Arrows do not spread evenly over the target face: the upper half collects more of them than the lower half

The summary today

There is a single small study, and it is more a snapshot than a rule. Eighteen archers of mixed ability, seven women and eleven men, shot twelve arrows each at 18 m indoors: of the two hundred left on the face, 127 landed in the two upper quadrants and 73 in the two lower ones, 63.5% against 36.5%, while between right and left (104 against 96) there is no difference. The share of golds also changes from one quadrant to another, from 59% of the arrows upper left to 33% lower right. The picture narrows as soon as it is looked at closely, though. Arrows in the red and the blue are spread in the same way across the four quadrants, and the distance from the centre for each score is the same everywhere, so archers who go high do not miss by more. Above all, the two hundred arrows are treated as independent although they come from eighteen people: two or three archers with a slightly misadjusted sight could be enough to produce the whole result, and in the text the difference between the two halves is reported with a p greater than 0.05. The study does not say where the tendency comes from, and a single practice session is not enough to make it a property of shooting.

Also phrased as: "arrows going high"; "more arrows high than low"; "arrow distribution on the target face"; "target quadrants"; "group sitting high"

Evidence

• 2014
  For Archers Published later

  18 archers of mixed ability (7 women, 11 men), 12 arrows each at 18 m indoors, target faces photographed and measured in Matlab, arrows off the paper excluded: of the 200 that remained, 59 are upper left, 68 upper right, 37 lower left and 36 lower right (chi-squared, difference reported as significant); between the left and right halves, 96 against 104, no difference.

  Assessment of target performance in archery · İpek Eroglu Kolayis, Murat Çilli, Hayri Ertan, J. Axel Knicker

• 2014
  For Archers Published later

  In the same arrows the share of golds (10s and 9s) changes from one quadrant to another: 59.32% upper left, 48.53% upper right, 45.95% lower left, 33.33% lower right (p < 0.05). In the discussion the first value is given as 54.32.

  Assessment of target performance in archery · İpek Eroglu Kolayis, Murat Çilli, Hayri Ertan, J. Axel Knicker

• 2014
  Context Archers Published later

  Arrows in the red (8s and 7s) and the blue (6s and below) are spread across the quadrants with no significant differences, and the mean distance from the centre for each score is practically the same in the four quadrants (10s between 0.83 and 1.13 cm, 9s between 2.06 and 2.40 cm). The asymmetry concerns the golds, not the whole group, and the arrows are analysed as independent although they come from 18 archers.

  Assessment of target performance in archery · İpek Eroglu Kolayis, Murat Çilli, Hayri Ertan, J. Axel Knicker

Status history

1. 2014 Reported The first and only study to count how arrows are spread across the quadrants of the target, on 200 arrows shot at 18 m by eighteen archers of mixed ability, finds 127 in the two upper quadrants and 73 in the two lower ones, with the share of golds falling from 59% upper left to 33% lower right. The asymmetry concerns only the golds, however, because arrows in the red and the blue are spread in the same way, and the arrows are treated as independent although they come from eighteen people. One small study, in a single session: limited evidence.

Related

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• Why do my arrows go left, right, high or low?Where your arrows land is a report: how to read impact patterns, and what the measurements say about the sight, the grip, bow torque and launch speed.

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