How To Measure Draw Weight

One of the biggest issues that face a new archer buying their first bow is getting the right 'draw weight'. The draw weight, measured in pounds (#) indicates how much force is needed to draw the bow to an anchor position, and it's critical that a new archer is not 'overbowed'.

Choosing a draw weight that's too heavy, even if it felt OK when you tried your friend's bow, or in the store you went to overseas, will invariably end up driving you down the slippery slope of bad form, which in turn will mean you'll rarely be able to improve your skills to any great degree. You won't be able to shoot for more than an hour before getting so tired you will be unable to maintain anything like decent form. You may not even be able to achieve decent form to start with without struggling. You'll never get a consistent result, and you may even get disheartened and think archery was the wrong choice for you. And that would be a bad thing!

So how do you know what weight your bow should be?

Step 1: Determine your draw length

Starting at the basics, You need to know your 'draw length'.

To determine your draw length, you must measure the distance between the string/nock point of the arrow and the point where the arrow touches the arrow rest (the 'pivot point') when a bow is fully drawn and at anchor. An additional 1.5-1.75 inches must then be added to this distance to determine your draw length.

Measuring Draw Your Draw Length

Why is this important? The weight of a bow (the 'poundage') is always measured at a standard 28″ draw length, but that weight changes at different draw lengths.

We humans are all different sizes, and so all have different draw lengths. If your own draw length is over 28″, then the actual weight of a bow will be higher than it is listed at (conversely, if your draw length is less, the bow weight will be less).

How much does the weight of the bow change? Well, if it was just a little bit, we don't need to be two worried, but it's not. For each inch over (or under) 28 inches, your bow weight will increase (or decrease) by 2.5 pounds.

Take me for example – at 6′ 3″, and on the 'lanky' side, my draw length has been measured at around 33 inches. That's a full 5 inches over the 'standard'. If I were new to archery and didn't know my draw length, or know the effects on bow weight, I read an article online saying a fit, healthy grown male should be able to handle a 40 pound bow, and buy just that. I get home, get set up and find I'm struggling to even draw the bow to an anchor point. My form suffers, and it's everything I can do just to get rid of that arrow!

I can't be that weak, right? Maybe I am weaker than I thought – after all it takes a long time for even a super fit person to train the muscles used in archery, but in reality there's more to it than that. With my 5 extra inches of draw length, I'm adding 12.5 pounds to my bow weight (5 x 2.5), making my 40 pound bow a 52.5 pound bow, which is a huge increase!

So how do you measure your draw length? It's surprisingly easy to get a pretty good measurement, all you need is a friend, a tape measure and a bit of math (use a calculator – it's far less taxing!).

Measure your draw length

Stand against a wall with your arms outstretched and have your friend measure from the tip of your index finger on one hand to the tip of your index finger on the other hand. Next comes the heavy math part…. divide that number by 2.5.

That's it. the result is going to be pretty close to your draw length. (In my case, I'm about 83″, which gives me a rather long 33.25″ draw length.)

Step 2: Find your starting bow weight

If you head to the internet, you're going to find endless discussion on what draw weight is right, and they will all give completely different answers, so I'm going to keep it simple.

Lower is better.

While technically a full grown adult male can draw a 50 pound bow, for someone just starting out, it's going to be huge effort to do so, and doing it more than a few times will be nearly impossible! You want to enjoy archery, and grow with it as a sport, so let's keep it simple and make sure you're getting a bow that you can have fun with while hitting that target every time!

For Beginner Recurve Bows	For Intermediary Recurve Bows *
Youth (Age 8 to 10) 10 – 12 pounds Youth (Age 11 to 13) 10 – 14 pounds Teens (Age 14 to 17) 12 – 16 pounds Young Adults (Age 18 to 20) 16 – 22 pounds Adult Women 16 – 26 pounds Adult Men 26 – 30 pounds	Youth (Age 8 to 10) 10 – 14 pounds Youth (Age 11 to 13) 12 – 18 Teens (Age 14 to 17) 16 – 22 pounds Young Adults (Age 18 to 20) 18 – 26 pounds Adult Women 22 – 32 pounds Adult Men 26 – 38 pounds

*Including beginners who are athletically inclined with better than average upper body strength

REMEMBER: The weights above are based on the listed weight of a bow, so you must remember to take into account your draw length. If you have a 30″ draw length, and want to end up with a 30 pound bow, you'll have to take into account your 2″ extra draw length (remember weights are based on 28″ draw lengths). 2 inches extra will add 5 pounds onto your bow weight, so to get your 30 pound bow, you'll need to buy a 25 pound bow to get there.

Hope this is useful to some of you out there. Next up, we'll use that draw length again when it's time to discuss choosing arrows that are both correct for your bow weight, and safe to use.

Happy Shooting!