Bow Practice - Draw
First practice! Didn’t get very far.
Practice
I only shot 8 arrows for reasons I will describe below. I shot two groups of four, stopping for a few minutes between shots to inspect and adjust my bow.
Both groups were shot from 15 yards. I picked a different dot to aim at each time and let it fly.
The first group was wildly inconsistent because of the peep alignment. The second group wasn’t too bad considering I was seriously distracted focusing on the peep sight instead of shooting.
Sight problems
First thing I noticed was the peep sight - it was folded over. instead of staring down the barrel of the sight, I was looking at the side of the barrel.
A quick Google search showed me how I can roll the peep back into position, and if it doesn’t remain after shooting can fasten/rotate some strong cording around the peep to hold it in place. I would get about two shots through and then the peep would start to rotate out of alignment again.
I will need to figure out straighten that out before I can do any serious practice.
Target bag problems
I knew my bag was tough and so I premptively heavily lubricated my arrow shafts, hoping this would make it easier to remove them. I sent four arrows at the bag and spent probably three minutes trying to remove them. I lubricated the arrows again, hoping to make my life a little easier on the next group, and sent my next volley. When I went to remove them I could not - the lubricant made the shaft too slick that I could not remove the arrow from the sticking bag.
I went inside, grabbed some rags, went back outside and started wiping down the arrows to remove them. It took quite a bit of work, and it felt like I had to try and bend the arrows over to get the right amount of pressure, but I finally was able to remove them.
I don’t think removing arrows should be this difficult. I’m thinking that this cheap bag that I bought two years ago might not be up for the task and I might need to invest in something of a higher quality. I was almost ripping the fletching off the arrows as I tried to create friction when removing these arrows. Shouldn’t be that hard.
Possible setup problems
I noticed that my anchor felt off and I felt detached from the bow. I need to take a look at that article to determine if my draw length is set too far. It is possible that my quick release needs to be adjusted shorter.
I have some work left to do! Glad to have figured all this out so I can fixing everything up.