The Brigadier, and the FITA Welsh Senior Indoor Championships

After shooting a couple of indoor tournaments with the Brigadier, I have concluded that this bow doesn’t suit me and I am going to pass it on. I am a bit disappointed because I put a lot of money, time and effort into setting this bow up and I really wanted to like it, but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ right to me. I think a large part of this is because of the bow that I learned to shoot with.

My first compound was a Guardian, which is a hunting bow. It is short, has parallel limbs for high speed and is very quiet – all features you want for hunting. Target bows are generally much taller, have regular limbs and are usually louder because noise levels aren’t a concern -  I’ve never seen a paper target jump and run away because it heard a bow go off!!

This makes dedicated Target bows feel totally different and after spending so long shooting the Guardian, and then a year and a half with my Insanity CPXL (also technically a hunting bow) I find that I don’t get on with Target bows and don’t like how they feel and react. They shoot very well, but I don’t shoot them well.

I shot the Brigadier at the Indoor Nationals and was disappointed compared to the previous year when I shot the Insanity. Last year I shot a 569 and made the cut, this year with the Brigadier I only scored 560 and it was a struggle.  I was losing faith in the Brigadier at this stage so after that result I decided to shoot my Insanity, still set up for Field for the WFAA indoor champs after the new year. I did this and came in 2^nd place, very close to a perfect score.

The final nail in the coffin came last week when I decided that for the Welsh Senior Indoor Champs (a FITA 18) I wanted fat arrows to get as many line cutters as possible. I didn’t want to change anything on the Insanity, so I dug out the Guardian and stripped the BowHunter setup off it, and fitted it with the Indoor Target equipment off the Brigadier.

 

I only had one night at the club, 2 days before the competition to set it up. I couldn’t do a walkback as it was dark and raining outside, so I set centreshot by eye and paper tuned to get it more or less right. I shot a few dozen to sight it in and set the stabilizers up. By now I only had time to shoot 2 scored dozens, but I scored a 114 & 115 which was better than I was getting with the Brigadier so I decided to take this one with me.

The day came and I drove down to the National Sports Institute at Sophia Gardens where the tournament was being hosted and got everything set up and signed in. We started on the morning session and right from the off, the Guardian felt nice to shoot and I soon settled down to shoot consistently. I had a nice run of 10’s, with most shots falling inside the recurve 10 and the bow felt like a dream to shoot. I realized I had missed shooting my Guardian!

The scores were totalled up and I finished on a new tournament PB of 572! I have never shot higher than 569 in competition, hitting that score several times previously so I was very happy with that result.  A group of us from Pentref went to the pub across the road for a Sunday roast dinner, and then came back over in the afternoon for the results and it turns out that I had taken 2^nd place and won the silver medal!

 

There I was, holding the silver with a new PB using my original bow that was hurriedly set up in one evening.  That sealed it for me that the Brigadier is not for me and it is time to let it go. I am going to be listing it for sale and haven’t decided what to use the proceeds for. After losing out on points (and possibly first place) at the UK & Ireland champs because my bow was knocked in transit, I’ve been tempted to get an SKB hard case but they are around £200. If the Brigadier sells I will have the money so I may treat myself. The bow’s cost a lot of money and a lot of time is spent setting them up, so it makes sense to invest in a quality case that will protect them properly. We’ll see!

 

The WFAA Indoor Championships 2014

Hi everybody!

Sunday 12th of January this year saw Llantwit Major Archers host the WFAA Indoor Championships, at their new range in the gym hall at RAF St Athan.

We arrived at the base nice and early and had our ID inspected before we were allowed in. We didn't think some archers would get in because of ID issues (St Athan is an active RAF/MOD base so security is tight) but the guards were helpful and everything was sorted out. We were escorted across the base to the gym and got set up ready for the day.

The gym is huge! It is a converted hangar that used to house several large aircraft, so the LM Archers can shoot almost 90m indoors! What a practice venue! Everything was set up ready for us, so we went to work! I was shooting my Insanity CPXL for this one with my skinny carbons as I wasn't happy with my indoor setup (more about that in the next blog post).

We shot the sighters/practice end - all X's so on the right track... we start scoring and BAM, I dropped a point out of the spot on my 4th arrow of the first 5 arrow end.. typical! At least the pressure was off now to shoot a clean score, so I settled down and focussed on making strong shots instead of chasing a score. I only dropped one more point in the second half, finishing on 298/300 with 46 X's.

