How to Make a Straw Archery Target (5 Easy Steps)

The only way you can be better at anything you want in life is to give it time, and attention and the only way you can horn your skill in archery and become a Pro at it is by being meticulous in your practice.

Taking a lot of shots during practice increases your scoring opportunities; working on your shot cycle will also help you improve on your shots.

You need to know how you should shoot and understand and be able to measure if you are getting better at the game.

If you must practice your archery shots, you must have the right tools, and one of the important materials you need is your archery target. You can buy one if you so please, but today we will show you how to save a few bucks by making them yourself.

Why Do You Need Archery Practice?

Archery, like all exercise, yields a lot of benefits in helping you get better at what you are doing and keeping you healthy.

Taking archery practices helps you improve your skills and fine-tune your techniques and all aspects of your shot cycles.

Archery practice also helps you build endurance that will benefit you on the archery range and in all other aspects of life.

For instance, It is a lot easier for you to endure and stick to a diet plan if you can endure hours of archery practices than otherwise.

Archery practice is a form of exercise, and so it helps you enjoy better health because the more you exercise, the healthier you get.

In fact, with the exercises you do as you practice archery, you build your immune system, which means you stand a better chance of fighting diseases; even if you fall sick, you will recover faster than if you are not involved in any form of exercise.

If you are keen on losing a few pounds and trimming to shape, then spend as little as 30 minutes on an archery range and then see after a time how much weight you will lose, archery practice will help you keep to shape, fight off some ailment like diabetes and cholesterol build up in your body. These are all added advantages of your archery practices.

Is Straw Or Hay Better For Archery?

Many people think hay is the same thing as a stream because there is little difference between a bale of hay and a bale of straw because they look so much alike.

The difference is that hay is grass-grown to feed farm animals; they are grown, then cut and dried fully, including the leaf blade, seed heads, and stalks, which are then turned into bales for feeding animals.

On the other hand, a bale of straw is a non-feed by-product of cereal crops like rye, wheat, and barley, which have hollow stems or straw that are then dried and compacted into a bale.

These bales are usually used as bedding for a farm animals because they are insulating material that keeps animals warm.

Hay bales are more compact than straw bales, but they do not stop hunting weight bow effectively like straw bales.

Backstops are supposed to be thick and spongy so that they can absorb the shock of the arrow without breaking upon impact, thereby giving the arrow a medium to sink into if it passes the target.

Bale of hay has all these qualities, but because straws are made from hollow stems, they are more spongy than hay, making them a little bit a better backstop for practice archery.

Will A Straw Bale Stop An Arrow?

Straw bales can also stop an arrow effectively without breaking the arrow. They allow the arrow to sink into the bale.

The good thing about straw bales is that it allows you to pull out the arrow easily, and they seem to work perfectly with a 50-pound compound bow.

Related Article: How To Make Archery Arm Guard

Does Straw Bale Make Good Archery Targets?

Compressed straws are some of the commonest backstops used in many target archery ranges in which the target is then pinned to them.

Straw bales are cheap and convenient backstops that can be easily built up into a wall. They make good archery backstops because, in the real sense, you are not targeting them, but they serve to stop your allow from falling to the ground or hitting someone if it does not hit your target.

Because straws are spongy, they can take the impact of your shot and not break the arrow, which is what a good backstop is supposed to do. They are cheap and readily available, which makes them an excellent choice for archery practice.

What Is The Best Material For An Archery Target?

Self-Healing Material makes the best archery target. When you shoot an arrow, and it lands on this target, and you retrieve your arrow, the hole made by the arrow shrinks and collapses and hence gives the impression that they were never shot at in the first place and hence the name: silk healing materials.

Rubber, rubber foams, and self-healing foams are good examples of these archery targets and make very durable targets.

Recommended: Top Safety Tips for Every Archer

How Thick Should Straw Archery Target Be?

In deciding the thickness of the archery target you need, you have to put the following factors in mind:

1. The type of arrow you will be using: for instance, you will need a thicker target if you use high-velocity arrows.

2. The type of bow you will be using: if you use a crossbow or a compound bow, you will need a thicker target.

3. The distance you will shoot from: the farther you are shooting from, the thicker your archery target should be.

On average, an archery target should not be less than 12 each, as this it’s the thickness that can stop the arrow. High-velocity arrows should be used on arrows that are at least 18 inches thick.

How To Make A Straw Archery Target

Your straw archery target, also known as Compressed Straw Target, is about the commonest archery there are because they are very durable, quite cheap, and relatively easy to construct. They are best used with the bullet point arrow type.

