Has the WA1440 fallen out of favour ?

Corax67

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I shoot all 4 bow types but regard myself as a longbow archer, as such I enter longbow comps that are mostly Westerns (one or two way) and the occasional York if it?s record status.

Had a notification from Kent Archery Association yesterday that their forthcoming WRS WA1440 has been cancelled due to only 18 entrants - not a comp I was drawn to as it was only for barebow, recurve and compound.


Now here is the odd thing - someone commented that maybe the reason for low take up is that the WA1440 as a round has lost its appeal for competition archers who are focussing more on WA720 & H2H comps as that?s where the ranking points are.

They also hypothesised that competition archers don?t like shooting straw bosses only foamies ? ? ?


Was just wondering if this is the case nationwide or if it was just a blip caused by other reasons, were not into the holiday season just yet but maybe there were clashing events out of county that I?ve not noticed.


Anyhow having well beaten our club New National record last weekend I am looking forward to my first comp of the year - The KAA longbow tournament in two weeks - which promises to be very well attended indeed according to the person who kindly booked me in outside of the deadline (shooting to BLBS rules so no limit to archers per boss!) :)





Karl
 

Timid Toad

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Yes, that is my impression too - 720 plus H2H is what everyone wants, and ACEs and X10s don't like straw.
 

bimble

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Wasn't Kent one of the few county champs that still shot on straw?? No wonder they struggled for entrants! We held our county champs last week (1440) and got three times the number of county archers turning up that have done for the last few years... but ours has had the ignomy of being a tacked on event for the last few years (firstly on the second day of SAW and then Rivernook) and county numbers had dropped into the low 20s. We took it over this year, making it a shoot unto itself. Got someone from all the Surrey clubs which was also nice.

No ranking points though, as it was a closed shoot for county archers only... and as our field can only really fit 22-25 bosses, we might not be able to ever open it up to all archers.

1440s are always going to be shot, as they (along with York/Herefords) are the only way to get access into The Masters, which being a Tier 1 event has lots of rankings points available.
 

Corax67

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Hmmm........ so straw bosses are really an issue for the expensive carbon stick fraternity, I hadn’t realised.

Obviously target material isn’t of concern with longbow arrows.


Even for me with longbow it is necessary to trawl through the competition lists for Kent and other nearby counties at the start of the year and be quite selective in choosing where to put my time & entry money if I am to qualify for MB or GMB - record status only, etc - but I know that there are a great many ‘lesser’ comps in-county that offer a lot more relaxed fun and entertainment for my days travelling.

I suppose if you want to be at the very top of the sport then decisions such as rounds and bosses do make a very significant impact on your choice of attendance at events over their closeness to home.




Karl
 

Timid Toad

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I've spoken to stick shooters who won't shoot at foam - as they are more likely to hit the wood of the frame, so they'd rather shoot straw. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
 

Whitehart

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The 4 way county match in Kent Sunday is a 1440 I guess we are shooting at straw, as long as it is Egertec should not be a problem as a one off, not keen shooting straw all the time as it is abrasive and wears the carbon off the shaft.

Shame it is all 720's these days IMO a York and 1440 is a true reflection of ability - not only the distances, but weather and adaptability to changing distances quickly.

The Koreans think so as their championships are still a double 1440 although you have to shoot around 1300 just to qualify :)
 

bimble

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The 4 way county match in Kent Sunday is a 1440 I guess we are shooting at straw, as long as it is Egertec should not be a problem as a one off, not keen shooting straw all the time as it is abrasive and wears the carbon off the shaft.

Shame it is all 720's these days IMO a York and 1440 is a true reflection of ability - not only the distances, but weather and adaptability to changing distances quickly.

The Koreans think so as their championships are still a double 1440 although you have to shoot around 1300 just to qualify :)
I'm not saying it will be straw, it has been a few years since I've chatted target archery in Kent, but last time I did they were still using straw.

Personally I'm a great fan of the 1440 (as well as the York), and for the summer evenings, the 900.
 

Corax67

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As far as I know the Kent Invitational a couple of weeks ago was on straw (had to withdraw due to health) so I would think the County match on Sunday will be the same.



Karl
 

mbaker74

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Yorkshire Archery county shoots are on straw and most compound shooters and recurves shooting x10's down like them. I split three x10's last year shooting into straw but that was I believe due to having the stainless steel points in them.
I still don't like shooting into straw due to the amount of bits of straw and sticky gluey stuff that sticks to your arrows....
We have at least 5 or 6 1440's held in Yorkshire, and all tend to be well attended, but anyone chasing ranking points will always choose a 720 and H2H over a 1440 due to the higher number of points available.
 

