After moving inside for the archery indoor season, I always find it hard to shoot at 18m/20yds instead of at 70m. I find everything is too fast on my bow and my sight marks are right at the top. It feels like I have to point at the floor to get onto the gold. So when moving inside I always try and slow my bow and arrows down as much as possible, in order to make my sight block move down as well – I do manage it a little bit and here’s how:
1. String
I always like to have a new string (or two) when moving outside so it’s as fast as possible. But moving indoors I look around for an older string that’s maybe at least one year old. I have now learnt to mark all my string canisters with the date I purchased them and started using them as well as what colour they are. Why do I choose an older string, because it will be slower than a new one and even more so when I put a kisser button on it.
2. Kisser buttons
The more things you attach to the string, the slower it will be. This could be a kisser button. The more strands there are in a string, the slower it will be. If you use metal nocking points that will also slow down your string compared to using nocking thread or dental floss etc.
3. Limbs
You can always get your sight marks to move down by lowering your poundage. Some people do this every indoor season, as you just don’t need high poundage to reach 18m. But it is also a good idea to keep the sound poundage on your bow, so that when you move outside you are used to the poundage and ready to go. Rather than having to not only get used to shooting 6 arrows per end again but also now deal with the increase in poundage when you put it back on your bow.
4. Arrows
Some archers keep the same setup all year round which is great, as that means no swapping out equipment and having to re-tune. But changing to a fatter arrow indoors may gain you a few points in competition and they will always be slower than a skinny ACE or X10 arrow due to their diameter and perhaps point weight (if you change those for heavy ones).
Overall
There you go, four things you can alter on your bow to make it slower. I did also produce a YouTube video on the same subject. Watch it here.