Buying a bow online – do’s and dont’s

Regardless of whether you are buying your bow in a store or a webshop, you will need to do adequate research. But when you are buying your bow online there are a few things that you should note. Since you can’t feel and touch the bow, it can be more difficult to make the right choice. In this article, I provide you with some tips I learned when buying bows online.

Make sure to get the right draw length

When you go to an archery store, the first thing they will do is measure your draw length. After saying hi and offering something to drink of course ;). You will not have this luxury when you buy the bow online, therefore you will have to measure the draw length yourself. For compound archers draw length often isn’t an issue, because the draw length is variable. But you should always check whether your draw length corresponds to the bow’s draw length. If the draw length doesn’t fit either of these two things will happen: you are not able to fire the bow, and the bow gets damaged from firing the bow.

If you want to buy a recurve bow with detachable limbs, I would highly advise reading the following article:

Buying the right limbs for your bow

It is quite a long read but I believe it contains vital information when buying limbs for your bow.

Don’t pick a bow that is too heavy

This is by far the #1 mistake archers make when buying a bow. Even archers that buy a bow in the store, and had the ability to feel the draw weight, often buy a bow that is too heavy. Sadly amongst archers shooting a heavy bow is often seen as more prestigious. If you, however, buy a bow that is too heavy for you, shooting accurately will be very hard. You can even experience muscle pain, joint pain or other issues, therefore it really isn’t worth it.

Many starting archers that buy their first bow online, try to mimic the draw weight with an elastic band. They measure the resistance from the elastic band with a luggage scale and use this to compare it to the draw weight of the bow. When people find out that they can draw back 40 LBS they often decide to buy limbs with this poundage. This is a horrible way to estimate your draw weight since you will always overestimate.

Let me give you an example. I can pull a bunch of resistance bands that add up to 90 LBS, without too much trouble. The compound bow I am using however is 60 LBS and the recurve bow is 30 LBS. The problem is that you will pull back the bow many times in one shooting session. If you are a recurve archer you will also hold the bow at full draw for at least 8 seconds. Therefore you should not estimate your maximum, but you should estimate what you can confidently pull for at least 30 shots.

This can be very difficult to estimate, therefore I added two lists where you can see the draw weight that I would recommend for a starting archer, for both compound and recurve archers.

Archers profile	Recurve	Compound
Small children	16 LBS or less	20 LBS
Larger children	16 till 18 LBS	20 till 25 LBS
Teenage female	18 till 22 LBS	25 till 30 LBS
Teenage male	20 till 24 LBS	30 till 40 LBS
Female	20 till 26 LBS	30 till 60 LBS
Male	22 till 30 LBS	40 till 70 LBS

If you want to be safe, keep on the lower and off the range. Some archers might think that my estimations are on the low side, but I believe that it’s better to start with weaker limbs. If you start too high you will develop the wrong techniques and you will release the shot faster, giving you less time to aim correctly.

Don’t forget the gear and accessories

Most people only buy the bow and arrows and think they have everything they need to get started. Although you can indeed start shooting if you have your bow and arrows, you will need a lot more to do it safely and comfortably. Below I discuss in more detail what accessories you need when you get started.

Click any of the links for more information and a buyers guide on that piece of equipment

For a complete overview of recurve bows, read my in-depth article:

Buying your first olympic recurve bow, what you need and tips

Be prepared to assemble the bow

If you buy a takedown recurve bow, you don’t expect it to be delivered assembled. When archers order a compound bow, on the other hand, most archers expect it to be assembled. When you buy a compound bow in a store, they often assemble and tune it for you. So, why would it be disassembled when you buy it online?

The first reason why the bow comes disassembled is that this makes the package smaller, which is easier for shipping. Often the bow is still in the original packaging when you buy it, which will never happen if you go to a brick-and-mortar archery shop. Therefore you will have to assemble it yourself. Except for compound bows and recurve bows, there are even a few (cheaper) traditional bows that come disassembled

Often assembly involves attaching the limbs and tightening the screws, but sometimes more assembly is required. There are a few compound bows that require specialized tools, but in my experience, those bows always come assembled. I don’t think the assembly process will be an issue for most archers, but the next point might be.

Don’t forget a D-loop or nocking points

If you always bought a bow in a store, you probably have never tied a D-loop or nocking points. Depending on the choice of you bow, it might not have any nocking points or D-loop preinstalled. It often doesn’t make sense for a manufacturer to install the nocking points or D-loop because you have to tune this to every specific bow.

If you buy an inexpensive bow, with multiple accessories often a D-loop or nocking points are most often included and sometimes preinstalled. Most bows from more expensive brands don’t have a D-loop or nocking points and don’t provide you with the materials to make your own.

Therefore it’s a good idea to check whether your bow comes with a D-loop or nocking points. You can easily tie nocking points yourself if you buy serving wire. This will be a good investment for the future since, you can also repair your serving with this material, and one roll lasts a lifetime.

A D-loop, on the other hand, is made out of thicker material because it will be under tension when drawing the bow. This material is similar to paracord but is less stretchy. I have added two videos below on how to tie a D-loop and how to make nocking points

Learn how to tune the bow

A bow is not something that works right out of the box. You could compare it to buying a PC, you first have to spend time installing your operating system and configuring it, before you can really start using it. If you buy a compound or recurve bow tuning will be quite time-consuming and involves a lot of steps, see the steps below:

As you can see there are a lot of steps involved in tuning both a recurve and compound bow. I even left a few advanced tuning steps out, since I don’t believe these are absolutely necessary when you are just starting. Therefore you shouldn’t expect to have a regular shooting session when your bow has just arrived. You will first have to tune the bow before you can even start shooting. Next, the first session often involves dialing in the sight, which means that your first arrows will be very inaccurate.

One of the advantages of traditional archery is that you don’t have to tune every single part of the bow. This means that you can often start shooting the same day when your bow arrives. One of the advantages traditional archers have over the rest of us 🙂

Where to buy?

There are a lot of specialist archery webshops. If you want to receive your bow tuned and ready, I would order from one of those webshops. These webshops are often run by enthusiasts that know a lot about archery. So if you have questions they will be able to help you.

I like to buy my gear from Amazon because it tends to be the cheaper option. If you know precisely what you want, you probably don’t need the extensive support from an archery webshop. Also, a lot of specialist archery webshops now sell their products on Amazon, such as Southland Archery Supply. So there are some great deals available for high-quality gear. If you have questions you could even call those sellers directly.

Buying your first bow online

Buying your first bow online can be quite a struggle, there are a lot of different options available and there is a lot to consider. Therefore, I have written a full article about how to choose your first bow. I have also listed down a bow that I recommend when you are just getting started. So read the article below for a detailed guide:

Buying a beginner’s bow – buyers guide