[Archers] Arrow/Bow Problem at Ruby

[Garth Groff]

Noble Friends of the Bow, Greetings.

I want to talk about a potentially serious safety hazard I observed at 
Ruby Joust, partly my fault for not being more vigilant.

Three youngsters from a family were shooting, with their parents helping 
them. Both parents were archers. The oldest child, six years-old, was 
using one of those cursed Barnett Little Sioux bows, and children's 
glass fiber arrows with plastic vanes and rather blunt crimp-on field 
points. He was shooting at targets set at about 7 yards, and was able to 
pull the bow back not quite to his chest. Many of his shots were not 
penetrating the target face, which was archery foam. Suddenly one of his 
arrows bounced back, and began turning cartwheels before landing about 
8' from the shooting line. His father and I agreed that he was to only 
shoot at the 10-yard target from that point on. Before they left the 
range, I asked the lad to try drawing one of my 12-18 lb Bear Crusaders. 
He drew this bow effortlessly, actually a bit too far without any 
problem. I wanted to discuss the youngsters' needs with their father, 
but he was not really open to advice, or maybe I came on too strong.

The problem lies first with that Barnett bow. This bow is supposedly 
rated for 15 lbs, but most youngsters can't pull it to an anchor point. 
Why? The limbs don't taper, either in thickness or from side to side, 
thus the bow stacks very badly and there is no "let off" gained from 
tapered limbs as the draw finishes. The bow usually can't be drawn to 15 
lbs, and this lad was probably struggling to get about 7 lbs from it. I 
had two of these turkeys in the Shire's loaner kit, and nearly every 
youngster who ever used one hated those bows soundly. One youngster was 
in tears, and begged me for another bow. I gave him an old 17 lb Indian, 
and he had no problem shooting it. About two years ago I worked a deal 
to trade the Shire two of my own nearly-new Bear Crusaders for the 
Barnetts. I disassembled one, stripping off the limb tips for my parts 
stock, and pulling out limbs, making sure they went into a different 
trash cans so nobody could put the bow back in service and frustrate 
other children. The second Barnett remains in my teaching kit. Sadly, 
these things are much more common than Bears and PSEs since they are 
featured at Dicks and Gander Mountain, and many kids turn up on SCA 
ranges with them.

The second problem was the arrows. You all know, as I also know, these 
things don't belong on our ranges because of the plastic vanes and fiber 
shafts. I have gotten lax, and allowed very young children to use them 
when no scores are involved. And yes, a lot of you do this too, I'm 
sure. Normally these arrows can penetrate archery foam fairly well, but 
in this case the lad's bow didn't have enough fling. Those very blunt 
tips were the second reason he couldn't get penetration. I suggested 
inexpensive children's arrows from Elk Ridge or Black Rhino, but his dad 
wasn't interested. My mistake was compounded, because I brought six sets 
of 1/4" children's arrows with PDP field points and could easily have 
equipped all three children. In the future I will insist that children 
bringing these arrows use my loaner gear instead (which means I should 
make some more arrow sets before WoW). To the rest of you, I recommend 
we all be more diligent about keeping these fiber arrows off our ranges.

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, Shire of Isenfir TA MIC