My only abiding passions are football and archery. He suggested something along those lines and pointed me at a photo of someone’s ankle with (what looks like) the easton archery archer logo. So out of boredom over a few evenings I looked into designs and came up with a few that I liked.

Then come the other two reasons for not getting one in the past. I have a low pain threshold – useful information if you ever need to torture me, and I also suffer from psoriasis and I wasn’t sure how it would affect things. A visit to a local Tattoo Palace gave me the opportunity to ask a few questions, get an idea of cost and generally get the feel of the place.

This morning I went back armed with a little of the money from my fleabay sales and purchased myself some pain.

Well, there it is, my tattoo, it measures approx 4″ square and is placed on my upper arm so that it doesn’t causes issues at work.

OK….I exect someone to tell me that the shooter has terrible form as it appears his head is tilted down towards his chest. He does however resemble me in that respect.

Three white 1.5″ fletches, one of which had been ‘detailed’ with black cow spots using a marker pen. They now look like this, two 2.25″ purple fletches and a neon green one.

I shot on Tuesday evening, again at 20 yds, about 1/2 my arrows had 120gr piles in, the others had 100gr. There was no discernable difference in the points of impact of the two sets of arrows. Last night I added 120gr piles to all my arrows – when it comes time to shoot outdoors again at any distance I’ll change the piles…I may even get myself some new ones…

The change of fletches is part of my efforts to improve the flight of my arrows. If I was entirely honest with you and myself, if this does improve the flight, it will only be masking the issues that may exist rather than cure them.

He got there before me and was waiting upon me when I arrived. flags were put out, a boss thrown up and a line measured 20yds back from it.

He wanted to see if he could shoot without aggravating his injury, and to measure up his draw length (25.5 – 26″ btw). I wanted to shoot my newly piled arrows.

I did so – along with a few of my allys – no, not at the same time. Firstly I learned why it’s best to remove the excess glue from the pile/shaft joint, this is because blobs of it catch on the clicker causing the arrow to bounce off the rest. I had a couple of dozen and then tried some of my X7′s. I shot 4 at a time – all I have fletched with my favoured fletching colours.

I discovered my second thing of the evening. That I could just as easily draw a 30″ X7 as I can a 29″ nav. There was no extra effort, I apparently haven’t been trying hard enough, pushing myself.

The third thing I discovered was that my 1914 X7s are horribly whippy. I shot a few ends of 4 with huge feathers and then shot a couple with a single bareshaft. The fletched arrows were impacting at about 7 O’clock red/gold, the bareshaft missed the boss on the right hand side by some distance. I think it’s safe to say it was outside the group by a good few feet! Now either the method of bareshaft ‘tuning’ is different with allys than with carbons or I may need to reconsider shooting indoors with them later in the year.

Yes, I know that my rest and button are both set up for the diameter of my Navs and not my X7′s. Yes, I know that this may cause the arrows to behave unpredictably. Yes, I know that because of these reasons I shouldn’t read TOO much into it, but, dammit, 3ft? 3ft round the riser?

I cannae really afford another handful of X7′s – despite their cheapness. I have more arrows than I need without buying more.

By the end of the evening my Navs – all 7 of them, were all within the gold including the bareshafts. that will do for me. My sighmark was noticably lower with 120gr piles than with 100, thank goodness the outdoor season is coming to a close….80yds won’t be an option much longer. The question is, do I stick with the thin ones or go with fat ones? I have a few weeks to decide yet, and to shoot..starting tomorrow evening.

Anyway, despite these failures/discoveries, or perhaps because of them, I had a useful couple of hours. With the company of a good mate, who shot a few of my arrows, learned a couple of things himself (maybe) and I think has gone away without aggravating his injury…so may be joining us.

Oh yes, I suppose I ought to explain the title. The school field has recently been sown with sand, no idea why, but a kicked up spray of sand does make spotting where a black, unfletched arrow impacts the ground easier .

This time, less ambitious and less potential money

8 ACEs

Copper John sight

Another release aid

Another longrod

Wish me luck, but more importantly, wish me money!

Today I said goodbye to my ultratec. Wrapped up safe it was carried away by Parcel Force.

I never used it much, but I did love it. Compounds scare the crap out of me upon release. This is demonstrated by my release, I’m tense & nervous at full draw and the action is jerky..

