What to look for when buying archery equipment?

I gave it a try this weekend and I really like it, I actually want to ask my parents for archery equipment for christmas. What exactly is it that I need to look for in a bow and arrows? Do arrows come with arrowheads or do you have to buy them? What’s the difference between using a compound bow and a normal bow?

Hi there, glad you liked archery. Which bow you need depend on a lot of things, budget(as in money), purpose, and time. Those are the three top considerations. There are three main types of bow, compound bow, olympic style recurve, and traditional bows.

Let’s first cover time. Time is how long it takes to become proficient with the bow. If you’re going hunting next week for example, then your only option is the compound. It’s the only one where you can pick up a bow and within an hour be quite proficient with it. For an average beginner, the time it takes to become as proficient with an olympic recurve as that would be around 1 month. For traditional bow then that time goes longer to 6 months. It takes a long time and a lot more dedication to learn how to shoot a traditional bow compared to a compound. The Olympic recurve is somewhere between the two, but closer in difficulty to the traditional bow rather than the compound. Out of the three, I usually suggest the olympic recurve for beginners, simply because it forces you to use proper form to shoot or you won’t hit the target at all, but at the same time it takes away the need to learn how to aim at the beginning. The only difference between an olympic recurve and a traditional recurve is the olympic one has a sight.

Then there’s purpose. What are you planning to do with the bow. Do you like to compete, do you want to hunt, or just for recreation? How serious you plan to be with this sport determines where you need to start. The more serious you plan to be, the lower the poundage you need to start with. High poundage causes form problems that will be very hard to correct down the road. If you have olympic dreams then the choice is clear, only olympic recurves are allowed there. If you want to hunt quickly as said above, the compound is your best bet.

Last, budget. Traditional bows are the cheapest to buy, if you’re talking about the whole kit. With traditional bows, all you need to buy is the bow, arrows, string, glove, arm guard, quiver, and bow stringer. Olympic style recurve, you need to buy the bow, arrows, string, arrow rest, plunger, sight, finger tab, arm guard, quiver, later on you’ll add clicker, stabilizer, chest protector. Compound is the most expensive, not only are the accessories more expensive the maintenance also cost more. You buy the bow, arrow rest, sight, stabilizer, release, arrows, quiver, arm guard, sound like a shorter list compared to the olympic recurve, but a compound sight can cost as much as double a recurve sight. Arrow rests also cost a lot more, sometimes triple the recurve counter part.

When you buy arrows, I suggest you get aluminum for your first set, buy them already made. Aluminums are durable and cheap. When buying the aluminums request arrows with thick wall, wall thickness above 14/1000″ is preferred for durability. You can get a set of world class aluminum arrows for $50/dozen, while crappy carbon arrows costs $100/dozen.

Good luck and good shooting.

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