Thread: Longbow practice

Anybody else a closet longbow owner?
Been a good few years since have a good practice session

I love longbows but shooting one in my backyard would be highly inadvisable. I will never forget sticking a longbow arrow through the side of my friends house when I was in my early teens (no one was inside). Despite our best efforts to patch and paint the damage it was soon found.

Is that what you call a target rich environment

old school bowhunting, loved hunting with my long bow when i first started. Got good hunting skill from it as a teen.

where do you get your arrows from??? the wooden ones from H&F are so brittle they snap with slightest resistance,eg going into polystyrene!!!!

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

I love longbows but shooting one in my backyard would be highly inadvisable. I will never forget sticking a longbow arrow through the side of my friends house when I was in my early teens (no one was inside). Despite our best efforts to patch and paint the damage it was soon found.

Nobody can say you 'cant hit the side of a barn' lol
But yeah you gotta be extremely sure you have all bases covered. Even an old blanket hanging off a line is an excellent safety precaution (believe it or not this will stop a single slow moving target arrow.) I tried it as a kid, my mother woukd have throttled me but to my surprise it did catch the arrow

Originally Posted by Dead is better

Nobody can say you 'cant hit the side of a barn' lol
But yeah you gotta be extremely sure you have all bases covered. Even an old blanket hanging off a line is an excellent safety precaution (believe it or not this will stop a single slow moving target arrow.) I tried it as a kid, my mother woukd have throttled me but to my surprise it did catch the arrow

And it will catch low powered air rifle slugs also. Unfortunately arrows can go a bloody long way and do a lot of damage if you miss! I must get a longbow again.

I got bored and chronied a few of my different types of arrows
- shorter carbons did 175fts (goldtip traditional 3555 bodkin heads)
- longer carbons did 163fts (as above but 145gn head +2")
- timber... looked like 120fts but my battery dropped out (chunky and freakin long with heavy heads)

@Dead is better looks like fun - what type of bow is that and what poundage are you pulling? I shoot compound but have always been attracted to the simplicity of trad archery - not as much crap required!

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Originally Posted by Dead is better

Anybody else a closet longbow owner?
Been a good few years since have a good practice session
Attachment 135169

You're lucky you didn't split any arrows !

Very good to practice at home.
If others are doing this, do plan your backstops as 300cal and dead is better said.
Also remember to shoot at several different distances to know your trajectory well and how far you can shoot. That's if you are thinking of hunting with it.

yeah mate iv got a longbow in a box somewhere, its a sweet shooting bow.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

where do you get your arrows from??? the wooden ones from H&F are so brittle they snap with slightest resistance,eg going into polystyrene!!!!

I don't know where to get arrows sorry, but polystyrene is a really poor target choice. The friction of the arrow entering it melts the poly and effectively glues the arrow into the target.

Shooting Trad is hard and humbling.
I have a Samic Sage recurve and I’m lucky to achieve at 10 yrds what I can do with my Mathews Compound at 50 yrds .
I got both at roughly the same time and the Compound became the favourite quickly because of the accuracy that I could attain.
Shooting the recurve is kind of a mind f**k and the only half decent results have come from shooting a fixed crawl technique.
I still have plans and dreams of shooting a recurve properly one day , but the Compound needs to be mastered first and I suspect that is going to take years .

I'm right handed, but my right eye is blind so I shoot lefty. I appreciate that using a compound bow with sights I'd have to shoot left handed, but what about a longbow/recurve? Left handed bows don't seem very thick on the ground, so I'd appreciate some advice from people using traditional bows.

well Ross Im right handed and right eye dominant and its actually EASIER for me to use left handed bow.....I was using a ambidextris one with arrows on wrong side sucessfully untill got told doing it wrong.... HOLLYWOOD is responsible apparently...you see in movies like robinhood prince of thieves/braveheart and hobbit movies they using straight bow with arrow in right side...so eye lines up with arrow and target...good for camera but due to "archers paradox" its better on otherside...apparently.
I believe as a modern recurve has cut out in handle the arrow is NEARLY central anyway,like a compound so use bow however it suits you...I will pop out in back yard and see if I can poke holes in target using right handed bow right handed and use left eye only....back soon