Track Your Progress with USA Archery Achievement Awards

Improving your archery is one of the great satisfactions of the sport. But how do you know if you are improving? Shooting a specific number of arrows, at a specific distance and at a specific type and size of target and keeping score is called an archery “round,” and it is the most objective way to keep track of how you are doing. There are lots of standard kinds of rounds to choose from, different distances, kinds of targets and numbers of arrows. By using the same round consistently, you can compare your scores from previous sessions, to other archers, or to a series of benchmarks, such as those created by USA Archery specifically for adults learning archery.

As a USA Archery affiliated Adult Achievement Program, Golden Gate JOAD periodically offers optional achievement shoots during our regular sessions. They are a fun, low-pressure way to learn how archery competitions are run and scored. You shoot to earn your achievement level, not to beat other archers. Earning achievement awards is a great way to set goals and keep track of your progress in archery.

The targets used for the Adult Achievement Program are standard 10 zone FITA targets, which are scored as follows:

Here are the basic USA Archery Adult Achievement levels for traditional class, which includes recurves and longbows shot without a sight, and for recurve class, which includes recurves with a sight:

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE SCORE TABLES ARE CURRENT AS OF 2012 ONLY.  SINCE 2012, USA ARCHERY HAS CHANGED THE SCORING TABLES SEVERAL TIMES AND THESE TABLES ARE INACCURATE.  SEE OUR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT PAGE FOR THE MOST ACCURATE SCORE TABLE.

Indoor, 30 Arrows, 18 Meters, 40cm Target

Indoor Award Pin	No Sights Traditional Class Score	Sighted Recurve Class Score
Green	70	100
Purple	100	150
Gray	120	200
White	150	220
Black	175	240
Blue	200	260
Red	225	275
Yellow	250	280

Outdoor, 36 Arrows

Outdoor Award Pin	No Sights Traditional Class Score	Sighted Recurve Class Score	Distance and Target
Green	150	175	30 Meters, 80cm Target
Purple	160	225
Gray	170	250
White	170	260	50 Meters, 80cm Target
Black	180	275
Blue	190	280	70 Meters, 122cm Target
Red	200	290
Yellow	210	300

The indoor rounds can be shot outdoors if necessary. For the full details on all the levels and other bow divisions check the USA Archery site.

Achievement shoots are shot under tournament-like conditions:

• Archers have 10 seconds to walk up and straddle the shooting line, and 4 minutes to shoot each end of 6 arrows or 2 minutes for each end of 3 arrows.
• No arrow may be touched until all arrows are scored by the archers—touching an arrow could move it or the target and change its score.
• Double scoring is used. Two separate scorecards for each archer, scored by two different people.

The scores are written down from highest to lowest. Xs are written as “X” and count as 10. Misses are written as “M” and count as 0.

Xs don’t actually have any special value in the Adult Achievement Awards. Their use on the sample scorecard is for fun and as practice for how they are scored in competition where they are often used as tie breakers. Also, indoor rounds and short outdoor distances typically shoot 3 arrow ends. Our program shoots 6 arrow ends during achievement shoots for efficiency.

So, that’s everything. Now to practice on your own all you need is your archery gear, the correct archery target and distance. No need for double scoring cards 🙂 Standard FITA 5-color targets are available at almost all archery shops, locally and on-line.

Adults are also eligible for the 6 Gold Pin, for archers who score 6 10s in a row . The 6 arrows can be in one 6 arrow end or in two consecutive 3 arrow ends.

Achievement shoots are also available for JOAD kids using a similar but more complex matrix due to the different age ranges. See USA Archery for details.