WMAS Flight Shoot

I drove up to Telford on the Saturday afternoon and stayed overnight for the shoot on the Sunday.
After a full English breakfast I arrived early at the shoot to leaden skies and a brisk wind.
The field was the sports ground of a posh school and was on a slight uphill, that, with the dampness and a brisk headwind made it obvious that no records would be set!
I'd taken a little tent with me which was very handy as I could keep my kit dry and have little lie down.
There were only about 20 competitors but most competitors were shooting more than one class and there was a good variety of bows, compounds, recurves, English Longbows and some interesting horsebows. My little Osage flight bow was put in the American Longbow class (unlimited).

It was 6 arrows (maximum) to an "end" and there were 4 ends being shot during day, each end including any class of bow.
The compounds shot first from a shooting line which was further back (100 yards?) and we all retreated behind the line while they shot.
I shot the boo/Yew longbow first ( not exceeding 50# class). After everyone had shot we walked up the field and planted a flag with our details on it where our furthest arrow had landed. Mine were rather spread about and my Ipe/pine laminated arrow had kicked well off left, so for the next end I swapped that for my number 7 arrow. I was disappointed to see I was barely up to the 250 yard mark! Then I heard someone say that the wind was taking 90 yards off their distances.
On the next end I had another go and shot a bit further, moving my flag up about 5 yards to the new distance.

Time for lunch, I only had water and a biscuit bar but was invited to join Tony (the range master... seen in the pic from my tent) and his daughter Rachel who had a huge spread of food. A chicken leg and chunk of bread topped me up nicely while we had a good natter about bows and shooting.

When you shoot, you are allowed a helper to tell you if you are aiming high enough and in the right direction. There were a variety of devices for judging elevation from simple spirit levels, to tripod mounted gauges. Tony had a nice hand held wooden gauge with a built in plumb bob pendulum. After he and Rachel had shot I stepped up to the line and she acted as my helper, which allowed me to shoot with more confidence and more smoothly (she also took the pic of me ). My arrows were flying fairly well, but some wagging their tail a tad.

After lunch I thought I'd try the Osage with my 26" arrows, and if they went well, I'd try the 27" on the final end.
Well, it's a while since I'd shot it and initially struggled with the weight! It was good to have a helper to tell me when I was about right for elevation as I was busy heaving it back and watching the tip of the arrow... they certainly went away fast compared to the ELB.
On the last arrow, a tried that whisker too much and BANG.. a shower of smashed arrow went about 10 yards forward and left. Fortunately nothing struck my hand or anyone else, I think the fact that the bow has a shelf saved me from injury. The string had sheared off a small portion of the Elm nock overlay, which had only meant to be temporary for tillering, but had been left on. The parent wood of the bow is fine so fitting new horn overlays is no problem. I think the bow is ok, but I'll give it a careful examination and some flexing.

I imagine the chain of events was as follows, I drew too far, the tip of the arrow slipped to the right and stuck in the belly of the bow. (You can see the small mark on the belly) The arrow exploded on loose which would dissipate some of the energy, but it would be close to a dry loose once it had broken. the string slamming home sheared off the nock overlay. Hopefully by then most of the energy had gone into the arrow, the string and shearing the nock and didn't leave enough to damage the bow.

I pretty much felt I'd shot my bolt by then, but with only one more end to shoot and the weather having calmed I strung the longbow for a final 6 arrows.
Walking up to collect the arrows I'd spotted 5 of mine short of my flag, but right next to my flag was one of Tony's 50# ELB arrows, so he was obviously getting similar distances. Then I spotted my final arrow 12 yards further up the field, definitely worth shooting those last six.
Time for a lie down and packing away my kit while the measuring was in progress. I also had a very interesting chat about using a thumb ring and a bit of a demo', something that's definitely on my to do list.
We sat round awaiting the results, I was hoping for a mention somewhere and was delighted to have won both my classes, narrowly beating Tony in the 50#ELB, he assures me that he'll beat me next time! Mind he won in other classes and Rachel won hers.

Many thanks to Nick Mitchell the organiser, Tony Bakes the range master and all at the WMAS for an excellent shoot making me (a newbie to formal flight shooting) feel welcomed.

This Title is Intentionally Blank

I've been tinkering with odds and ends preparing for the WMAS flight shoot at the weekend up near Telford.
I've been preparing flight arrows, checking bows etc. I would have done some shooting last Sunday but it was Essex Young Farmers Show on the shooting ground, anyway, probably a good things as I'd probably have broken some arrows.
I bought a Sharpie Liquid Highlighter for colouring the arrows... I'd tried an old highlighter that I had lying around and it worked quite well but dried up quickly. The sharpie one has liquid in it and works well, the arrows don't look very yellow until you get them in daylight and then they show up nicely. It's not as bright as the Rust-oleum Bright Neon Yellow paint but it isn't thick (which can leave a slight ridge on the shaft) and is much easier to apply.

I've also been working on the crossbow limbs getting them drilled and building up the nocks. I'll add string buffers to the crossbow this time to try and take some of the shock off the limbs.

