Speed shooting?

[Matt Easton]

Hi guys, I'm new round here but have been lurking and reading for a while. I shoot an ELB (75" long, 75#@30") and I try to stay as traditional as possible.
My other hobby is teaching western martial arts (late-fourteenth century hand-to-hand weapon arts from one treatise of 1410), and from that discipline and my archaeology background I try to bring a study of historical sources to my shooting. I have been studying artistic representations of longbowmen in 14th and 15th century art for a while and try to emulate the stances shown there. I'll talk about that in another thread though.
My question now is: Does anyone else here train for speed of shooting? By that I mean trying to loose as many arrows with reasonable accuracy as fast as possible? Has anybody devised any training methods for this, and has anyone heard of any competitions of this? I've often thought that it would be fun to have a competition where the archers are given a fixed time to shoot at a target with as many arrows as possible (so accuracy and speed would be factors, as arrows that missed wouldn't score anything, and more arrows on the target would usually equate to a higher score). Maybe people have tried this?
Interested to hear your ideas and experiences,
Matt
www.fioredeiliberi.org

[Huffy]

The Society for the Promotion of Traditional Archery have a bit on their web site about speed shooting

http://www.sptradarch.org/speedrules.html

The Guinness record is 21 accurate arrows in a minute.

Best wishes , Mark Huff

[gwynn]

I personally have seen Daniel [aka English Bowman] loose 21 arrows in a timed minute, usually he can get off 19 0r 20 using a 50lb ELB. Not a good grouping admitedly but he is going for speed in this part of our show.
[I've also seen a 250lb crossbow, cocked with a goat's foot lever, get off 6 in a minute - which is good going!]
Using a large poundage warbow that's going to drop right down, a big bow shooter Simon Stanley (who can shoot about 170lb, I believe) reckons on 6 a minute perhaps 10 with practise.
I think English Bowman just did it again and again until he got fast - I'm sure he'll just say it's a natural talent!
(he has got a trick - but I'm not telling you what it is) there's a part of it in here
http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f6...vie_Large1.flv

[N.Vodden]

nice video gwynn! love the 2 armour shots at the end

ive tried speed shooting with my 40lb scythian identical to the one in the vid, nocking is the hardest part, shoudl change my name to Mr.Fumbles

ill be at the club with it on thu, ill ask somebody to time me and see how long it takes to empty my quiver of 6.

[Matt Easton]

Thanks guys!
So... there's a Guiness Record to break eh?....

Matt

[Schme1440]

Originally Posted by N.Vodden

nice video gwynn! love the 2 armour shots at the end

ive tried speed shooting with my 40lb scythian identical to the one in the vid, nocking is the hardest part, shoudl change my name to Mr.Fumbles

ill be at the club with it on thu, ill ask somebody to time me and see how long it takes to empty my quiver of 6.

Think Ill give that one a go. Will try this the week end at home with my Hungarian bow. Could be an interesting shoot. It would be like archery drga races. First to hit with 6 arrows. I smell a new AIUK event.

[ThePinkOne]

It's easier if you stick the arrows in the ground, faster than a quiver.

In the days when I shot long-bow, the club I went to used to do competitive speed shoots between members, we'd all line up and have to shoot into a roped-off square as many as poss in a minute.

I think I managed 11 or 12 as my best, but I wasn't very good at it, some of the guys were much better.

[English Bowman]

Originally Posted by gwynn

I personally have seen Daniel [aka English Bowman] loose 21 arrows in a timed minute, usually he can get off 19 0r 20 using a 50lb ELB. Not a good grouping admitedly but he is going for speed in this part of our show.
[I've also seen a 250lb crossbow, cocked with a goat's foot lever, get off 6 in a minute - which is good going!]
Using a large poundage warbow that's going to drop right down, a big bow shooter Simon Stanley (who can shoot about 170lb, I believe) reckons on 6 a minute perhaps 10 with practise.
I think English Bowman just did it again and again until he got fast - I'm sure he'll just say it's a natural talent!
(he has got a trick - but I'm not telling you what it is) there's a part of it in here
http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f6...vie_Large1.flv

Gwynn's right, it is just a matter of practice. (coupled with natural talent!) I started off getting about 14 - 16 in a minute from the quiver, and practiced until I got quicker. I can't get the hang of drawing the arrows from the ground.
As for the trick, well it's no big secret, ask nicely and I might let you know

Daniel

[SLOWHAND]

I imagin that that the sight of several thousand enemy Knights all holding long pointy things aimed directly at you personally, sitting on horses weighing half a ton galloping as fast as they could towards you would be a pretty good motivation for fast and accurate shooting.

I can just imagin the captains walking up and down the line,"Remember, no sighters today, everyone counts". "Come on lads, I know it's raining but it's the same for everyone". "Stop watching where other peoples arrows are going, it's not a competition, oh it is... sorry". " Look theres no need to come down everytime it dosent feel right, just shoot the &@*%ing thing". " OK we all saw you had a bouncer off that breast-plate, have another go". " Stop moaning about the misses, you should have got good sight marks before we stated".

[Ceri Jones]

ive managed 15 and youre fingers sting afterwards even with a glove on