Finding the Right Draw Weight

The unit is the pound, because archery took its measurements from the English speaking world. One pound is roughly 0.45 kg, so a 20 lbs bow asks for about 9 kg of pull, held with your back and shoulder blades rather than your arm.

Comparing this to lifting a dumbbell still misleads. In archery the force is held statically for seconds at a time, and you repeat it fifty to a hundred times in one session. What counts is not what you manage once but what you manage thirty times without shaking.

You will find the marking on the lower limb, usually on the side or on the face pointing towards you. A typical entry reads 68" / 24# @28". The hash symbol stands for pounds, and the figure after the at sign is the part that matters, because it names the draw length the value applies to.

That 28 inch reference comes from the AMO standard, now maintained by the Archery Trade Association. Draw further and the real weight rises, draw shorter and it falls, by 1 to 2 lbs per inch depending on limb material. At a 26 inch draw, a limb marked 24 lbs puts about 20 lbs on your fingers. At 30 inches it is closer to 28 lbs. Arrow selection depends on that real figure rather than the printed one, which is why a spine calculator asks for your draw length.

Take-down bows often carry two values. The reason lies in the ILF system, since the same limbs fit risers of different lengths. On a shorter riser, usually 21 inches, you get a shorter bow and a higher draw weight, on a 25 inch riser a longer bow and a lower one. The limb cannot know which you will use, so it states both. Which bow length results from that combination is covered in our guide to bow length.

One rule covers the first bow. Lighter beats heavier. A bow that feels almost too light in the first weeks is exactly right, because it lets you work on posture, anchor and release rather than on surviving the shot. Shaking after twenty arrows costs you technique, and poor technique outlasts sore muscles.

The compound column reads differently. It shows peak weight, the highest force during the draw cycle. Let-off drops the holding weight at full draw by 65 to 85 percent, so at 40 lbs peak and 80 percent let-off you hold only around 8 lbs. Getting there still takes the full force, and that is where beginners who judge by the holding weight come unstuck.

On a longbow, pick the lower end of the range, because draw weight climbs disproportionately over the last few centimetres. That stacking belongs to the design and cannot be trained away.

No table replaces drawing the bow. Both tests need nothing but a bow and a minute.

1. Hold for 30 seconds. Come to full draw and hold it for half a minute without shaking and without losing your form. If that stays calm, the weight fits. If you break early or your shoulder creeps up, it is too high.
2. Fred Asbell floor test. For traditional and instinctive archers. Bend forward, aim the bow at the ground and draw. The draw should come easily. If you have to fight it, the bow is too heavy for repeatable shooting.

The reverse case exists too. Too light shows up when your sight runs out of adjustment, when arrows drop off on the last few metres to the target, or when you regularly pull past your anchor point.

Signs of too much weight are shaking after only a few arrows, accuracy fading through a session, technique faults that were not there before, and pain in shoulder, elbow or forearm that lingers on rest days. Take the last one seriously, because tendons and ligaments recover far more slowly than muscle.

For recreational archers, draw weight is an individual call. In competition and in international bowhunting the requirements narrow the range, because distance, arrow weight and speed are linked.

The Olympic discipline has one quirk that rarely gets explained. The sight limits you downwards. If the arrow flies too slowly, the sight would have to sit so low that the arrow strikes it on release. Draw weight there follows the equipment rather than ambition.

Figures for competition classes and for hunting come from federation rule books and from practice, and they differ by country, class and season. Anyone shooting under World Archery rules or hunting abroad checks the current rule book rather than a table online.

The numbers in older guides come from an era of different materials. An aluminium shaft at a comparable spine weighed around 313 grain, a current carbon shaft comes in near 250 grain. That is close to 30 percent less mass for the same energy to move.

The consequence is simple. The arrow speed that once took a heavy bow now comes from a lighter one. For target shooting at 18 or 20 m (20 or 22 yards) and for 3D courses, 30 to 35 lbs delivers what used to need considerably more. The often quoted 40 pounds and above is not a benchmark for those uses, it is a leftover from older equipment.

None of this argues against heavy bows, only against unnecessary ones. Less draw weight on good equipment spares your shoulder and elbow, and for most archers it produces calmer shots, because strength stops being the limiting factor.

Every bow has a range where it works efficiently without straining the material. On most recurves that sits between 230 and 250 fps, roughly 230 to 240 km/h (145 to 150 mph). Inside that window, draw weight, arrow weight and speed are in balance.

Pushing past it usually happens one way, and it ends badly. The archer drops arrow weight below the minimum the manufacturer states. An arrow that is too light cannot absorb enough energy, so the rest stays in the bow and works against the limbs. That means vibration, hand shock and, over time, material damage. A common rule of thumb puts the minimum at about 5 grain of arrow weight per pound of draw weight, but the manufacturer's figure is the binding one.

In practice, extra speed comes from draw weight and arrow tuning, not from a lighter shaft.

A bow scale hooked into the string gives the most accurate figure, showing the highest force as you draw. Measure at your own draw length rather than at 28 inches, since that is the value arrow selection depends on. Many clubs and pro shops measure free of charge, often together with draw length.

On a compound, draw weight is set through the limb bolts. Fully seated means maximum weight, backing them out reduces it. Respect the maximum number of turns given in the data sheet, because beyond that the bolt loses preload.

After a few months of training, an increase is normal. The proven ceiling is 2 lbs per month, followed by 2 to 4 weeks at the new level before going further. Tendons and ligaments adapt more slowly than muscle, and jumping from 20 to 35 lbs inside three months invites an overuse injury that costs months.

On a take-down bow with an ILF fitting you only swap the limbs, and a pair runs from 150 to 300 euros depending on quality. That is exactly why a three piece bow is the relaxed choice for a first setup, and you will find matching options in our bows category and among the recurve limbs. One piece bows and compounds with a fixed range leave you replacing the whole bow.

If the warning signs from the section on tests appear, drop back 3 to 5 lbs. That is not a defeat, it is the faster route.