Types of Archery

Target Archery:- Target archery refers to the discipline of shooting a 'round' of arrows at targets over a known distance on a flat surface. The target is a boss with a target face on it; the face can vary in size from 122cm down to 40cm depending upon the round. The number of arrows and distances shot depend upon the round.

Field Archery:- Field archery also involves shooting at targets but usually in a woodland setting and mimics hunting but without actually shooting at animals. The targets may be target faces or they may be replica animal models with target areas on them. The archer may have to shoot up or down hill and the distances can vary for each target. Additionally the distance to the target may or may not be marked so the archer may have to estimate distance as well.

Clout Archery:- Clout archery involves shooting at a target marked horizontally on a field (in effect a lying down target) at much greater distances that target archery, usually 180 yards.

Flight Archery:- The aim of flight archery is to shoot the maximum distance you possibly can.

Popinjay Archery:- This form of archery involves shooting wooden 'birds' attached to a tower. Given the inherent danger of shooting up in the air the arrows are modified to have rubber tips. Different types of 'bird' score different numbers of points.

Note that Blue Arrows on provide target archery facilities and all further information relates to target archery rather than any of the others.

Target Archery Rounds

Archery rounds consist of a fixed number of arrows shot at one or more distances and provide a means of testing an archer's performance, either in practise at the club or in competition against other archers.

There are many different rounds all having their own names, composition and scoring method that are designed to shoot outdoors or indoors. Where the round comprises multiple distances the longest distance is shot first.

There are two primary types, FITA rounds and GNAS rounds:

FITA:- These rounds have distances measured in metres and use 122cm and 80cm target faces for outdoor rounds and 60cm and 40cm target faces for indoor rounds. They use 10-zone scoring.

Examples:-

Note that 2 types of face may be used, a single face and a 3-spot face. The latter is often used by compound archers to prevent damage to arrows.

GNAS:- These rounds have distances measured in yards and use 122cm target faces for outdoor rounds and 60cm and 40cm target faces for indoor rounds. They use 5-zone scoring for outdoor rounds and 10-zone scoring for indoor rounds. The Worcester round is an exception; it uses a 16 inch special face that is black with a white centre and scores 5 to 1 and is shot indoor at 20yds.

Examples:-

Note that single and 3-spot faces are available for compound archers as for the metric rounds.

Outdoor Score Sheet

Indoor Score Sheet