Blade Edge

Well I finally got around to setting up the range outside. It only took me all summer, but given my penchant for procrastination it’s not very surprising. At all. Anyways, I deviated some from my original plan since it turned out to be more of a hassle to gather up tires than I figured it would. Twice my mechanic at the shop would let me know that there were tires outside and both times I showed up the next day and some fucking junk scavengers had hauled them away earlier in the morning. So I made only 5 trips in total and called it quits, dumping the tires in the back woods. I started to build them up a few weeks ago and realized that I was thinking a bit wrong about the setup – I didn’t need such a wide or tall backstop. If I was going to miss, it would be by no more than a foot. Additionally, while I had originally planned to post the targets at chest height, I realized I could just set them closer to the ground so any missed shots far to the side would just end up in the dirt a few feet beyond. I found I had just enough tires for the configuration below:

It works well. I went back to 60 feet and fired off several quivers, missing more often than not. Nothing missed far enough to not hit a tire. Of course hitting a tire didn’t quite have the effect I had hoped for. Apparently the target tips are not sharp enough to let the arrow embed into the tires, so they bounce off. The good news however is that the tires do flex enough to prevent the arrows from getting horribly bent when they do hit them. Or at least, if they are being bent then I can’t tell looking down the shaft. One out of the dozen or so I shot into the tires did bend enough for me to see it. And these are aluminum shaft arrows too, not carbon fiber!

I don’t know if it was because I was aiming down rather than straight like I used to when shooting in the garage or basement with the target at chest height, or if it was just a change in my release, but I was hitting consistently high when using my original aim mark. I penned in a new line above it to drop my aim and ended up more on target. I’m pretty sure it’s my release, as there were a few good shots that I could feel were good the moment I let the arrow fly. I’m very good at body movement so if I practice more, I will be able to make my release technique more consistent to in turn produce more consistent hits on target. Practice more – that’s the tough part 😛 Just gotta get up off my ass and do it…

Here are a few good hits at 60 feet. In the first image the middle arrow was aimed at the bottom, all the other arrows are near the target I was aiming at. I generally hit with 3 and missed with 2. I haven’t measured it out but at the angle I’m shooting from, I could be able to go back as far as 100-150 feet. I’d need to use my spotting scope, haha!