# Best recurve for mounted archery



## Ray Ray (Aug 1, 2005)

Check out this site www.horse archer.com. A few of the girls from the 4H archery that I teach have been doing the mounted archery.


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## Baju (Nov 2, 2016)

Really any bow that you will feel comfortable with will do. For competitive mounted, the only rules about bows are that there can't be an arrow rest/shelf, (you need to shoot "off the glove,") and no compounds. Other than those two rules I don't think there are any restrictions. In general, something shorter is preferred, for maneuverability and ease of handling from horseback, and usually a lighter draw weight is preferred than what you might feel you can handle on the ground. (Depending on where you compete draw weight may be a rule, too, some rules vary depending on group/location. Such as firing from the hand versus a quiver, I don't know where draw weight falls in with those regional fluctuations.) Most draw weights range between 25-40# for horse archery. If you have a chance to work with other archers and possibly try out different bows that is the best way to find what will really work best for you, personally. I got the opportunity to do a clinic, recently, and had the benefit of trying out several different bows over the weekend. I really liked the Attila "U-finish" model I tried, I kept gravitating back to that one in between other models I rode with. The artist in me also likes that I can put my own personal touches to it in addition to it be more affordable than several other choices. I plan on buying one, soon. In the meanwhile, and especially while first getting the hang of things, light cheap youth bows are great to start with while first getting into it, as there is less angst if it gets dropped and trampled! ;-) As far as being able to also use it for hunting, you'd want to go with the higher-end draw weight you can comfortably pull without affecting your accuracy, and using a thumb-draw versus three finger draw allows more of the tension of the string to be transferred to the arrow instead of being dispersed across the wider area of the string taken up by the extra digits. Arrows are important for mounted, too. Feather fletching is preferred over plastic vanes, as when nocking and drawing while riding, taking the time to ensure the cock feather is facing out takes too much time... the feather will give more than the plastic vane if it contacts the bow on the way when nocked with the index feather the wrong way, which won't affect the aim as badly. Also gentler on your hand if not well-gloved, since, with no shelf, the fletching is likely to slice across your bow hand on the way past. Some mounted archers also like to use special four-feathered fletching on their arrows, instead of the more common three, again in the interest of timing and not wanting to bother about which way an index feather is facing. I found shooting from horseback is not nearly as challenging as nocking a fresh arrow on the string while riding toward the next shot! :-D


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