Pentref March Shoot & Glamorgan Championships

Hi everybody!

Last weekend was the Pentref March shoot & Glamorgan Field Championships at my home club, Pentref Bowmen. It was a 2 day shoot, shooting the FITA mixed round on both days with the course altered between the days to keep everybody on their toes!

It was freezing!! Definitely one of the coldest shoots I’ve ever been to. I had 2 thermal base layers on, a shooters shirt, and my fleece lined soft-shell coat and it was still icy! I was very glad of the thermal liner gloves that I bought a few days before the shoot. Thin enough to keep my bow hand gloved and I only needed to take the other one off to shoot and then it went straight back on!

The mixed round has 12 marked and 12 unmarked targets where the distances are not given, and unlike in IFAA you are not allowed any angle or rangefinding assistance – you have to work it all out yourself. My estimation was pretty good on the unmarked targets and the only few that I misjudged were just outside the spot so not too bad.

I shot fairly well on the Saturday, putting in 370 points which is a good Bowman score, 7 points shy of MB and a new personal best for the round so I was pleased with that but the same couldn’t be said for Sunday! I finished on 353 which is still in Bowman (above 344) but 17 points down on the previous day. It was still a fairly decent score, but I wasn’t happy with how I shot. There were a lot of flaky shots and a few collapses but I put that down to being tired from 2 days shooting/hiking and it was much colder than on Saturday.

One thing I have been noticing is that I am not entirely happy with my stabilisation. I’ve thought for a little while that it was a bit on the light side, and a bit ‘floaty’ on slopes, particularly downhill so I added a bit more weight to the ends of the rods, adding about 4.5oz to the whole rig. It has steadied things up and made movements on the aim slower (all good!) but the siderod is a bit loaded now making the bow twitchy left to right, and my V bar is fixed so I can’t change its position,

I called up Merlin Archery in the week and ordered one of the new Mybo Offside-XL adjustable offset mounts they are making so that I can change the angle and position of my siderod. What I am aiming for is to bring the siderod closer towards the riser so it is pointing more to the rear, and adjust the weights for a more neutral balance that is just slightly front heavy. This should make the bow easier to hold steady and eliminate a bit of the left/right wandering that may be costing me points. 

It has arrived and I have fitted it and roughly set it, check it out. Nicely made piece of kit, good and solid with quality machining.

 

I've only shot a few arrows off it on my home practice target but it already feels better, the balance seems nicer to hold and steadier left/right. It's a few weeks until the next serious shoot so i've got a bit of time to play with it and find the sweet spot. I need a new home practice target though! My arrows are going in up to the fletches and getting damaged, it's shot out now. I've rearranged the layers and tightened the banding but it's had it's day. It's 6.5 years old, has been out in all conditions and has been shot literally thousands of times by all my different bows so i've certainly had my money's worth!

I’m shot my Bowhunter setup this week to test-drive the new blaze orange arrows and have a bit of fun and relax after the serious shooting this weekend and all the analysis, I put up some animal targets and had some fun instead of a serious practice session! It makes a nice change and I wish there were more 3D shoots nearby. I may look into NFAS over the summer as they shoot unmarked 3D pretty much exclusively and it would be a new challenge.