Shooting in the cavernous sports hangar! There's about another 70m of space behind us here!
 

In the afternoon, I shot my new Impala to have a bit of fun and wind down and even though I did appallingly with it, I had a great time! It's a very fun bow to shoot but the traditional archers made mincemeat of my attempt to compete with them, fair play!

I ended up in 2nd place, losing the title from last year but I have to tip my hat to the winner! It was Geraint Thomas, a pro archer who shot a perfect 300 with 58/50 X's - taking the win and setting a new Welsh record in the process, a very impressive performance. We retired to the base rec building, Harlech Flight for the award ceremony and the medals were presented by the base commander, Wing Commander Ball.

All the medal winners - I'm hiding in the back!

Not a bad day!

New Toy, and the Pentref Christmas Fun Shoot!

Even though I shoot modern bows in competition, I also have a love for Traditional archery and the old styles. The modern bow is the pinnacle of power and accuracy that can be found in a bow, but I feel that even though I enjoy shooting them, they lack the spirit of the old ways. If I had to sum it up in a sentence I would say that “modern compounds are for precision target shooting, traditional bows are for archery.”

I had a bit of a bonus from work, and felt like treating myself to a new toy and after trying some traditional bows at the club I was impressed with the Ragim Impala so thought... why not! I bought the regular impala but after some issues with the wood quality, I was upgraded to the deluxe version by Kevin at Wales Archery – what a guy!

 

 The laminations look beautiful and it is very comfortable to hold and shoot. It is 40lb at 28” and shoots very quickly with my wooden arrows. They are spined for my Flatbow at 45lb so even though this is 40lb, it is a faster bow and the arrows match it well. I also treated myself to a new back quiver to use with this bow.

I had the chance to use it at the Pentref Christmas Fun Shoot and we took my son Daniel out on the course! He’s only 5 but is an enthusiastic little archer, with his own bamboo longbow (about 5lb draw weight!) and a 10lb fiberglass beginners bow and he absolutely loves it!

 

The weather was terrible though, with lots of mud and very heavy rain all day . The targets outside were coming apart in the rain so we only shot about 10 targets before calling it quits and going inside. Once we were in though, there were archery games like popping balloons, smashing a piñata full of sweets with blunt arrows and all the kids, and the adults had a whale of a time! We had a pot-luck where everybody brought a plate of party food as well so we were all well fed!

Daniel really enjoys going up to the club and shooting when we have had open events, and he is almost old enough to join up. We are going to sign him up after his 6^th birthday this year and he can start coming up the club on Fridays to shoot if he wants to, which I think he will jump at!

Going indoors..

Once all of the field shoots were over it was time to go indoors, and enter the local indoor Target shoots. I had a bit of a break in October and used the time to set up the Brigadier and get used to it, but I wasn’t 100% with the way it was shooting. It’s a good bow, but I just don’t seem to be getting on with it and haven’t shot any particularly high scores with it.

I shot a local FITA 18 with it and came in joint 2^nd place with it, but didn’t enjoy myself and  still didn’t have much confidence in it. The next shoot was the big one – the Indoor Nationals in Coventry so I made some final changes and took the Brigadier with me as that’s what I bought it for after all.

I travelled up to the shoot with my friend Chris and we were on adjacent targets all day so had good company for the day. The shoot was well organized and it is a fantastic venue to shoot at, with a huge hall full of targets each side and a trade show down the centre. My sponsors, Wales Archery Specialists had a large display so I spent some time (and money!) with them.

 

The shoot went alright, but I am sad to say that the Brigadier didn’t really perform for me. There were a few bad shots, and it felt like a struggle towards the end – partly because I had lost confidence in this bow early on and wasn’t enjoying shooting it. I finished up on 560 points which is below my average and to be honest, I was lucky to get that much.  I didn’t make the cut for the shoot off’s so we packed up and headed home, after a much needed food stop for a consolation Burger King!

 

Been a while - time for an update!

Hi everybody!

It’s been a few months since I updated my blog and there have been a fair few shoots and events in the gap with some great results, so I’ll summarize the events of the last few months quickly so we can get back on track!

