#archery #turkishbow
AF Archery Turkish Bow RIP (Rest in pieces!) It is now a lovely wall decoration.
What happened was...
It was a freezing cold day, and I was at an old castle, ready to have some fun and make a couple of archery videos.
My very first shot of the day, I came to full draw (around 31" for my first shot of the day, and then there was a massive bang , and I am sure everything went black for a few seconds.
I had no idea what happened, then I realised the bowstring was dangling in front of me, and the arrow was at my feet.
I thought the bow had unstrung itself somehow, so I picked up the arrow and was about to restring the bow when I realised my hand was bleeding pretty badly (fortunately I had some vetinary bandage in my pack, so sorted that out), at which point I realised that both ends of the bow had magically disappeared.
When I say it exploded, I mean, there were only tiny splinters of wood and bits of the black plastic or whatever 'reinforcement)
(To be fair, I didn't warm the bow up, my enthusiasm to get shooting got the better of me.)
I worked out eventually that the arrow had been pushed up and forward, so it was the nock end that got my hand, and I had a perfect nock sized groove in the webbing of my bow hand.
It served me well, I had many a good time with this bow, and would say I got my money's worth out of it really, but I'd never buy another AF Archery bow. The exposed wood where the siyah's broke was shockingly almost hollow grained, and looked like the sort of wood you would use to start a fire with.
I'm sure there are some 'wise' people watching who would think, easy fix, put some horn on each end and away you go, but having seen the poor quality wood, and it having been basically dry fired, I'd never trust it again. I'd rather keep my eyes and hands thank you very much :)
I contacted Imry Nagy, and explained what had happened, and asked him to make me a short turkish bow that would stand up to getting hot, cold, wet and abused, and am confident he will deliver me a beauty. (7 months waiting list, word has clearly spread that he makes great bows at an amazing price)
If you want a lovely lightweight, fast and pretty accurate Turkish bow, the AF Archery one is a beauty, but don't get too attached to it if you shoot all year round in all sorts of weather conditions.
Thank you for watching, and my apologies for the sound quality and shaky out of focus camera work, but I rushed to get this wee video done during a lull in the horrible Storm Ciara, that has been battering the place with wind and rain.
Enjoy every shot!
