Preparing the bow for shooting part 1 INTRODUCTION

Running numerous archery classes (currently over 50 editions of our horseback and on-foot workshops) I noticed that many people, even supposed-to-be experienced archers takes no time to properly prepare their bows before shooting. They simply string it and start to shoot, without checking limbs geometry or string twist.

Preparing the bow for shooting.

While I agree, that in dynamic shooting, and especially in mounted archery, most significant are archer's mistakes, nevertheless I would like to be 100% sure of my equipment - if I do everything correctly, my bow will send the arrow where it is supposed to fly. You can achieve this in several quite simple steps described below, at the same time extending "lifespan" of your bow.
We'll talk mostly about popular "plastic" bows, with fiberglass-and-wood-core construction. Preparing "natural" composites of sinew-wood-and-horn for shooting is a bit similar, but more difficult and takes a lot of time.

In contrast to wooden selfbows, which doesn't like to stay with braced string at all, composite bows you can left stringed for quite a long time, both "natural" composites (a week, or even longer) and modern "plastic" (seems to be no obvious limit, some experiments were carried for several years). Nevertheless in practice we normally unstring the bow after shooting, because while "armed" it is more vulnerable, especially to high temperature and dryfire attempts. Limbs under stress will not tolerate heat (like in a closed car under direct sun, with temperature in +60 +70 C range) and especially uneven heating (one limb in the shade, other in sunlight or close to heater). As for dryfires, if our bow will fall in the hands of non-archer, for some strange reason such person feels the irresistible urge to pull it to full draw and release, often with catastrophic results. Also, unstringed bow is more likely to survive if you accidentally put a heavy backpack over it and loose string is less likely to be cut in contact with any sharp edge.

In other words - if we don't want to watch our bow closely all the time, better unstring it.
While bracing the bow again, we should check several things, to be sure that we can safely bend the bow and shoot effectively. When an archer is used to this procedure and do consecutive actions automatically, it takes no longer than 1-2 minute to check modern "plastic" bow (up to half an hour for "natural") - and that's enough to keep it for many years in working order.

 Every few days I'll publish next part:
part 2 bracing the bow on-foot - by one or two persons;
part 3 checking the geometry - axial symmetry and balance of limbs;
part 4 checking the geometry - tiller;
part 5 checking the geometry - brace height and nockpoint height;
part 6 bracing the bow on horseback.
Enjoy!

Next part is ready: bracing the bow on-foot by two persons