Archery, Explained - Gear Guides, Reviews & How-To

No. Every guide on this site says so directly – we are not sponsored by any bow, arrow or accessory brand, and we do not chase spec-sheet marketing. Recommendations are written to fit the archer, not to sell a particular label.

Mostly no – the site is 70+ independent gear guides and reviews covering nine archery categories, from choosing your first bow to tuning arrows and picking targets. The one exception is our own small line of custom embroidered gear (quivers, bow bags and arm guards, made to order) – everything else on the site is buying advice, not a storefront.

Embroidered quivers, bow bags and arm guards, made to order from a single piece up. Team and club orders are what it is built for – one logo, one set of colours, each archer’s name on their own piece – and production runs about two weeks from artwork approval. See custom archery gear for details and a quote.

Both. The guides split naturally by use – hunting apparel and hunting-specific bow advice on one side, target and form guides like how to shoot a compound bow on the other – and most gear guides, like arrows and broadheads, cover both audiences directly.

With types of archery bows if you have not picked a bow style yet, or the compound bow guide if you already know that is the style you want. Both are written to get draw weight and draw length fit right before anything else, since fit matters more than any spec on a box.

Three things decide the number: a bow that fits, arrows matched to it, and a target that can stop what you shoot. Everything else on the accessory shelf can wait. A ready-to-shoot package bundles the accessories in and lands in roughly the same place as a bare bow plus mid-range parts bought separately, and in practice only the sight and the rest are worth replacing later. If the budget is tight, the used market moves more than any accessory decision: compound bows depreciate steeply, so the same money often buys a class up. See what to buy first and what it costs and buying used.

Confirm the fit before anything else – draw length measured from your wingspan, and a draw weight you can pull smoothly without heaving. Then install in order: rest, sight, peep, D-loop, stabilizer last, because each one is set against the one before it. Only then start on form. Doing it the other way round is the most common reason a new bow is sighted in twice and a served-in peep gets cut back out. Start with how to shoot a compound bow and the accessory order.

No to all three. A press pays for itself over a decade or more at typical shop rates, an arrow saw around the 160-dollar mark takes roughly thirteen dozen shafts to break even, and a stabilizer without end weight does very little while the feel it is tuned to is still changing. Each is a real tool for the person doing that work, and none of them is a starting requirement. See bow presses, arrow saws and stabilizers.

It depends on where you live, and the rules are local. Some states, cities and counties allow target practice on private property; others ban shooting within city limits outright or cap it by lot size or distance to a neighbouring building; hunting regulations are a separate set of rules again. Check your city or county ordinance first, then set up a backstop rated for what you actually shoot – a bag rated for field points is not a broadhead stop. Target choice and safe home-range setup are covered in archery targets and building your own target.

A saw or arrow cutter, a fletching jig, fletching glue or tape, nocks and inserts, and the spine chart for your shaft. A scale helps confirm point weight before you cut. Buy shafts full length and cut in small steps rather than to a guessed number, because cutting is the one step you cannot undo. The tool-by-tool breakdown is in archery tools, arrow saws and cutting shafts without ruining them.

No. Plenty of archers pick up a bow in their thirties, forties or later, and draw weight is matched to the archer rather than to age – a 30 lb recurve is a beginner weight at 20 or at 60. What limits progress is how often you shoot and how well the bow fits, not the year you started. Start with bows for beginners or compounds for beginners.

A set gets you shooting the same week, and in practice a ready-to-shoot package lands in roughly the same place as a bare bow plus mid-range parts bought separately. What a package usually gets wrong is the sight and the arrow rest – which are also the two parts worth replacing first. If the bow style is still open, buying piece by piece is slower but lets you change direction without replacing everything. See bows for beginners and what to buy first and what it costs.

Often the bow survives, and that is the problem. A dry fire leaves the limbs, cams and string carrying a shock they were not built for, and damage that is not visible now can show up as a failed limb later. Stop shooting, have a shop inspect the limbs, cams, axles and string before you draw it again, and run a cotton ball along each limb on the way in – it catches on a splinter that a hand will not feel. If you are buying used, treat a dry fire in the bow’s history as a reason to inspect harder, not an automatic no. More on what to check is in buying used.

Flex it. Hold the shaft near the nock and near the point and bend it gently around your fingers in short sections, working from one end to the other. A cracked shaft makes a small ticking or popping sound, and the crack almost always starts at the nock end or where the arrow struck something hard. Look at the nock end in good light for a split, and sight down the shaft for a bend. Any arrow that ticks, is split, or looks bent gets thrown away – it is not worth the risk of the shaft breaking beside your hand. Arrow and point matching is covered in arrows and broadheads, and checking a used bow’s history in buying used.

One small commercial line: made-to-order embroidered quivers, bow bags and arm guards. That is the only thing on the site that is for sale, and it is what pays for the guides. No brand pays for placement, there are no affiliate links, and no retailer can buy a recommendation – which is why a guide here can tell you to wait a year on an accessory.

It depends on the piece and on which hand the archer shoots. An arm guard protects the bow arm, so a right-handed archer wears it on the left forearm and a left-handed archer on the right – the same club mark therefore lands on opposite sides of two guards in the same squad. Quivers are worn on whichever side the archer prefers, so we ask rather than assume. For team orders the club mark goes on the outside of the arm, where it is read from behind the shooting line. All of it is settled on the mockup: placement and side are visible there before anything is stitched, and changes at that stage cost nothing.

Count three parts, not one. Artwork approval, then about two weeks in production, then transit to your address – and transit runs on top of the two weeks, it is not inside them. Transit time depends on the destination and is itemised in the written quote, so the number you read is delivered to your door. If you have a date to hit, put it in the form: the quote says whether it can be met rather than leaving you to guess. Orders placed mid-season are the ones that run into this, so a squad that needs gear for a first competition should count backwards from that date.