Fletching Removal - (Not a Fonz, but a warning?)

[TimGriff6]

I've just made my first string and shot about 12 dozen arrows down at the field to bed it in last night. Today, I thought that I'd check the nocking point height by shooting bare shaft in the garage. I have about 8m with stop netting behind the boss and about 1m away from the garage door. When I originally set it up, I checked that the stop netting worked by shooting arrows at it with the boss behind - all of them clattered to the ground without puncturing the netting so I was happy and have been shooting happily through the winter since then.
Today, I had to reset my sight as it's set up for outside distances. I just pulled it in instead of changing the bar position to what I know works (mistake 1). I tried to check the alignment by holding the bow at arms length and eyeing sight & arrow shaft alternately until it looked somewhere on the boss (mistake 2). I aimed higher than mid point on the boss because it's mounted a bit low and I didn't want to be shooting downhill (mistake 3). I shot the arrow (mistake 4) and with a sharp metallic ping, it went over the boss right through the stop netting and the metal garage door, leaving the fletchings and nock inside the door.
Fortunately, as a safety measure, I put my car up against the door so no-one can go past the door while I'm shooting, no one was around, and so I didn't shoot anyone. If not and I (& they) had been unlucky, I could have had someone with an arrow through their neck.
Lessons - Stop netting may not work - I can't see why it worked when I tested it but didn't work today. 3mm sheet steel does not stop an arrow. I won't be shooting in the garage again until I can find a reason and put preventative measures in place.
Good point - it cleans the fletchings off the arrow really neatly.
Bad point - it's a pain repairing a hole in the door before your wife comes home!

Tim

[grimsby archer]

Whats your garage made of?

If its brick or concrete, why shoot towards the door rather than shoot towards the back of the garage? brick stops most arrows pretty well.

A good lesson for us all.

[grimsby archer]

Originally Posted by Yorker

Not if you are unlucky and hit the grout in which case he would be shooting most likely into his kitchen. A guy at our club did that, shot, missed, hit the grout, went through. Luckily nobody was in the car who's windscreen it went through!!

Perhaps he should have used MORTAR rather than GROUT to stick the bricks together

Ive never heard of that happening. The insurance paranoids would have a field day! Normally one would expect a brick wall to stop most things short of a charging rhino. Most people I know shoot in their garage do so by standing a few yards outside the door and shoot inwards to get a few extra yards.

[TimGriff6]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

Whats your garage made of?

If its brick or concrete, why shoot towards the door rather than shoot towards the back of the garage? brick stops most arrows pretty well.

A good lesson for us all.

Back wall is 2 big windows, one half glass door and a bit of brickwork between the windows.

I reckon that glass isn't as good as a metal door (the arrow only just got through it) and the neighbours out the back don't like me even without shooting arrows into their garden.

Tim

[King Custard]

rule number one - when shooting outside of a designated range:



Start reeeeeealy close...like 'a drawn bows length' from the boss unless you're sure you're sighted and hitting the middle of the boss...then increase distance in short increments!

Yeah - I've put one over the garden fence ( 18 m) while sight was set for 80 yards......bounced off the only car in the carpark's roof leaving a nice little dink...and was found approximately 150 yards away on a football pitch, 15 minutes before kickoff.

I mightn't have searched so damned hard nor so far for so long if I hadn't put my full name and club details on the damn arrow!

One tip for searching for lost arrows on private ground:
Take off your quiver, lose the tab, have a ready 'reason' to be there that wont ensure a judicial enquiry...or blame the eldest child in the house for 'making' bows and arrows in the garden..........if you can minimize the percieved threat of death for others enquiring of you...you may even get some help to find it!

[grimsby archer]

rule number 2:

dont do stupid stuff!

A carbon arrow shot into the air takes a long time to come down.
Backstop netting doesnt stop arrows.
Hedges dont stop arrows either.
It frightens me the number of people (some very experienced archers) who practise in their own gardens. When you ask "how long is your garden?" the answer is often "if I put the boss right against the neighbours fence I can get 18m in if I stand against my house wall!"
Ask for trouble and you often get what you ask for
<pompous preaching ends>

[TimGriff6]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

rule number 2:

dont do stupid stuff!
....................
Backstop netting doesnt stop arrows.
....................
<pompous preaching ends>

I'm with you on rule 2 but when you think you've got everything covered, you can still get caught out. I would never shoot outside in the garden even with netting because I know how far the arrows go and I know that the air around the outside of the netting is so easy to hit. Inside, I've thought that I was confined by the building, protected by the netting and steel door and restricted area outside. In the event, I was ok but I was let down by backstop netting that didn't do what it was there for. If, as you say, it doesn't stop arrows, why do we use it? Or is it just a case of not being used correctly? I have more than double the width that I need to cover the exposed width and I drape it like curtains so I thought that I was using it correctly but perhaps not?

Tim

[its my party and]

I think you were possibly unlucky with the arrow going through the net. It may have even gone through one of the holes you test shot before. But then again it would surely have ripped the fletchings off if it had. On that note it may be time to invest in a new "safety" net! At our club we have an indoor 3D shoot with over 120 archers attending and with the flying pigs target we were finding that 300ft sec compounds were going through a net that had been doubled over so we placed a block of 6" polystyrene building insulation about 6" behind the netting stops everything even crossbow bolts. The downside is it does make a rather alarming noise which in our case just brings to bear more jeering for the poor archer who just missed the flying pigs!
As a point of interest how far did the arrow get after the door?

[TimGriff6]

I think that it just fell out of the door as the nock pulled off. It was lying about 1m outside facing the wrong way. The net is only about 6 months old and apart from when I shot at it to start with, I haven't hit it at all. When I was shooting at it all the arrows hit it in the area that now lies behind the boss so even if they did damage it (and I can't see any marks) it wasn't one of those that weakened it.

Polystyrene sounds like a good idea. I may, however, just go for another net 0.5m behind the first one because it's easy to put in & take out (just like drawing curtains in fact) rather than having to lug & store 6 square metres of polystyrene.