University of Birmingham Archery Club

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Equipment

As with any sport, there are a pieces of equipment you might not have heard of or seen before, so here’s a brief list of useful information on various parts of our equipment.

• Risers (Handles)
• Limbs
• Strings
• Arrows
• Sights
• Finger Tabs
• Quivers
• Arm/Chest guards
• Long Rods & V-Bars
• Pressure buttons
• Slings
• Clickers

Risers (Handles)

This is the bit of the bow that the limbs slot into, and that you hold. Basically, the riser is the handle. Most of the equipment attaches to the riser in one way or another.

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Limbs

The limbs are pretty important for a bow! In essence these are the springs that store all the energy you put into drawing the bow back. You let go of the string, and the limbs spring forward transferring the energy stored in them to the arrow (if you’d like to know more about this, ask a physicist), which will hopefully hit the middle of the target! You should NEVER fire a bow without an arrow in it as this can, and will, damage the limbs.

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Strings

The string has two loops, one at each end, which go over the tips of the limbs. When the string is put on the bow, it should run down the middle of the limbs. You should check this when stringing the bow as if it isn't central it may well come off!

Around the middle of the bowstring there is a “serving”. This is just a bit of cotton wrapped around the string to give you something to pull on without damaging the bowstring. This is where the “nocking point” is located, which is where you attach the arrow to the string. The nocking point is obvious as a bit of dental floss, or a brass ring, about the serving.

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Arrows

These are the things you are shooting at the target. If you’re shooting something else at the target then there’s a large chance you’re not a natural archer and should seek help!

There are four parts to an arrow — the pile, the shaft, the flights or fletches, and the nock.

• The pile is the point of the arrow and is the bit of the arrow you aim at the target. You should be aware that the pile may come out of the arrow and stay in the target. Although not a regular occurence you should not shoot an arrow without a pile in it as it can damage the arrow.
• The shaft of the arrow is the tube of the arrow itself. It has four properties — the weight, the length, the thickness of the tube, and the spine. Weight, length and thickness are pretty obvious, but the spine is a measure of how much the arrow flexes in flight.
• The flights help the arrow to fly true. Although on a perfectly tuned bow the flights don’t do that much, you will rarely see an archer shoot an unfletched arrow in competition! Each arrow has three feathers — two hen feathers and one cock feather. The cock feather is generally a different colour from the hen feathers. When nocking the arrow the cock feather should point away from the riser.
• The nock is the bit of the arrow that attaches to the string. You should always make sure the nock is firmly on the string, as if it is not correctly attached then at best the arrow gets damaged, and at worst you can end up with a rather nasty bruise on your arm!

That about sums up arrows!

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Sights

The sight is there to confirm you are aiming in the right place. If you are putting your sight on gold, and your arrows are hitting the target below the gold, you should move the sight down. In the same fashion, if your arrows are hitting to the left you should move your sight left. Many people forget this, so you should always remember that your sight should follow the arrows.

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Finger Tabs

The tab is what stops the string cutting into your fingers when you draw the string back. Some tabs have a platform attached to them for you to put under your chin, and so you know that you have drawn the string back the correct distance.

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Quivers

Quivers are what you put your arrows in. Once you become more involved in archery you may keep other things in your quiver such as scorepads, pens, arrow pullers, confectionary of some type, and such like. Some people also like to use them to shamelessly parade the medals they have won in various competitions!

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Arm/Chest Guards

Arm guards, or bracers as they are sometimes known, are there to stop you maiming yourself when you shoot badly! Many people new to archery have a tendency to leave their arm in the way of their string, which can be travelling at a fair rate. The result of the meeting between these two objects can vary between a small graze to a tennis ball–sized lump, and this can lead to loss of dignity. The arm guard is there to prevent some of these occurrences!

Chest guards are there for a similar reason. If you have a bow at full draw and manage to entangle your jumper/t-shirt in the string, it can seriously affect your shot. And that is the best result you can hope for! At worst the string that is accelerating at tens of feet per second per second can take your nipple with it. Trust us, that can HURT! So, if you’re large-chested and value your nipples, we recommend wearing one!

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Long Rods & V-Bars

First, the long rod. It’s not as dirty as it sounds. It attaches to the front of the riser and alters the way the bow reacts after the arrow has been shot. Without the long rod the bow tends to spring backwards (Newton’s Laws, action/re-action and all the rest of it, physicists again), and with the long rod the bow tends to drop forward. The actual effect this has on the shot is mainly a matter of comfort as it can be startling to have a bow lurching towards your face, even if you’re prepared for it! A more technical reason is that if the bow is moving backwards and upwards (as is generally the case without a long rod) whilst the arrow is leaving the bow, then the arrow is going to be moved upwards by the motion of the bow. Hence the long rod.

The long rod can also steady your aim, as the increased moment of inertia stops the bow from moving up and down quite so easily.

Second, V-bars. These are also not as dirty as they sound. Sadly, very few things in archery are.

V-bars are two small rods that project out backwards and side-ways from the base of the long rod, and serve two purposes. One is to reset the balance of the bow back towards the centre of the bow, and the second is to reduce ease of twisting the bow from side to side due to the greater moment of inertia around that axis.

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Pressure Buttons

We mentioned in the arrow section that arrows flex as they fly. This flexion is obviously greatest as it is being accelerated. The pressure button stops this flexion from pushing the arrow away from the bow by moving in and out with the movement of the arrow. It is effectively a spring.

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Slings

You may or may not know that you are not meant to hold on to the bow during the shot. The reason for this is that if you grip the bow as the arrow leaves the string, you can twist the bow and affect the arrow’s flight. However, if you attempt to not grasp the bow without first attaching the bow to your hand in some way, you are going to drop it. Not really very professional looking!

Hence slings. They can go around your wrist, fingers or both, but always around the bow. So if a more experienced archer drops a bow, it is not necessarily because they are a bad archer (although that is a possibility)!

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Clickers

Clickers are there so that you know when you have pulled back your arrow through the correct distance. How do you know this? Well, they go “click”. You may have realised that archers aren’t that imaginative when it comes to naming equipment!

Clickers generally attach to the riser above the arrow rest (that’ll be the “Anything Else We’ve Forgotten…” item!), and once the pile of the arrow clears the clicker, it springs back and hits the riser with a “click”. Wow, the technology!

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