - but I'm thinking of adding a nocking point to my string. Too modern? Anyone know any period answers to the problem? Or is that overthinking it?
D. Technique this time - somewhere recently I'd heard the idea of actively pulling the fingers off straight back off the string. Not quite "plucking" but a similar concept.
Doesn't seem to work for me. I went back to the "just go limp" method and things got better.
E. Technique problem found and isolated - I finally noticed I wasn't getting consistent anchoring. I've been using my jaw as a anchoring point, but without applying any pressure. As a result sometimes my anchor was pressing into the flesh a bit, sometimes almost hanging in space, barely in contact. Problem fixed, pattern tightened a little bit. Only gosh knows how many problems to root out.
Finally - what sort of accuracy standard are y'all getting - and where do you want to be?
What do you consider acceptable - and what's good?