Raven's_Eye

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We host a WRS Double WA1440, and the numbers have slowly been going down over the years, despite making the change over to foam bosses so archers can shoot 6 arrows all day. The ranking system does seem to dominate the minds of the competitive archer, though personally I couldn't care less about it and prefer to shoot rounds I enjoy. I've known archers do rounds they don't like because they wanted the ranking points.
 

LionOfNarnia

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I'd need a retrieval slave to do a 1440, never mind a double!

(spending 3 hrs shooting floors me for at least 24hrs :( )

The general trend in society is for shorter 'events', the only archery that gets 'televised' is the (gripping) 5-set medal matches, it should be a no-brainer that the 'marathon' events are less popular.

- except snooker ofc! How TF anyone can get excited over the first frame of a best-of-31 match is totally beyond me!
 

geoffretired

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- except snooker ofc! How TF anyone can get excited over the first frame of a best-of-31 match is totally beyond me!
The first frame could be the best one! Why watch the first half of a ##### match? Why not wait for the results and not bother watching any performance events?
But I agree that longer events are getting less popular; they require a big time commitment and can conflict with family life.
 

KidCurry

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The first frame could be the best one! Why watch the first half of a ##### match? Why not wait for the results and not bother watching any performance events?
But I agree that longer events are getting less popular; they require a big time commitment and can conflict with family life.
I think the 1440 was/is a great format. I like that you don't get stuck on one distance for very long. I like the ten zone scoring. The biggest down side for me was the change to 3 arrows at 50m. Puts another hour on the day at least. Let me shoot six arrows in one detail all the way through and I would start shooting them again.
 

geoffretired

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Yes, I liked that, too; and the York round. Six arrows is good.
My last 1440 was called a FITA when I did it. At 30m I was consistently shooting 10, 10, miss the boss!!
I think that was the start of my TP kicking in.
 
The biggest down side for me was the change to 3 arrows at 50m. Puts another hour on the day at least. Let me shoot six arrows in one detail all the way through and I would start shooting them again.
Hi KidCurry, a large number of 1440s now swap to individual 10-5 faces for the shorter distances now, so that 6 arrow ends continue throughout; the Middlesex 1440 over the May bank holiday and Fakenham Bowmen WA weekends are two that spring to mind :)
 

ben tarrow

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This (almost) demand for tournaments to be on foam bosses is a problem that probably prevents clubs holding tournaments.
Foam bosses are quite a bit more expensive than straw.
They take up 4 times as much storage space. We have space for 20 straw bosses and stands in our container, but would be hard pushed to fit more than 6 or 7 foam ones in.
They take at least 3 times as much handling (that is to say that we can put 10 bosses on a trolley and wheel it out across the field, but we couldnt get more than 3 foam ones on the trolley at a time)
and you can't just pick them up between 2 field crew and move them at change of distance.

I was surprised on our last weekend indoors, a visitor complained because they had to share a 60cm 3 spot strip of faces with another archer. "If you have foam bosses, you can fit more strips on, then I wouldnt have to share"

As for causing less damage to arrows:

 

Corax67

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As a club we have only two foam bosses - used exclusively for compounds - and everyone else shoots on straw, of which we have over 20 bosses. For us to implement a programme of replacement would be financially testing plus we are a family club where no one has anything more expensive than ACC’s and is happy on straw.

As Ben rightly says they are much harder to store, handle and move because of their sheer bulk and ours have only seen the light of day once this season since our only compound archer has moved over to the one true bow (my spare longbow) :)

There have been times during Mid Kent League matches where visiting archers have voiced their dislike of straw but have shot on it anyway.




Karl
 
Most, if not all the shoots that use exclusively foam bosses rent them fron companies that offer such a service at reasonable prices; it means the entry fee is a smidge higher, but not prohibitively so (that is the trade off for not wanting to shoot on straw though!), so storage becomes less of an issue.

In terms of damage, the wood portions of certain foam bosses (frameless faom is available) are a risk to arrows, but generally only on misses, whereas a straw boss on an A frame poses a risk to scoring arrows due to the leg positioning, particularly indoors and at shorter distances, so it is understandable why some archers prefer not to shoot on it.

Personally, my club uses straw (with a couple of foam for compound archers) and I am generally happy to shoot on either, however I usually expect to pay more to compete at comps that only use foam bosses
 

Kernowlad

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Extracting compound arrows from straw = painful.

Not sure what my target is bag is made of (Mybo) but it?s incredibly easy to extract arrows from. I think it might be made of magic.
 
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