OT anyone into archery?

[Clive Arthur]

What's wrong with knives like normal teenagers? Some people always have to go one better.

Cheers

[Paul Herber]

Get them into trebuchets instead. At least you can't carry one around hidden under your jacket!

[Martin Brown]

Find the local archery club - they will be keen on younger members. Introductory trials at archery tend to start as the weather improves.

There is a bloke round here who has fairly decent scale model one. His classic demo involves lobbing a watermelon the length of a field.

Sometimes seen at local shows. Do not stand downrange!

[The Nomad]

Not recently but in a past life ...

I would strongly suggest finding a local club and talking to the folk there, they will know what is suitable and available these days.

In my youth, I started with a fibreglass non-recurve bow on borrow from the club, along with the arrows etc. - so no outlay until I was sure I enjoyed it (which I did) then it was finding a bow that suited _me_ and that I did by asking and (with express permission) trying some belonging to other club members etc.

If you are in the Derby area I have a friend who is a member of a local club & I can ask if he is willing to help.

I think the Grand National Archery Association still exists and will likely have a list of affiliated clubs - oh it has morphed into

looks to be lots of good information there.

Good luck I had a great deal of fun & friendship during my shooting days

- then RL got in the way :-)

Regards

Avpx

[Thomas Prufer]

Yup.

From second-hand experience: particularly young teenagers will need a stronger bow very quickly, as their muscles adapt and strengthen, then more as they grow. A club will have a few bows to spare...

Thomas Prufer

[whisky-dave]

I bid on a Bat'leth once went over £250 though so I lost, I do have a small Bat'leth letter opener.

[Brian Gaff]

Find a local club. There do seem to be a few about, as safely is the paramount thing. You can't just go into the garden and start shooting proper arrows. Brian

[Martin Brown]

He's absolutely right about the safety thing. Teenagers need to be shown how to use a bow and what to do and not to do with bows and arrows. You don't want arrows that miss the target escaping your garden.

One of my sporty school friends was a bit careless at javelin practice and got three months off school with a punctured lung. He could easily have been killed. It was quite newsworthy at the time.

[dennis]

You just need the correct sort of net to fire into. Its like cricket nets, the balls can kill if they aren't restrained.

Don't ask me where to buy the nets I don't do archery in the garden.

I was shooting cross bows a few months ago and some idiot turned around with a load crossbow and could have shot someone.

Just make sure there aren't any idiots using the equipment.

[newshound]

+1.

I have three friends who are archers; one is the local club secretary and judges at (at least) regional level, another is disabled and shoots from the ground with a compound bow, and also on horseback (with a composite bow) when she is well enough.

But face to face contact with someone local is what you need.

[charles]

Some 40 years ago, I used a rifle range on the top of a building in Central London, We were under cover and so were the targets, but the sidea were open to the world. Any one of us could have fired at a 45 degree angle and sent our bullet(s) somewhere into London - but it was only 0.22 calibre ;-)

[T i m]

We (Me, wife, daughter) were Toxopholists for a while and were even getting asked to represent the club in the local tournaments (especially the Mrs and daughter), but we didn't want to do it for that. We just wanted the casual Sunday morning loosing a few arrows for fun / recreation. ;-)

We haven't give it up completely though ... I still have my Hoyt Gold Medallist riser and some carbon compound limbs, she still has her Yamaha but the daughter has now grown out of her little starter bow (was 8 then, now 28). ;-)

I actually dug it all out recently and some of the plastic bits had gone funny (brittle or gooey, wrist bracers and the like).

That said, I'm not really into static target shooting ... <yawn>

Cheers, T i m

[Jim K..]

Would appreciate any pointers to a decent archery starter setup for young teenagers.

TIA

[Jim K..]

Who says?

[Jim K..]

They should be fired towards a steep hillside...