If you want to make this archery target, the materials you will be needing are:

2 29″ × 4″ × 1″
2 28″ × 4″ ×1″
6 4-foot bands of Compressed Straw
1 inch Screws
Wheels

Steps to Constructing the Straw Archery Target

Step 1. Cut your 6 4-foot bale of straw (compressed straw) into equal halves, and what you will have now will be 8 2- foot bales of straw. You can easily cut the edges of the bale with the cut box first, and then it will break into two. These cut straw bales will serve as your backstop.

Step 2: Go ahead and build the frame for the target by using one of the 29 inches of wood to form the base for the frame of the target, then you center one of the 2-foot bales of straw on the board. Your 28 inches of wood should then be screwed vertically on the two sides of the straw bale.

Step 3: Once your straw bale is secured on the wood frame you just made, you then heap the straw one on top of the other in a neat and orderly fashion until you get to the top of the frame. Attach the 29 inches board at the top of the frame. The idea is that your straw should peak out just a bit over the vertical board you have just constructed.

Step 4: To keep the condensed straw in place, you should try to compress further the bale of straw by pushing them firmly together are you drill into the tip to screw the tip on the frame. Cut the size of your vertical board if they are too long to a size that suits you.

Step 5. The last thing you do is to add wheels to the side of the target; this is so that you can easily move the target around because as it stands, the target weighs more than 50 pounds, which is not a weight you will want to keep dragging without any help. And there you have it; your archery straw target is ready to go.

Though this target is quite heavy to carry around compared to the other alternatives, the advantage it has is that they are durable and sturdy and can easily take the arrows that get hit at it.

Recommended: Top Safety Tips for Every Archer

What Other Alternative Can I Use For An Archery Target?

Aside from straw and hay bale, other materials are used as archery targets, including bag targets, which contain synthetic fiber filling that is sown. They can easily stop your arrows even at very high forces. One advantage it has to the straw bake target is that they are lightweight and easily transportable.

Block targets are another type of target that is effective. For this target, you have to pinch your arrow between the foam’s layers.

Because they are also self-healing targets, they are long-lasting, but the downside to these targets is that they do not offer an exciting archery experience because you have to shoot at targets head-on to don’t ruin the target.

How Do You Build An Outdoor Archery Target?

There are different options for choosing from puzzle mat target to cardboard target, foam target, and what have you. But let’s look at how to make a Carpet Archery Target.

The materials you will need includes:

Lots of carpets
2″ × 12″ × 6′ piece of wood
8 washers and nuts
4 threaded dowel rods.
( ensure that the dowel rod and the washers and nut fit)

Step 1: The wood should be cut into two so that you end up with two 2″ × 12″ × 3′ boards.

Step 2: Drill 4 holes at the corners of the board, and you must ensure that the holes are lined up together. You could use a meter rule to get the exact points to drill the holes.

Step 3: Use one piece of the wood as a Base by setting it on the ground. Then you push the dowel rods through the holes on the board and attach the washers and nuts to the ends of the dowel rod. It means that all four dowel rods are now fixed at the four holes on the board that form your target base.

Step 4: Cut your carpets into 2″ × 11″ strips, which you will now stack on top of the base of the target you just constructed. Stack it a little higher than the height you will want your target to be.

Step 5: Then, fit the holes in the second board onto the dowel attached already to the target base and then push the wood down so that the carpet gets compressed. Then put the four remaining washers and nuts on the dowel and twist them until they go down far.

Your carpet archery target is complete and ready to be used, and the great news is that this target is very durable, will cost you about $50 to $80, and are best used with bullet point arrows.

How Exercise Can Improve Your Archery Skills?

Practice, practice, and more practice is the key to success in any game, sports, or endeavor in life, but it is more so for archer because it is an art that you see the impact of your practice on the archery field or hunting spree expressly.

Asides from practicing your shots on an archery target, exercises will help you sharpen your skills. Thirty minutes of exercises that help your endurance level increase, like swimming, hiking, biking, running, are great in keeping you fit for archer, and they help you break a sweat and increase your pulse.

Recommended: Top Safety Tips for Every Archer

Conclusion: How to Make a Straw Archery Target

Straw archery targets are the most popular because they are cheap, readily available, and very durable.

There are targets you can make yourself from very simple materials around you. So try to make one yourself and keep enjoying the game you love.

You May Also Like:

We trust this article helped you learn How to Make a Straw Archery Target. You may also want to check out: How to Build Your Own Archery Target Stand (7 Easy Steps).

Thanks for taking the time to read our article, and we hope you find it helpful. Would you mind leaving a comment below if you have any suggestions?

Kindly reach out to people by sharing this post on social media.

If you liked this article, then please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.