Tag Archives: trad archery

Jul 1 2019

Chat with Cody Greenwood at the TradLab

The TradLab

For those of you who don’t know Cody Greenwood he is the founder of Tradlab (https://www.thetradlab.com/) over in the USA. He has a background the field of analytics and is now focusing this expertise on traditional archery.
He has been working with the guys at The Push on a series of podcasts looking at arrow flight and the elements that effect it such as number, size of fetching, etc.. These are well worth listening to, offering some great advice and suggestions.
For those interested here is a link back to the Push article I wrote a while back.
anyway lets get started.
Rob – For the readers who might not have heard of you Cody, how about introducing yourself and explaining how you first got into archery?
Cody – I have a background in Continuous Improvement.
Rob – that phrase brings back memories of my university studies of engineering. Sorry please carry on.
Cody – I have been shooting archery since I was old enough to draw a bow. I hunted as I grew up and my passion for Archery has consistently increased with every year. I have just begun to get into the competition side of Archery.
I am developing as I now start to tackle the mental side of Trad.
Rob – the mental side is a whole new ball game that is often overlooked with some trad archers.
Listening again to the podcasts which you did with the guys at The Push, you said how you wanted to put something back into the hobby. So why set up the Tradlab, isn’t there enough information out there for people?
Traditional Archery changed for me last year at IBO Worlds. Dewayne Martin turned to me and said 95% of what you learned about Traditional Archery from the internet is false. I spent the afternoon shooting with those guys and during that time I realized he was correct.
A close friend who also competes spent countless hours Coaching me as I had to unlearn so many things.
I was shocked at how much time I had wasted trying to learn from the “Internet Archers”.
Rob – wow that is quite a revelation. Maybe a flip side of this is some of those internet archers believe they are being beneficial. YouTube has been a massive success over the years for people who want to share advice and ideas.
I have to say I do agree in some ways, as with my coaching hat on I’ve spent a few sessions with archers, helping them unlearn bad habits. Some of which they have picked up from YouTube.
Do you think its partly down to not being able to identify easily what is appropriate or right?

What a great quote – from the TradLab pages

I set out to expose this and TradLab was a result. I am using my skillset from my profession to test equipment and theories.
Rob – kind of a like a mythbusters approach in some ways?
My ultimate goal is to get people to go to the large shoots.
Rob – i think you are selling yourself short there Cody. I think you are trying to provide evidence based results to help the community as a whole.
A lot of what you covered in the podcasts are of benefit to hunters, field archers and social shooters.
Rob – Do you find the analytics of archery as interesting as actually shooting?
No absolutely not, I would much rather shoot versus study and test.
As a matter of fact I fear that I may be encouraging some to tinker in excess. We need to develop ourselves as Archers not constantly tinker with equipment.
Rob – My old coach always said, “Learn to shoot before you tinker with anything.”
As a coach myself I have often seen people tinker with there set up believing it would help, when in reality they would be better focusing on their own form or shot sequence.
My goal is to leverage my analytical base to save others from having to test with one factor at a time trial and error. This should enable them to focus on their shot versus testing.
Rob – I have to say the inner nerd in me loves to track and record stuff for improvements in future so hearing that someone else is also doing this makes me happy.
Where do you see yourself going with your archery and the TradLab over the next few years?
The future of TradLab is not clear to me at this time. I know I want to add more value than I take from this community.
My primary goal is to give back. If it turns into a sustainable business that adds value I will apply effort and time. If I find that TradLab becomes anything less than value add for the Community I will stop. I do not have any revenue coming in from TradLab at this point.
I do know there is a lot of bad information and products in our community. I will articulate this through my testing.
On my site I have limbs that sell for $800 that perform worse than $400 limbs. I want people to see this and make good product choices.
Rob – I can appreciate that sentiment. I’ve always tried to be unbiased in my reviews so people can have the facts and make their own minds up.
Rob – How can people get involved if they want to?
People can contact me through my website www.TheTradLab.com, instagram or my facebook page. They can also reach out the folks at Push archery.
I am always interested in theories or new product testing.
Thanks for taking the time to go through this. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck with the TradLab. Looking forward to more reviews and research over the next few months.
For those interested here is a link to The Push (https://thepusharchery.com/)
Thanks for reading
Jun 21 2019

Briar Rose Field Archers inaugural NFAS shoot

I wanted to raise the awareness of this event as it is Briar Rose Field Archers inaugural NFAS shoot on the 21st of July.
It will be a twice round 20 targets of a mix of 3D 2D and paper face. Crossbows welcome and there will be catering available.
Sadly they can’t have dogs on site.
More details can be found either on the Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/briarrosefieldarchers/) or club website ( https://briarrosefieldarchers.wordpress.com/).
For booking please email briarrosefieldarchers@gmail.com
Thanks for reading.
Feb 9 2019

What target is best for me?

