Cancellation Places for Shooting

How to measure your draw length?


There are a couple of ways of measuring draw length, I know Jordan Sequillion has posted a method on her site. The one I feel works best is using a measuring stick or measuring arrow.

You can buy them from most archery suppliers but I made mine. In essence, mine is an unused arrow shaft which I have glued a nock in one end and then marked up in one inch intervals. To make it easier to read I’ve painted the increments in contrasting colours.

Get the archer to draw up 3-4 times and then coming down obviously without releasing the measuring arrow. (make sure they are in a safe environment so on the range pointing towards the target boss just encased they accidentally release)

Ensure they are drawing to their normal anchor point each time, this way you can ensure the measurement is correct.

You can then see easily what there draw length is and the technique can be used for all pretty much all styles of bow, though please be careful when trying this with a compound bow, since it is easy to release the measuring arrow when you come down from full draw.

Here is a couple of additional tips.

Camera Phone – Use your camera phone to capture a couple of images of them at full draw. This will make easier to check the measuring later.

Rubber band or Tape – If you don’t have a camera to hand try using a piece of tape or rubber band at what you think is their draw and then have them draw up a couple more times. This way you can see if it is in the right spot.

If they are a beginner add another inch on as shown in this photograph below.

I tend to recommend a slightly longer arrow if shooting woods and field archery. simply as in winter months you might be wearing a glove on bow arm and it gives you a little more clearance. Also should you lose the pile or snap the tip-off you might be able to taper the end back down and still have a usable arrow.

For competition I tend to cut them exact leaving no “spare”, if I lose the tip the arrow is added to the wood pile for the fire😦

The other useful thing with using this method is spotting archers who either overdraw or overdraw and then collapse slightly. But I’ll cover this in more detail in my next posting.

Thanks for reading, any questions let me know.

ruby081972
24th Jul 2016 18:42
Its an American flatbow by Black Brook bow made by Andy Soars http://hunthacks.com/best-recurve-bow/
ruby081972
24th Jul 2016 18:44
Quick question (not trying to be funny - and to be honest i already know the answer)
what or where are you measuring from?
It seems obvious when you know but if someone reads and assumes the wrong place they will have a wrong answer.
And if you are going to buy arrows based on this knowledge there is another factor to add in...
1 and 3/4 inches needs to be added to the result as there is an international recognised standard for designated draw lengths.
Or you will wonder why your arrows never seem to go where you want them to and someone shooting next to you on the line mentions the word spine!
Anon
25th Jul 2016 18:01