Snorri's Visit

We had an impromptu, unofficial practice last Tuesday afternoon because our friend Snorri from AEthelmearc was in town for a work conference, and the weather miraculously cooperated. I got off work at 2, but Elena and Snorri wouldn't be getting to the range until 5 or so. I thought that it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with an idea we had for a suspended target--a tennis ball. We weren't sure if anyone would be able to actually stick an arrow in one.

Of course, to test this idea, I had to actually manage to HIT the tennis ball. 😄

Because this wasn't Royal Round work, I also thought it was a good opportunity to bring out the new longbow. I got the target set and the bows strung, and lined up for my first end with the longbow. Something felt off right from the get-go, though. The bow had no power--the arrows didn't penetrate the target more than a third of the depth of the tips. Also, the fletching of the arrows not only didn't fit between the rest and the string pre-draw, but the stuck out in front of the riser.

I had a ruler in the car, so I measured the brace height of the strung longbow and was someone confounded to discover it was a mere three inches. I unstrung it, and added twist to the string until the brace height reached five inches (I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be six inches, but I couldn't actually find that in the bow's description on the Etsy listing, so I opted to not push it too far).

The five-inch fletches still didn't fit, of course, but I noticed an improvement in the bow's power and the arrows' penetration in the target. I still don't think the bow is up to 35#, however, which is what it's supposed to be.

It's amazing how different my aim point is between the recurve and the longbow. For the recurve, at 20 yards I aim the tip of the arrow at the left leg of the target stand. For the longbow, my aim point is just as far to the left, but it's in line with the top of the gold circle.

I managed to scare that tennis ball and even had a couple of shots that brushed against it, but I didn't manage a direct hit before Elena arrived. She added a standard target face to the round behind the tennis ball, and we had fun casually shooting.

A few ends later, I hit the tennis ball. BOING! My arrow certainly didn't stick--it bounced wildly to the left and landed in the grass a few feet from the target. It was awesome! And, in hindsight, it was a good example of why we shouldn't use a tennis ball. My arrow bounced left...but it could have bounced back towards the firing line instead, and that would be dangerous.

We did several more rounds with each of us occasionally brushing the ball, but no more direct hits. Then we took a brief break to go get Snorri at the gate.

If anyone was gonna hit that tennis ball, it was gonna be Snorri. And he did, three times in three successive ends. In each case, he knocked the ball out of its harness, but his arrows also did not stick in the ball. He also pushed the center clear out of our target round, so we had to take it down and stomp it back into place. 😄

After that, we abandoned the tennis ball and experimented with other things. Snorri took aim across the field at the dilapidated butt, and nailed it with his very first (and all subsequent) shots … at an unknown distance.

Someday, I will shoot like Snorri.

I worked on shooting two arrows simultaneously with the recurve. I'd like to be able to start off my timed ends with this instead of a single shot, for obvious reasons. However, the arrows have always flown too erratically for it to be worth the chance. After watching me for a couple shots, Snorri asked, "Do you rotate the second arrow?" I was startled by the question--it has never, under any circumstance, occurred to me to purposely nock an arrow with the cock feather down.

Turns out, though, that it's a really good idea in this particular case. With one arrow right-side up and one upside-down, the arrows sorta nest together. They fire and strike MUCH closer together. It was like magic. I emptied my quiver (24 arrows--12 shots). Not only did not a single arrow miss the round, but every. single. arrow. was a scoring arrow.

Astonishing.