I ordered a trail cam off the interweb, it turned up this morning and I've got it set up to watch the outside around the cat flap to see if any unwanted cats are coming in or if foxes are sniffing about. Emily cat has been a bit nervous lately and has been over-grooming causing bare patches on her forelegs :-( . Mind she's been otherwise ok.

Striving For Accurate Measurement

Tricky thing trying to measure accurately. I've patched the belly of the flight bow in the previous post and I'm working it back to 50# at 27" (that's 27" to the belly).
The actual repair patch was heat treated before gluing, you can see the length of the patch compared to the spall that broke off the belly in this pic.
I also took some video of it on the tiller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfctW4fZAO0&t=5s

I've just got it teased back and taken measurements at 24, 25 and 26". The first reading at 24 was just over 42# but I drew it again and it had settled a whisker.
24" 41.8#
25" 44.2#
26" 46.8#
This gives 2.6# for that last inch and that gives a total of 49.4# @ 27"... ah, but the weight of the scale is hanging on there too, so I weighed that, its an extra 0.37# which I'll round up to 0.4#
That would give a total of 48.8#@27 which is good.

I see some tillering set ups with the scale fixed at the top and the bow hanging down from that. It has one big advantage that if the bow breaks, the scale doesn't come smashing down on to the floor, but it has the disadvantage that the measure of draw length is trickier, as a spring type scale stretches as it is pulled down so the rule needs attaching to the bow string or the hook at the bottom of the scale. Also when measuring the draw weight, the physical weight of the bow is also hanging on there so that needs accounting for if you want an accurate weight. Mind that is all a bit academic except for something like flight shooting as quoted bow weights are often a good bit out once the bow has had a few hundred arrows through it.

Now I've got 3 flight bows all at just under 50# @ 27" I can test 'em through the chrono' and decide which I intend to shoot.... bugger... just realised I'v got to make a string for this one first before I can chrono' it.
Better get on with it then!
Ha! Got the string made... tested it through the chrono... woo!
211.9 fps

Final Tillering of Flight Bows

My two weights turned up at last, I took them in to the place I used to work and weighed them, they were 10.5 and 10.6 kg. On the way home I stopped at the local post office and checked the 10.5kg weight on their scales, it showed as 10.48kg which was pretty good conformation.
Using those weights to check my scales, showed the digital ones to be accurate and the spring/dial scale to be ok at 45# if zeroed to read 4lb.

I could do the final tillering. The mk3 which is the shortened mk2 was way overweight and despite taking the width down and tapering the riser section down more to give a longer working limb I was struggling to get the draw weight/draw length right. I resolved to use the 26" arrows rather than the 27".
I pulled it to 24" and recorded the weight, pulled to 25" and it went crack , the belly fractured.
It's an interesting failure with a section popping up and out a bit like a geological fault. When I broke off the piece I could see the black central pith of the log dipping from the belly deep into the wood, this was presumably a weak point that contributed to the failure, or at least dictated where it happened. I had assumed that the few pith marks on the belly had been just at the very surface, obviously I would have used better wood if I'd had it to hand.
The main point is that the bamboo back held the bow together. Whereas a failure on the back would result in the bow exploding into shrapnel, this is actually repairable! I could put in a patch or remove about 1/3 of the thickness of the belly and glue on a suitable slat of timber, but that can wait for now.
The bow was very highly stressed and was getting to the point where it was almost as thick as it was wide!

I had better luck with the Boo/Yew/Ipe flight bow (mk4) which is effectively finished now. It's difficult to get accurate poundage readings as when the bow is freshly strung it will read a pound or so heavier than when it's been strung for 15 minutes and exercised.
It's slightly disappointing that the bow had taken a little set, but then it shows it is working hard, and I always say, would you rather have a little set or a smashed bow?

I was anxious about having the bows weighed at the flight shoot, but they explained that they don't take them to full draw, they weight at 1" and 2" less than full draw and use the difference between those as the increase in poundage for the final inch. An example:-
For the mk4:
25"  44.8 lb
26"  47.2 lb              difference between the 2 figures is 2.4lb.
Add the 2.4 lb to the 26" figure to give...calculated figure for 27" of 49.6 lb
Tested it through the chrono' with my test arrow (295 grains)  :-)

A long Wait

My weights still haven't turned up, and Monday is a bank holiday, so even if they do arrive I won't be able to get them accurately weighed until Tuesday... hmmm I'm bored... but not for long!
I put JTs knotty hugely reflexed Austrian yew stave back in the steam and got it much straighter. I filled the steamer to the max and left it to run dry and switch itself off so the stave probably had about an hour. I clamped it up in situ once the steam had been going for about 20mins and left it clamped up over night. It looked very good this morning and it will be interesting to see if the reflex creeps back again like it did last time.
Hmmm, at a loose end again, and then I remembered the crossbow project! That's been on hold for a couple of months now, so I dug out the laminations and epoxy and got the first limb glued up.
the epoxy is from Easy Composites and it will be interesting to see how it performs.
The epoxy has a 2 hour pot life and takes 20-30 hours to cure.
There's always something to tinker with.

Pic shows the knotty Yew stave and one of the troublesome knots... maybe it will never become a bow, but persevering is character forming!