The Think Tank

I came out to shoot after we got home from the beach. Prediction was for 40-50% rain, which was about right. It rained lightly most of the time but hard only occasionally. I primarily shot the red perform x as the gray one seems a little more critical and I have not yet shimmed the bottom cam over.

I’m not sure why, but the sight marks changed steadily through out the day, migrating lower through the afternoon. I’m not sure if that is due to the rain, or the strings stretching (I have shot maybe 100 arrows through that bow so far), or a combination, or something else entirely.

I noticed that when it started raining harder, I had more left and right issues which made me think that I may be having some torque issues. Right at the end I slid the rest forward about 1/4″. That seemed to help quite a bit at 40 yards, but my sights dropped significantly at 20 yards. Strangely, my gap got smaller, so perhaps it straightened out the arrow flight a little? Or maybe it was because the rain had died down again and had been drier for the last 10-15 minutes. Hard to say.

The last group at 80 was very nice as you can see from the picture.

I will need to see what happens when things get really wet again and my grip is sliding around a little more. By the time I made the rest change, the ran had pretty much quit and everything was dry.

I should probably get the grip really wet and my palm real wet and test it.

Bow: Red Perform X
Release: Fulkrum Flex
Notable Changes: Moved Rest forward ~1/4″

NW Shootup Tour – Jan. 2, 2016

Today I shot in my first tournament since having my shoulder surgery on August 14, 2015.  (For anyone who may not know, I crashed my bike on August 6th and suffered a Grade 5 AC shoulder separation).

I shot once in early December but my shoulder hurt afterward so I hadn’t tried again until this last week. Today was only the fifth time I’ve shot since the injury, so I didn’t really have much by way of expectations. I pretty much just wanted to keep my bow arm up after the shot and try to keep my release hand coming around like it should. If the injury worsens or was exacerbated by shooting, consulting medical malpractice lawyers may provide insight into legal options. When you experience any discomfort or complications related to your injury while engaging in physical activities like shooting, it’s advisable to consult with a personal injury lawyer for legal advice and support. Injured in New York? Call a New York personal injury lawyer from Cellino Law.

I wound up shooting decently considering everything, finishing with a 298 and 21 Xs.  (For comparison, my average for last year was 299.4 and 23.1 Xs).  The two points that I dropped were both in the second half when my shoulder was getting noticbly more tired, and both shots were poorly executed.  One was against the clock (I fired with 7 seconds left), and the other was a shot I knew I should let down but didn’t want to and muscled through it.  A bad plan Under the best of circumstances.

As has been the trend this year, the scores for the shoot were lower than normal, so my 298/21 put me in a three way tie with Matt Schmitz and Tim Davis for first.  I won the tie breaker so I finished in 1st place for the qualifier round.

After that we went to the shoot off round. Since I was in first place, I only had to shoot against one person, John Heuvel, which was good because I don’t know that I had many more ends than that in me today.  John struggled a little bit today on the score front, but did great in the shoot offs, moving all the way up from fifth to compete for the top spot.   By the end of the day he had shot 12 ends in the shoot offs, more than a whole additional round.

Again my game plan was just to try and keep my bow arm up and under control and not to creep on my release.   I started out great, with three solid Xs off of very good feeling shots.  John shot two 10s and an X, so I had a decent cushion going into the final shoot off end.  I was starting to get a little nervous, which combined with my shoulder fatigue and pain made for less steady shots than I had seen all day, but I managed two pretty god shots that were tens and one shot I really thought should have been an X when I released it, but dropped a little low.  Meanwhile, John shot two Xs and a 10, which meant we were tied and had to shoot another three arrows to break the tie.

I was pretty trembly at this point, but my game plan was the same.  Keep my form together and aim as best I can and try to stay out of the nine.   John opensed up with a beautiful X, and I shot a 10 at 3 o’clock.  We both let down On the second arrow, and eventually I shot a another 10.  John wound up shooting a nine, which meant I all needed was a ten to finish out.  May last arrow was pretty shaky, but it stayed a sold 10, which meant I finished with 90 and 3 Xs. The 3 Xs are a little disappointing,  but in the end it was good enough to win the day, and I feel pretty good about that.

I was supposed to be shooting in the OBH State Field Championships this weekend, but I’ve been having so many troubles recently that I decided it was a better use of my time to work on my bows instead.

I think I may have discovered a few things this weekend.  The biggest was that the bows do not seem to shoot well when the wheels not properly rotated, even if they are in time.  I also found some additional timing marks printed in the backside of the wheels, which I didn’t know about.  The bow seems to shoot best when the cables are on those marks (or very close).

The other major change that I made was to put the cam adjustments back into the A slot, so that it matches the draw stops.   I had previously had the stops in A, and the cams in B.

I worked on the cables a lot, and after all of it, I think I have everything where is belongs, although the strings and cables both are very twisted down.  On the blue bow the top stop is very slightly advanced, but even half a twist moves the wheels a lot, so this as good as it gets I guess.  The bottom wheel is about 1 paper width behind.

I messed around with several things today: I switched the launcher blade several times, from .008 to .012, and eventually settled back on the .010; I added and removed again 1oz from the front bar; and I moved the rest down in increments, eventually ending getting as far down as 1.5 lines. In the end I put it all back where I started. The last thing I did was to move the peep back to 16mm from the nicked arrow.

That seemed to make a big difference. The unexplained up and down arrows I’ve been seeing all year seemed to go away. I know shot about 40 arrows, so I have to wait and see how it goes, but so far it feels good.

I also noticed that the peep was moving. I set it to 16mm, shot a few ends, and the sights were sagging out the bottom. When I checked the peep
It was back to 15.75mm, so I moved it back to 16mm and tied it in.