Following on from the last post, the next shoot was the Welsh Field Masters Tour – round 5 at Dinefwr archers. This was shot on the 22^nd of September and for a change, the weather was actually quite kind to us! It was quite bright with hardly any wind so some pretty good scores were submitted. I finished on a 529 and took first place, coming away with the gold medal.

 A few weeks after this we had the WFAA AGM meeting where the awards for the last year were presented, and due to my scores I won the WFAA Field Masters Tour for 2013 – taking the title for 2 years in a row! I was absolutely thrilled with this result as it was a close game all the way. Fingers crossed I can keep it up and take the title next year to make it a hat trick!

The next shoot after this was the final field shoot on my calendar before the indoor season began in earnest, the Welsh FITA Field Championships hosted by my own club, Pentref Bowmen. This was a 2 day FITA shoot, unmarked on day 1 and marked on day 2. We had a little bit of a rain and wind to contend with, but nothing too serious and I put in some fairly good scores and had some cracking targets.

35m - stacked on the spider!

 

 When the results were compiled, we had the award ceremony and it turns out that this year.. I won!  I was the 2^nd highest overall so had a silver medal for the open, and I was the highest scoring Welsh compound archer so I won the gold medal and the Welsh Championships Trophy!

 

  I’ve never won anything before at the FITA Welsh as the competition is tight, so to say I was thrilled with this result is a bit of an understatement haha! The trophy has pride of place on the bookshelves at home and looks very good next to the medal & memento board. I need to work hard to defend it next year!

 

  

 

Chippenham Archers Mixed FITA, and testing the Brigadier

Hi everybody! It’s been a little while since the last update so here it is. The last competition I shot was a mixed FITA round at Chippenham Archers on the 8^th of September.

I don’t shoot a lot of FITA rounds so it would be a nice change of pace, and as it was a mixed round there are 12 unmarked targets which will be good practice for the unmarked round of the FITA Welsh Championships at the end of the month.  It would also be a good opportunity to test out the new Bohning Blazer nocks that I have switched to.

A few of us from my club went down there and I was very impressed with Chippenham Archer’s facilities. They have storage units for all their equipment and toilet facilities, right next to a 150 yard field for target archery and their field course in the woods that border it – a very versatile location!

As their field course is only 12 targets, we shot 12 unmarked targets and when we broke for dinner, the work party went out to make some adjustments and put out the marked pegs. This was a little unusual but it was a small shoot and it was turned around quickly.

In the morning I shot an unmarked half of 191 which I was very happy with, but I dropped a few points in the afternoon finishing on 183 for a final score of 374. I am convinced that some of the targets were further away than stated as I know my marks are accurate, but on everything further than about 40m everything went low. 

On the 50m target I put in a tight group at the bottom edge of the spot with some out which equates to about a 2m error. On my way around the course then I bumped into a friend who said he noticed that the long targets are all out by 2-3m himself. When I got to the 55m target I checked and all of the arrow holes in the face were low so I overcooked it by 3m shooting it on my 58m mark and scored a 6/5/5 all in.

You are not allowed to carry electronic devices on FITA rounds so I did not have my rangefinder with me, but I wish I had so I could have verified the distances. For 2 of us to both notice that the targets are longer than stated would suggest a measuring issue and not our sight marks are at fault.

Even so, my shooting was consistent and I cleaned up on the closer targets and finished in first place, narrowly scraping through by 4 points so it was a close one! 

I was really happy with how the bow performed after making the tiller adjustments and resetting the timing, it sounds normal again now and was nice and stable to shoot so I am confident it is set up properly, and any misses or fliers are because of the person pulling the string! My next field shoot now is the final of the Welsh Masters on the 22^nd in a few days time which I am ahead on the leader board for so fingers crossed! 

Now that I know the Insanity is set up properly I took the opportunity to shoot the Brigadier now that it’s ready.  I shot a few arrows through it to settle everything down and checked the draw weight. I cranked it up to 55lb what I normally shoot, but this bow feels better to shoot and follows through nicer a few pounds less, so I set it to about 53.5.

As this draw weight the draw cycle is smoother and the shot feels clean, not so harsh. I am using 2314’s with 190gn points as well which may be slightly too weak for 55lb anyway and they seem to come out of the bow cleaner at this weight. It’s only ever going to be shot at 18m/20 yards anyway so that draw weight is more than enough.

