A Window Closes

The window of opportunity for flight shooting has closed...
No I wasn't dragged away by an armed response unit!....
The grass is getting too long and I expect they'll be getting sheep on there soon.
I shot 10 arrows and it took me an age to find one bamboo arrow with small grey flights. The 32" pale cedar arrows with white and yellow flights were fairly easy to spot.
I was testing a new flight arrow with the 40# bamboo backed Yew reflex deflex bow and also the Hazel Warbow with some 28" and 32" arrows.

The funny thing is the longest shot with each bow landed about a yard apart at the same distance! Only 230 yards, I was scared of overdrawing the flight bow and exploding another arrow and with the Hazel I'd also only warmed up with half a dozen 28" arrows, so wasn't getting a very full draw. Mind, excuses aside I may have only got another 10 yards at best.

The last arrow from the warbow frightened the hell out of me as it split the nock off the arrow despite the horn reinforcement It made a loud clatter and went about 10 yards.


The Hazel warbow bow threw 28" 11/32  diameter, 150gn point arrows 209 yards and a flight arrow 230 yards.
The warbow will go to one of my mates who will give it a work out at a full 32" draw with some medieval style arrows.

I only shot two from the flight bow, the new flight arrow went 230 yards.
The first one I shot was the bamboo arrow, could I find it? Nope, I zig zagged back and forth across the field from about 20 yards beyond and in front of the furthest arrow.
Eventually I gave up on that and thought... "the first shot went slightly right of that distant telegraph pole. I'll line up on that and walk back to the shooting position" I started about 20 yards beyond the furthest arrow and started back...
I'd walked maybe 30 yards and there it was!
That was a relief as I didn't want to leave a bamboo arrow to splinter as a sheep chewed on it.
That shows the value of trying to get a line on the arrows.

Update:-
You know what I'm like, can't resist tinkering, so I sanded the flight arrow down a whisker and trimmed the flights down a touch and went off to the flood plain again with just one arrow, and without my tab.
First shot, I lined up a pin knot on the lower limb with the horizon...
215 yards !!?? It looked to be stuck in at rather a shallow angle, so maybe I launched it too flat?
Generally people say I'm shooting too high... but maybe they aren't right.
Anyhow I held the bow up and estimated, if I put a swirl of grain on the lower limb (a couple of inches below the pin knot) on the horizon this time.
230 yards.
Then I went to the end of the grain swirl, even higher...
240 yards, I'd had enough by then as each time I was unstringing the bow and packing it away.
Just goes to show launch angle makes a big difference, enough to mask the improvement (or otherwise) to the arrow.
Having no tab wasn't necessarily a bad thing as I could hold the string right on my finger tips, almost a two finger loose.