Which is more reliable, quicker to reload, lighter, easier to repair/maintain?

Recurve.

Get a compound-recurve?

What do you want to do with it? Sounds like itt won’t be target archery if speed of “reloading” is a concern.

Ohh organic like the old Oneida Strike Eagle, helleva crack/bang when you let one of them off 🙂

Karinofnine, for what form of archery ? just spaffing about in private or for competiton use ?

End use and user really dicate what you want…..

Recurve, simple, light weight, easy to take down and very minimal work and looking after once set up. For competiton recurves are shot off the fingers so faster to reload, but you hold the draw weight while aiming.

Compound, more complex,more weight, pully and cable system, more cost for cable harness, string’s about same as recurve. Compact and easy to transport, rarely taken down unless replacing cables or cams, more involved in tuning and set up. Not many shoot competition off the fingers due to the compact axle length on some models so a mechanical trigger-release aid is used, also compounds more often use floating or drop away arrow rests, some care is needed with these and release aids so slower reloads.
Super accurate and the cams reduce holding weight by 50-80% of actual draw weight, so easier to hold on aim at full draw over a recurve.

Used to shoot more field archery than target. Mostly in Compound limited, sometimes AFB or traditional, and cross bow.

Self defence and a bit of hunting. Although I am veggie in my current (near-town-based) context, when I lived in the country I ate other animals (which I had killed myself).

Recurve is my choice. I had a compound for years, but returned with delight to a recurve, and just love it’s simplicity and beauty.

Interested though: self defence?!?

Self defence and hunting? I guess you can’t be in the uk then. A .22 rifle would be a better bet.

Too slow for self defence and illegal to hunt with in the UK. So pointless for what you want

Self-defence, one of my retirement plans (there are several, depending on how much money I have/how bad my back is (ie whether I am in a wheelchair or whether disc replacement technology has advanced so I can have new discs in my back)) is to **** off in the caravan. I would love to visit where I was born (Germany – father in RAF) then the Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia … Pipe dream I know, I’ll never have the money.

In the meantime (and if my back packs up and I’m in a wheelchair and looking for another love if I can’t ride bikes) I’d like to take up archery. I have a crossbow but have always been too feeble to cock it easily (although I need to revisit this as I bought it some 20 years ago). It’s currently in bits awaiting a proper review and rebuild…

Funny, when I lived up north years ago I took the xbow rabbit hunting. Well, it took so long for me to load it the rabbits were actually watching me, and the bolts just plopped ineffectually at the rabbits’ feet. I’m sure they were in their burrows laughing at me ! 🙂 🙂

Unless the world ends in the morning type of thing happens or swarms of zombies appear overnight….

In the real world, assuming your UK based, unless things have changed.

You can’t shoot people, there is an Abbey on the Welsh/Hereford boarder where it’s technicaly legal by royal command to shoot welsh people once a year with a longbow, although i wouldn’t test that out in court 🙂

Illegal to shoot animals, some argue vermin is allright, i wouldn’t want to test that out in court. That was banned in the 1970’s, back then you could pop off a deer.

It is legal to bowfish in saltwater, but no trout or salmon. Fresh water fishing is illegal. Cross bow and Spear guns come under the same rulings of use, so spear gun fishing is illegal in freshwater and no popping off trout or salmon, there is a third one but can’t remember which fish.

Check the law.

The crossbow that bloke on the walking dead uses may be your best bet.

Yes, I realise that one is not allowed to shoot people, this was for a non-UK scenario 🙂

Whatever, I think bows are lovely and I would like to own one, and shoot at targets.

I did make enquiries of a couple of archery clubs near Hertford. One woman in particular (the others didn’t even bother to return my calls/emails) was SO snooty and obnoxious that I am certainly not anxious to join an organised club.

Hawk The Slayer Clip linky
You need one of these 1.44 mins in LOL

Best thing to do is get along to your local club and try them all. Add to your list, long bow and horsebow. Compound is easiest to learn but needs careful tuning and set up. The others are a bent stick n string but harder to shoot.

You’ll get a lot more out of a club than solo mate. Use the archery UK web site to find another club I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad impression of he sport. I must add that it’s illegal to shoot an animal in the UK.

If you are having health issues Id look at a compound due to the let off once you over come the peak draw, if you look at the you tube clips of the Paralympics you can see thes being shot in all manner of ways very well, but you’ll start on a recurve as a learning tool.