It only took a few adjustments and it was shooting well in no time, nailing 5X ends on the IFAA indoor face and once set I didn’t put a single arrow out of the spot so I think we have a good indoor bow on our hands! She still needs some work around stabilisation/balance, and the peep is also rotating but not by much. I will continue twisting the peep every shot to try and ‘train’ it into staying straight as you can do, but if it doesn’t settle within the next few sessions I will just add/remove a twist to the string to settle it.

The only thing I am undecided on it what to do about the arrow rest. I originally had my Trophy Taker 1 on it with a wide Launchtec blade but this is so wide it is causing fletch contact. I have popped my TT2 rest from the Guardian on it for now and fitted my spare Launchtec 2 hole narrow blade and this is shooting well, but these are quite heavy arrows and the blade is sagging a bit.  For now I have put my .014 narrow steel blade on it and will test it with that the next time I shoot it, and see how it performs.

Field Masters Round 4

Hi everybody!

Sunday the 18th of August was round 4 of the Welsh Field Masters Tour, and this one was a Hunter round at Fonmon. The weather forecast wasn’t too bad, but it had rained for 2 solid days before the shoot and North course at Fonmon is slippery at the best of times, so it was going to be tricky!

We arrived and got signed in/set up in good time, I verified my marks were good and then we went out in our groups onto the course. As expected the course was very slippery,  I almost went over a few times and a few people had a hard landing sliding down the slopes!

All was going well until we reached the bottom part of the course which is under heavy tree cover. The lighting was terrible, and it was very hard to see the targets through the scope. A few targets had us stood in light, shooting into shaded areas and I accidentally shot an X on the wrong face on a walk-up losing 5 points - oops!

I made a good comeback though in the afternoon and put in a stronger score. My favourite moment though was the second chance at Target 1. This is a 64/70 yard (depending on the round) walk-up, shooting downhill at near 30 degrees. It is Fonmon's trademark shot and is very difficult - so you can imagine how pleased I was when I scored XXX5 and cleared the full 20 points on it - result!

 

In the end I finished up on 528 and took the gold for stage 4! It would’ve been a 533 had I shot that X on the right target. Fonmon North is considered one of the toughest courses in the WFAA at the moment so I was really happy with my score, even with the mistake.

Coming out of the shoot, I was pleased with my shooting but I wanted to check things over as the bow is making a bit more noise than usual on the shot and feels like it is kicking. I found the problem to be the tiller. I was changing tiller a while ago to find the best balance and found the top limb was wound in 2/3 of a turn more than the bottom. I levelled them both and then added about 1/8 of a turn to the top limb to get it to my usual sweet spot and it sounds and feels better now, nailing tight groups and shooting well.

On the subject of bow tuning, the Bowtech Brigadier is coming together nicely! My friend Dave cleared out all the overspray from the threads so I could reassemble it properly, and Kevin at Wales Archery Specialists has made me a new set of strings for it.

This is what it’s looking like now fully assembled, but with the old strings still on it. The new ones are black with red end serving.

I also bought a new set of indoor arrows while I was in Wales Archery. My 2315's are a little beat up, and they are spined to be shot out of the much faster Insanity CPXL. The Brigadier is a slower bow, so I grabbed a dozen 2314's with slightly lighter points. These will give me optimum spine at my usual 55-56lb but in a correct length arrow (not a huge overhang) and be a fair bit lighter so I will reclaim a little speed.

 

I am trying the new Gas-Pro indoor points with these, and I have ditched my Super Nock - G Nock reducers and will be trying the Easton Microlite Super nocks. These will be more consistent and they are nice and minimal, not huge like the regular Super nocks that I do not like using.

 

 

The fletches have arrived for them (red 4" Bohning Killer Vanes) and I have ordered a new clamp for my jig to put them on with a helical twist instead of just offset, to see if that makes them more stable. I will be fletching these up when the clamp arrives and will start the tuning process then to get the Brigadier up to spec ready for the winter indoor season.

 

I still have a few field shoots left to go before this though, the next ones being a mixed FITA round in a weeks time, the final round of the Welsh Field Masters Tour shortly afterwards and then the FITA Welsh Championships so plenty to keep me busy until then!