The theory and practice of archery

by Horace A. Ford; W. Butt

The arrow is perhaps the most important of all the implements of the archer, and requires the greatest nicety of make and excellence of materials; for, though he may get on without absolute failure with an inferior bow or other tackle, unless the arrow be of the best Robin Hood himself would have aimed in vain. Two things are essential to a good arrow, namely, perfect straightness, and a stiffness or rigidity sufficient to stand in the bow, i.e. to receive the force of the bow as delivered by the string without flirting or gadding; for a weak or supple is even worse than a crooked arrow—and it need hardly be said how little conducive to shooting straight is the latter. The straightness of the arrow is easily tested by the following simple process. Place the extremities of the nails of the thumb and middle finger of the left hand so as just to touch each other, and with the thumb and same finger of the right hand spin the arrow upon the nails at about the arrow's balancing-point; if it revolve truly and steadily, keeping in close and smooth contact with the nails, it is straight; but if it jump in the very least the contrary is the case. In order to test its strength or stiffness the arrow must be held by the nock, with its pile placed on some solid substance. The hand at liberty should now be pressed downwards on the middle of the arrow. A very little experience as to whether the arrow offer efficient resistance to this pressure will suffice to satisfy the archer about its stiffness. An arrow that is weaker on one side than on the other should also be rejected.

Arrows are either selfs or footed; the former being made of a single piece of wood (these are now seldom in use, except for children), and the latter have a piece of different and harder wood joined on to them at the pile end. 'A shaft,' says old Roger Ascham,' hath three principal parts—the stele, the feather, and the head.' The stele, or wooden body of the arrow, used to be, and still is occasionally, made of different sorts of wood; but for target use, and indeed for any other description of modern shooting, all may be now discarded save one—red deal, which when clean, straight of grain, and well seasoned, whether for selfs or footed shafts, is incomparably superior to all others. For the footing any hard wood will do; and if this be solid for one inch below the pile it will be amply sufficient. Lance and Washaba are perhaps the best woods for this purpose; the latter is the toughest, but the former Mr. Ford preferred, as he thought the darkness of the Washaba had a tendency to attract the eye. The darker woods, however, are now mostly in use. This footing has three recommendations: the first, that it enables the arrow to fly more steadily and get through the wind better; the second, that, being of a substance harder than deal, it is not so easily worn by the friction it unavoidably meets with on entering the target or the ground; and the third, that this same hardness saves the point from being broken off should it happen to strike against any hard substance—such, for instance, as a stone in the ground or the iron leg of a target-stand. Before the shooting is commenced, and after it is finished, the arrows should be rubbed with a piece of oiled flannel. This will prevent the paint of the target from adhering to them. If in spite of this precaution any paint should adhere to them, sandpaper should on no account be used to clean them: this is most objectionable, as it will wear away the wood of the footing. Turpentine should be applied, or the blunt back of a knife.

Before entering upon the subject of the best shape for the 'stele' of the arrow for practical use, it is necessary to say a few words upon a point where the theory and practice of archery apparently clash.

If the arrow be placed on the bowstring as if for shooting, the bow drawn, and an aim taken at an object, and if the bow be then slowly relaxed, the arrow being held until it returns to the position of rest—i.e. if the passage of the arrow over the bow be slow and gradual—it will be found, if the bow be held quite firmly during this action, that the arrow does not finally point to the object aimed at, but in a direction deviating considerably to the left of it—in fact, that its direction has been constantly deviating more and more from the point of aim at each point during its return to the position of rest. This is, of course, due to the half-breadth of the bow, the nock of the arrow being carried on the string, in a plane passing through the string and the axis of the bow's length; and this deviation will be greater if the arrow be chested (i.e. slighter at the pile than at the nock), and less if it be bobtailed (i.e. slighter at the nock than at the pile) than if the arrow be cylindrical throughout. If the same arrow, when drawn to the head, be loosed at the object aimed at—i.e. if the passage of the arrow over the bow be impulsive and instantaneous—it will go straight to the object aimed at, the shooting being in all respects perfect.

How, then, is the difference of the final direction of the arrow in the two cases to be explained?

It must be observed that the nock of the arrow being constrained to move, as it does move in the last case, causes a pressure of the arrow upon the bow (owing to its slanting position on the bow, and its simultaneous rapidity of passage), and therefore a reacting pressure of the bow upon the arrow. This makes the bow have quite a different effect upon the deviation from what it had in the first case, when the arrow moved slowly and gradually upon the bow (being held by the nock), the obstacle presented by the half-breadth of the bow then causing a deviation wholly to the left. The pressure now considered, however, has a tendency to cause deviation to the left only during the first part of the arrow's passage upon the bow, whilst during the second part it causes a deviation to the right; or, more correctly speaking, the pressure of the bow upon the arrow has a tendency to cause a deviation to the left so long as the centre of gravity of the arrow is within the bow, and vice versâ. So that, if this were the only force acting upon the arrow, its centre of gravity (this is, of course, the point upon which the arrow, balanced horizontally, will poise) should lie midway in that part of the arrow which is in contact with the bow during the bow's recoil. There is another force which contributes towards this acting and reacting pressure between the arrow and the bow at the loose if the nocking-place of the string be properly fitted to the arrow, but not otherwise. As the fingers are disengaged from the string they communicate a tendency to spin to the string, and this spin immediately applies the arrow to the bow if it should happen to be off the bow through side-wind or that troublesome failing of beginners and others of a crooked pinch between the fingers upon the nock of the arrow. It will be observed that if the nocking-place be too small to fill the nock of the arrow this tendency to spin in the string will not affect the replacement of the arrow; but if the nocking-place be a good fit to the nock, the former must be a trifle flattened, and so communicate the spin of the string to the arrow in the shape of a blow upon the bow. It is not pretended that no arrow will fly straight unless the nocking-place fit the arrow. If the string be home in the nock the shot will still be correctly delivered, because the very close and violent pressure of the string on the nock will arrest the spin and so apply the arrow; but if the string be not home in the nock at the delivery of the loose, there is great danger that the nock will be broken, either from the nocking-place being too small, or from the other fault of its being too big. It is this spin given to the string as the arrow is loosed that necessitates the delivery of the arrow from the other side of the bow when the thumb-loose of the Oriental archer is employed, because this loose communicates the same spin, but reversed, to the string.

The struggle of these forces is clearly indicated by the appearance of the arrow where it comes in contact with the bow when it leaves the string. It is here that the arrow always shows most wear. It is also shown by the deep groove that gets worn by the arrow in a bow that has seen much service.

The nature of the dynamical action may be thus briefly explained. The first impulse given to the arrow, being instantaneous and very great (sufficient, as has been seen, to break the arrow if the string be not home in the nock) in proportion to any other forces which act upon it, impresses a very high initial velocity in the direction of the aim, and this direction the arrow recovers notwithstanding the slight deviations caused by the mutual action between the arrow and bow before explained—these in fact, as has been shown, counteracting each other.

Fig. 8.—BOBTAILED ARROW.