GNAS Grand National Archery Society. To shoot target with a club or go to comps you must be a member for insurance reasons.
Victorian rules and attitudes, some clubs can be well up them selves, and very strict dress codes. Some clubs are ace fun and gagging for new members.

NFAS National Field Archery Society. More woodland outdoorsy type stuff, formed to cater for hunters in the off season.
So think woods and unmarked ranges out to 60yards and 3d targets. No dress code as such, some frown on turning up head to toe in camo and dirty great rambo cutlery for digging arrows out of stumps is a big no no these days 🙂
I saw the tail end of deliverance types and field comps went more family orientated.

You used to be able to do a NFAS shoot on GNAS membership but not vice versa, i belive you need dual membership if you want to do both now.

Before health and safety and a few other things happening the NFAS was mostly a bunch of blokes shooting 3d’s you would have 3 shots per target (bit like a round of golf, shoot one, score it, move to the next) shoot target, walk up stand behind a big tree as next fella shoots, score as he shoots, and sometimes steady the target with your foot (inbetween shots) or call hold fire and pull arrows if high risk of damage between shooters.

Ah the smell of broken cedar wood arrows in the morning, smells like i win my class 🙂

The zip of carbon arrows as they fly past, miss the target and either bury themselves in the ground or explode if the hit something a bit harder than a foam target.

The wincing from the fella using £20 ACE’s as you follow him and stuff a dirty great oversized linecutting alloy arrow into his £60 cluster of carbon fibre 🙂 they tend to shoot last on every target left after that.

Recurve for me though Mrs gordimhor is a far better archer than me and she uses a compound.

Thanks, I may well try some more clubs, although, as I say, I was well and truly put off by the attitude. I accept it probably didn’t help that when asked if I had any experience, I said not really, but a little bit with a crossbow…. the word ‘crossbow’ didn’t go down too well.

As an aside, I fired it through the door of a dumped car in Epping Forest – blimey! the bolt went straight through!

As a further aside, and this is rhetorical and political and does not necessarily require response. When I lived up north and went beating, I noticed it’s ok to blast the beejesus out of every living thing with a shotgun (including winging birds and leaving them to die slowly from their injuries). Ok to snare rabbits, injure and tether lure birds to entice birds of prey, ok to poison hedgehogs, trap and poison foxes, (and what about cubbing?) run over cats and generally make mayhem if you are a gamekeeper but not ok to kill something quickly quietly and efficiently with a bow and arrow?

As I say, rhetorical. Just a comment on the strange upside-down laws we have in this country…

Recurve or ‘traditional’ (as well as my modern recurve I have a longbow, a Mongolian style horse bow and a beautiful one-piece vintage Border ‘hunter’ recurve) all the way for me.

Having said that, if you have back issues then compound might be the way to go depending on the details of your condition.

As said, be VERY careful about even thinking about bowhunting in this country, and seek out a friendly non-cliquey club (they DO exist – I ran one for a while) in your area – for coaching and insurance if nothing else.

Thanks. Just to repeat: I have NO intention of bowhunting in this country. I just think bows are nice things and I’d like to (a) own some (more) and (b) have a hobby-in-waiting against the possibility that in the future I’ll be in a wheelchair* and not able to ride a conventional bike.

*Hopefully medical techniques will progress and I can have some new discs, but am planning for all outcomes.

Thanks all. I must say that some compound bows are quite ugly (dare I say that?)… Recurves are rather beautiful IMO

Bo and Luke Duke say compound bow. Sometimes with dynamite on the arrow! 🙂

Edit – you can hunt here (USA) with bow and arrow. There is an archery season for whitetail deer here in Pennsylvania. The local municipality even has an archery program to control the deer in the local parks where I ride. 😉

(We also have guns here, too!)

I’m not planning on hunting in this country at this time. At this time and in this location the bow is partly for target shooting and partly to own a beautiful thing. If I ever get to realise my dream (to go off to Russia/Kazakhstan/Mongolia with the caravan) then I MAY be shooting animals to eat.

@JoeG, yes, my friend’s cousin is American – he has a small arsenal of single-shot, semi and fully automatic weapons at his home. Uzi 9mm – for home defence? I’m afraid that sort of thing is rather frowned upon in our Sceptred Isles. 🙂

Karinofnine just thinking out loud, as your not so mobile then target clubs may be the way to go over Field clubs, although some Field clubs do have nice flat easy access practice ranges, it just depends on whats close to you.

Out of touch with things myself but a lot has mellowed in the last 10 years.
If using from a wheel chair.

