The Think Tank

I shot the Contender today at Archery World.  I did not track my shots in Targetmate, so I don’t have an arrow plot for today.

I shot at least 120-150 arrows yesterday, so my shoulder was tired when I started today.  Still, it wasn’t too bad.

The first hour or so went very much like they had gone yesterday at Archers Afield: Pretty good but only about 3/4 of the time.  One consistent factor in both days is that I could not aim well at all.  My dot kept dancing all around the yellow, and unless I shot a spot on perfect release the arrow either missed or fat-shafted a 10.  There was very little consistency.

I mentioned to Mom that I was having a very hard time aiming, and she suggested that maybe we should try a V-bar setup.  We had spotted a stabilizer/V-Bar combo in the consignment case for $200.  We went and took a look at it today, and it turned out to be a pretty impressive set: A 34″ Doinker long-rod, a stabilizer weight for the long-rod, a Doinker adjustable V-Bar bracket, some other kind of down-angle fixed V-Bar bracket, two 10″ V-Bars with weights and an additional 5-rod Kudlacek stabilizer with a down-angle quick-release.  All said and told, when new, these items probably cost $600 bucks, so the $200 price tag is quite fantastic.

I bought it and put the long-rod and v-bars on the bow, with the v-bars pointing straight back at about 45 degrees out from the bow.  The inside rod poked me uncomfortably in the belly, but I gave it a few shots anyway.

The results were less than impressive.  I still couldn’t aim for sour owl bowel and any shot that was less than perfect was a big stinky nine.  Needless to say I was very disappointed.

I adjusted the the v-bars so they were pointed down at about a 45 degree angle and pulled them in toward the bow so they wouldn’t poke me as much.  This resulted in a much better aim and three solid X’s.  Unfortunately, the rear bar was still poking me uncomfortably, and this time it was in the junk.

I adjusted the v-bars to about a 60 degrees down-angle, and pulled them in as close to the bow as I could and tried that.  The result was a rock solid aiming on the first arrow and a dead center X.  The next two were a little bit shakier, with some movement in the sight, but it was very controlled movement, if that makes sense.  Two good shots and two solid X’s.

The bow felt very well balanced, and after the shot the bow did not move much at all.

I kept shooting it that way, and things kept going well.  The aim was greatly improved, and even when I had to hold the shot longer than usual or struggled a bit, the shots just kept finding the 10 ring, with about half Xs, maybe a little more.

With the aiming thing settled down, I was able to spend more energy focusing on my bow hand and my form.  Both things came together much easier without having to pay so much attention to aiming.  Even on the shots that I struggled through, the arrows still were solidly placed in the 10 ring.

I shot one 8 at nine O’clock, but it was off of a shot I really fought through.  My aim was pretty much 10 ring solid the whole time, so I kept fighting.  At the last second, the sight slipped out to nine O’clock and it fired.  I hit pretty much where I aimed.

I dropped one other shot after that, again at nine O’clock, again off of a struggled shot.  Aside from those two, everything else was an X or a solid 10.  After 4-5 ends, I started feeling pretty confident and then even when I fought through shots, they still hit X’s.

I ended on 6 solid X’s off of 6 shots that were held almost dead solid.  And my arm was very tired at that point, having shot for almost three hours again today.  (With very few breaks.)

For the first time that I can remember (since I started shooting again), I left the range feeling very confident and encouraged.  I’m very excited to shoot tomorrow.

One other thing to note: I switched the points on the three arrows I shot today, using the 75gr points.  I think they were working better than the 100’s.