So you might have got a bow for Christmas and are wondering if you can get a target to do some practice. What works and what doesn’t? How much will they cost? How long do they last?  Well all the answers to  these questions are dependent on what you are shooting or wanting to accomplish. Archery targets come in all shapes and sizes. As with everything there are merits and flaws for all but I’m going to try and summarise my thoughts and offer some factors to consider if you are thinking of investing in one for yourself or club.
I’m going to look at 3 types of targets
  • Bag bosses
  • Layered foam bosses
  • 3D targets
Mybo bag target

Mybo bag target

Bag bosses

These comprise of a bag made from a plastic weave similar to builders rubble bags and are packed with pieces of foam, fabric and plastic wrapping. They are normally the cheapest option and come in a couple of different sizes. I’ve had a couple of different ones of these over the years.
I’ve found they are good for low to medium poundage bows. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them for compound or crossbow archers as the arrows would quickly wear them out.
This brings me to the downside which is the bag material itself can get shot out as you shoot the centre. The bag material can be replaced or patched as I’ve known a few clubs to use old builders rubble sacks for coverings. I wrote a review of the Mybo bag boss a while back.
Being a boss you can pin different faces in them as required and this does help with spreading the wear and tare.
Overall they work pretty well for light usage and we’ve bought a couple for the club to use at have a go events and occasional use.

Layered foam bosses

Target Boss

Layered foam bosses are very common on most field courses and consist of layers of thin foam with a wood frames on two of  the long  sides that are then bound together. Mine have been out for a couple of years and still work well.
While more expensive than bag bosses they do work for heavier poundage bows.  Normal sizes are 90 x 90 cm or 130cm x 130cm.
The advantage of these is you can pin any target face on them, so this makes them versatile .
Things to consider are
  • The wooden frames rotting over time as the wood is not always pressure treated. We’ve used fence preserver on ours to help them last longer and disguising or camouflaging the frames so they are less obvious.
  • Try to avoid setting shots so arrows enter at an angle to the layers as this promotes the foam being torn or damaged more quickly.
  • Over time the banding can slacken so you may need to re-tighten or replace the banding.
  • The boss can get the heart shot out, with foam sheets tearing over time. A solution to this is to dismantle the target and move the torn sheets to the side and less damaged ones inward then rebind them.
  • Make sure the wood frame is on the side of the boss and not top & bottom. You don’t want an arrow to glance off the wood and fly high.
Its a common practice to repair these bosses and sometimes you’ll find you might be repairing 2 or 3 of them at a time. The end result being two usable bosses and the damaged sheets being used to stuff bag bosses.

3D targets

3D target set up for shoot off

3D target set up for shoot off

3D targets look great and can prove very useful if you are training for hunting or maybe a specific tournament. The downside is they can be expensive with a decent 3D deer costing a few hundred pounds. They are also pretty limited as unlike foam or bag bosses you can’t pin a different target face up and shoot that.
They can be repaired when they get shot out and there are some good YouTube videos covering this. Greg at 3D archery YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4HdCXofIA4jsWi1q9AdBUA) has run a series on repairing a variety of 3ds.
I feel that some of the smaller 3ds are not worth the money as they will get shot out quickly or are so hard lighter poundage bows struggle to penetrate.
A quick Google search will show there are several manufacturers of 3Ds,  Gamut (https://3dtargets.co.uk/), Rinehart (https://www.rinehart3d.com/), Delta McKenzie (https://dmtargets.com/) are just a few. All of them are now offering a variety from raccoons to grizzly bears.
Rinehart targets whilst expensive do provide the option of replacement centres which are sold separately. Not all manufacturers do this so.
Personally for my home range I have a couple of layered foam bosses which work well for practice and coaching. I’ve also got a couple of bag bosses but they need to be repaired.
Anyway I hope this has proved to be helpful. If you have any comments or feel I’ve missed something then let me know.
Thanks for reading