Ah well, onwards and upwards…

Once I’ve sold all of the other things I’ve earmarked I’ll invest in coaching…if anyone reading this has coaching experience and time available..drop me a line, maybe we can come to some agreement.

Right..start setting up the auctions for the other stuff..

ooh..tempting…but no..:( I will not fritter it away on more stuff…honest I won’t…

On Thursday evening, after a thunderstorm in mid-late evening, I ventured to the club field in the hope that a hardy soul would turn up, I found that I was that hardy soul.

In the hope that someone would show up I assembled my bow, and centred the sight pin over the the arrow shaft…after double checking the centreshot. By 7.30 I guessed no-one was going to join me so I wandered home. I had planned to replace my 100gr pile in some of my arrows with 120 gr to see if there was any noticable effect.

The first act of this evening was to shoot my 660 Navs – all 4 (3 fletched, one bare) of them. The first two ends at 20yds saw me put them into a group of about 2″ diameter. I liked that, despite them being on the blue/red border. One of my newly fletched arrows now has two lines marked down the white fletches the groups were that tight. The bareshaft was within the group on both occasions.

The first two I shot with the match still in place in the button, I removed this and replaced it with the medium tensile spring and set this at midway down the scale. The group moved to the gold/blue border and a further adjustment put this in the middle. Over the next few ends I added a few of my 610 Navs and found that they joined the group, though slightly lower than the 660′s.

The button was locked down and a couple more ends were shot at 20yds before moving on to 40yds. At this distance there was a noticable difference in the positions the two sets impacted the boss, although both were within the gold.

From this it can be surmised that the two sets of arrows tune approximately the same, though the lighter piles do affect the sightmark – this is much more noticeable at greater distances.

I later moved on to 80yds shooting solely my 610 Navs, and found that for the first few ends my arrows fell central, albeit in a vertical line, but over time this spread somewhat. On one of the later ends I decided I’d shoot one of the 660 Navs to see what the difference in sightmark was. The arrow sailed over the boss, landing somewhere near the 110 yd mark. In one sense this was good news, in another not so much so, in that I can reach 100yds, however I may need to use lower spine arrows and lighter pile to do so. However, this information is of little use as the probability of me shooting 100yds this outdoor season is slim, other than ‘to see if I can’.

I have a competition on Sunday, a double Long national..

I hope to get a chance to shoot tomorrow…

There is still stuff to do as far as tuning my bow is concerned, I’ll update as it occurs..next week.

While inhaling fumes, from both the glue and the isopropyl alcohol used for cleaning/degreasing I had a chat with one of the bods with regards to my issues with tuning.

The way I see it with my arrows being too stiff I essentially have two options – whilst retaining the same shafts. I can increase the poundage on my fingers or I can increase the pile weight. As I have only recently increased the bow weight from 30-32# to 36-37# I don’t want to increase it again for the time being. My arrows currently have 100gr ACE piles installed, I could increase this to 120gr to see if any difference is made.

And guess what..because all my arrow repair stuff is at the club, so is my mini blowtorch and hotmelt glue…my arrows are here…I thought to myself “the last thing I must do is forget to take them” and sure enough, the last thing I did was forget to take them.

After I’d finished the stack of club arrows that needed ‘maintenance’, I at last got round to using my jigs to refletch the 660 Navs that I had returned to me the other week. On went some neon green and white shield cut vanes (I like shield cut – I have no evidence they are better or worse..I just like them).

The idea being that I will try these as an alternative (29.5″ Nav 660′s with 80gr piles) as an alternative to the current ones (29″ Nav 610′s with 100gr piles)to see if they are closer to a match. The only drawback is that if they are, I only own 4. Which aren’t enough. But another 4 will be cheaper than a full set. There is a slight problem of course in that Navigators are no longer available. They have been replaced by ACGs, I need to find out if ACGs are simply rebranded Navs or if they have been redesigned from the ground up. I will find out later…someone on AIUK is bound to know.

If these prove to be a better match I will need to decide what to do next…I can’t afford a full set, I don’t really want to up the weight on my fingers just yet and I’m unsure about increasing the pile weight.

Any suggestions dear readers?

If I find myself in a more affluent position AND I still miss it, then maybe I’ll buy another. But for now, it’s £90 in my pocket, not as much as I’d have liked for the bow & 30 unused shafts, piles and nocks but it’s better than sitting on top of the wardrobe gathering dust.

I still have stuff on eBay which promises to bring in more…so hooray!