Optimizing the accuracy of a compound archery bow

Major archery competitions are frequently won by very small margins - often by a single point in many hundreds. Consquently, small advantages in technique and equipment are very interesting and important. This study considered optimisation of the compound archery bow. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the equipment, from the archer drawing the bow through to the arrow hitting the target. Optimisation is considered for the two major forms of competition: target archery and field archery, as conducted under international competition rules. One major archer technique error is also considered. Examination of the equipment used by top archers at major international tournaments suggests that those archers rarely have it fully optimised in accord with the findings of this study and that it should generally be possible to obtain an advantage of approximately 5% in wind drift reduction, corresponding to at least several ranking places. The thesis includes six published papers.