u/Aeliascent

I'm making some expendable practice arrows for a 120 meter shoot. The goal is to hit a target 120 meters away, but the arrow may not fly more than 5 meters above the ground, or it hits the overhead bamboo poles.

These are Surewood douglas fir with hornbeam nocks, duck secondary feathers, and linen thread. The points have a hard bamboo insert and are filed to a bullet point.

The feathers are freehand cut with scissors, and are inspired by Korean traditional target arrows

They have negative FOC, much like some flight arrows.

Armin Hirmer recently reviewed this bow by Fengfei. I wanted to give our impressions of the bows since we have owned ours for around 3-4 years.

Overall, this bow by Fengfei is very stable and accurate. Although it's not the fastest, it takes the arrow to where you are looking if your form is decent, you have a strong release, and you keep your bow hand on target. The bow changes with the weather, and seems to excel in hot and humid climate. There's nothing fancy about this bow. It is simple and honest, with southern Chinese village vibes.

I like this bow a lot, but it is not without its drawbacks. In colder weather, like a New York City winter, the limbs stiffen up and it becomes both more difficult to draw and less efficient. The timing of the limbs also go off, which leads to increased handshock and a less accurate shot. As a result, I only shoot the bow in hot weather.

Appearance: When new, the limbs will be completely straight from the handle. If you treat your bow well, it will remain that way with little if any set. The rattan wrappings are acceptable, but I removed mine and rewrapped it. I'm not a fan of the hard plasticky finish that came stock with the bow, so I removed it and gave it a tung oil finish, which is considered historical for Chinese bamboo products.

Construction: The back and belly are bamboo and so are the inner core laminations. The static tips are wood. I don't prefer bows with all-bamboo bending sections because they can feel too elastic, but this bow shoots fine. I'm a huge fan of the inlaid bone(?) notch reinforcements.

I wish that the bowyer did not strip the skin off the bamboo. That's arguably the best part of bamboo. As a result, the bow is just a little bit more processed and will always need a finish to protect it. This turns what would be a very good bow into just a decent bow. My kyudo instructor says leaving bamboo bows in plastic wraps "cooks" the bow. I can imagine the same is true with a hard plastic finish.

My friend, who's featured in the video, had a previous bow from Fengfei break a couple of years ago. The one he is shooting in the video is a replacement bow. It broke at the siyah joint, so I preemptively reinforced mine with hemp cord.

Mine had some vertical cracks, probably from the dry NYC apartment air during the winter. That has since been repaired. I wonder if the cracks would have developed if the bow had a more breathable finish or if the bowyer left the skin on.

Performance: There is nothing special about the capabilities of this bow. I never shot it through a chronograph, but mine is 52.5# at my 28.5" draw. I have a shorter draw length so I shoot about 8 gpp with a 7" brace height. I also use a 16 strand D97 flemish twist string instead of the stock fastflight endless loop string. (Both strings shoot about the same.) This setup puts the point-on distance at 40 meters with a lip level anchor.

The other Feng Fei bow in this video is 55# but the owner's draw is much longer than mine, so he uses heavy arrows. He says the bow is not very forgiving, but I have the opposite opinion, perhaps due to the handle modifications discussed below.

The bow likes to hibernate in the winter, but excels in the summer. I like to shoot mine when it's above 70 degrees out.

You can also modify it with an arrow pass on both sides, like I have done on mine. That way, if the bow gets a negative tiller, you can just flip it around and shoot in the other side until it recovers. It works well both ways.

Neither of ours came with rayskin. It's unnecessary, but nice to have.

Comfort: This bow comes with a small squarish handle. Some people may prefer that, but it's not for me. I modified mine with cork to give it a more guitar pick-like shape that Spearman uses, and wrapped the grip in Horween chromexcel leather. I can't say I like the original rattan handle wraps. It's also coated in plastic, so you're not really gripping rattan, you're gripping plastic. You can order it without the handle wrappings and install a leather or cork grip when you get it instead.

Other thoughts: This bow comes with a very nice rustic, but clean looking bow sleeve that really does it for me.

Also, I'm not the tallest at 5'6, and the bow is over 50#, so shorter archers should use a stringer that fits over both tips.

Armin expressed the difficulties of accessing these bows. You can buy them on Taobao but you need to use a shipping service to get them out of China. The bows are worth it at $270 USD.

Finally, for those who like to modify and decorate their gear, this bow provides a very nice canvas.

I started practicing archery with glass laminated iterations of horn composite bows with static tips. I've tried horn composite bows and complex bamboo bows. The only self bows I've tried were poorly made hickory self bows that took a lot set. For that reason, I've always underestimated self bows.

Recently, I started shooting a reflex deflex osage bow as my main bow. I'm amazed at how fast and accurate self bows can be if they're well made. I grew to love it.

Are there any advantages that self bows may have over other types of bows?

Photo: Grouping at 74 yards

I recently posted a video of myself struggling, but managing to shoot 72#. That was enough to attract people who doubted that women, and especially East Asian women can shoot that heavy.

Last year, Jaap Koppedrayer told me that he knew women smaller than me who could shoot twice the weight I shot. He might have been talking about April Moon, one of his peers in the 1980s flight archery scene.

She's one of my biggest inspirations. With a name befitting her legendary status, she still holds the world record for women's conventional flight bows when she shot an arrow 1039 yards through a bow weighing well over a hundred pounds.

As you can see from the photos (taken from the flight archery FB page), she's not that big. What allows her to shoot these bows is a combination of training in power generation and the form necessary to resist these heavy weights.

I've been dealing with a plateau in my archery ability for the last two years. Enough is enough. I started studying Joel Turner's Shot IQ and I started strength training again.

Here are 6 attempts with a bow weighing 72# at my 28.5" draw. You can see my form deteriorating with each successive shot until I completely failed to pull the bow to my full draw on my 6th attempt.

After this session, I cleaned up my form with a 45# bow and made sure I ended on a clean release.

There is definitely room for improvement.

The Ming Dynasty Archery Instructor, Gao Ying, composed a military archery manual in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the Manchu invasion into China. Towards the end of the manual however, a more laid back version of him shines through. He wrote about what makes him happy: True friends, good wine, and a strong tailwind to send his arrows far.

Whenever I travel, I hope to find an opportunity to practice. I find that no matter where you are, where there are archers, there are passionate people who understand the same unspoken language whether they practice Olympic Recurve, English Longbow, Kyudo, or even Target Compound. There are always people to learn from.

I've also found that no matter who you are, you can find respect among archers if you're competent. A well placed arrow can cut through any voice that tells us to hate the person next to us. It won't change any worldview, but it opens a door for sure.

Having a bow that fits in my checked luggage lets me search for those three things Gao Ying cherished hundreds of years ago.

(Photos for attention - Tokoname kyusu with Aichi Tokujyo sencha)

I'm love unglazed teapots and I'm looking for a teapot for the office. When I'm at work, I usually drink dancong, sencha, hojicha, and genmaicha.

I also have a thing of earl grey from Taylors.

Would it be crazy to get a more affordable tokoname teapot for those teas? I know tokoname can do dancong pretty well, but I have a feeling the earl grey may ruin it. I'm looking for a teapot with a ceramic filter or even a seramesh/sasame filter because I find them much easier to clean than metal mesh filters.

That pretty much rules out french presses.

I came out at 18 and detransitioned due to lack of acceptance , then started again at 25 when I decided screw it!