Target clubs are a bit like golf clubs. When making contact don’t ask about cross bow or talk about them. Unless the target club is listed as a crossbow friendly club, there are a few out there. I had trouble finding one years ago.
Target bows are lower powered, you can buy extra prod’s (limbs) in other draw weights. Mines 100lbs and a short draw length so not to bad to set. There are tools called goats foot, this is a hand lever to set the string over using a foot T-bar. Competition bows are more like 75-85lbs draw weight, rules may change over time. Because i have steel prod i could run 100lbs, the modern laminated glass and carbon limbs are more efficient so less draw weight was allowed, in performance terms a lighter weight modern limb had higher output than a heavier steel prod (limb)

Recurves come in lots of sizes (length) the longer ones are more target, the shorter ones are more hunting, also female and child size bows as well. So finding something of a manageable length is easy enough if you might be in a wheel chair.
And again you can just buy extra limbs, so for indoor shooting at 20yards a nice light 20-30lb draw weight will be fine, if you want to do the outdoor 90m Fita or 100yard then limbs around the 38-45lb mark.

Compounds are great because of the short length, called axle length the downside is very short bows have a tight string angle on the nock and make shooting off fingers tricky and painfull. The party trick of compounds is adjustable power, most have adjustment in the 10-20lb area. Mine maxed out at 60 but could go down to 45lbs and i ran it around 55lbs as that was a nice comfy weight and not too sloppy on release when shooting off fingers at 60% let off weight. If the let off is more than 65% then release aids/trigger units make more accurate shooting. Power was adjusted by winding in or out the limb bolt with an allen key, trial and error, adjust and then draw string on scales to check weight.

Did have a Quicks classic hunter when they first came out, lovely little mongolian style bow, made a back quiver from an old black jean leg so i could carry it on my back with homemade arrows, this left my hands free for tea and cake duty or scoring or hip flasking (most likely not allowed nowdays at comps)
Down side was the very short length and 60lb draw weight, tight string angle on the nock made my fingers bleed, after a few years i sold that and bought a Quicks American Flat bow, not as tempermental as an English longbow, much more relaxed shooting and down to 38lbs.

Did try a clout round once with the AFB. Target is like a golf flag with a massive target face on the ground, like playing indirect fire darts 🙂 target is 180yards away. Even with carbon arrows couldn’t get close.

The more traditonal side of archery was making a big comeback several years ago with hand made sinew and timber laminates coming back, not cheap but a working piece of history. Nearly all wooden arrow shafts came from Port Orford made of Cedar (POC shafts) the plant shutdown to allow for regrowth and that forced the market to bring in other woods that the use of POC killed off, home making self build traditonal market took off big time with more choice.

Chap i used to shoot with used to make footed self nocked and double footed shafts, then barrel the shaft diameter, things of hand crafted beauty, sold them to club members for material cost and beer money, hardly anyone used them 🙂 as they where too nice to wang around the woods and risk breaking or losing, most became wall hangers…. wish i bought a set as shop bought ones where silly money.

There is as much to fiddle with, tune up and bodge up in archery as there is in biking 🙂

Karinofnine – Member
…I noticed it’s ok to blast the beejesus out of every living thing with a shotgun (including winging birds and leaving them to die slowly from their injuries). Ok to snare rabbits, injure and tether lure birds to entice birds of prey, ok to poison hedgehogs, trap and poison foxes, (and what about cubbing?) run over cats and generally make mayhem if you are a gamekeeper but not ok to kill something quickly quietly and efficiently with a bow and arrow?

Simple, all the killing, maiming toff sports are legal, but anything that will put meat in the pot of a peasant is illegal.

Wonder how that came about?

I haven’t donated to RSPB since they tried to stop the traditional guga hunters while still proclaiming it’s ok to blast the shit out of tame fat birds.

acehtn – wow, good reply, thanks. Yes, I did make the cardinal error of saying, when being interrogated on the phone by an archery club, that I had a crossbow. I swear ice formed on the phone!

I’m not in a wheelchair yet… very much still mobile, although I have to be careful about lifting, stooping, twisting and I have to lay down between times. All very boring. I’m controlling it at the moment with lots of yoga, strengthening exercises and painkillers. I can still ride my bikes and walk my dogs. So all ok for the time being. (Actually not sure how the wheelchair thing will work because sitting still for any length of time is painful to me).

epicyclo, guga hunters. I’m going to look that up.