Targets Faces and Scoring
Standard target faces have a central gold circle, surrounded by rings in red, blue, black and white. Each coloured ring is divided into two by a central line.
Traditional outdoor British target archery, as administered by Archery GB, uses faces of 122cm diameter, mounted on target bosses at Imperial distances of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 or 100 yards. Scoring is five-zone, with arrows landing anywhere in the gold scoring 9 points, red 7, blue 5, black 3 and white 1 point.
In competitions, archers shoot a specific round consisting of several ends of six arrows, at multiple distances. The shortest recognized outdoor competition round is the Warwick, consisting of 24 arrows (four ends) shot at one distance, followed by 24 at a shorter distance (e.g. 60 yards, then 50 yards). The pinnacle of traditional outdoor archery is the York round, consisting of 72 arrows at 100 yards, 48 arrows at 80 yards and 24 arrows at 60 yards.
World Archery competitions use similar targets, but with the bosses placed at metric distances of 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 or 90 metres. WA competitions use 10-zone scoring; each ring of the target has a different score. Arrows landing in the smallest central circle score 10 but are marked as “X” on the scoresheet and the number of “X”s shot may determine the winning archer in the case of a tied score. WA rounds also use smaller target faces (80cm or 60cm diameter) at some shorter distances.
The pinnacle of WA competition is the WA 1440 round, consisting of 36 arrows at each of four distances, the two longest distances shot at 122cm faces and the two shorter distances at 80cm target faces.
Indoor archery uses similar but smaller faces, 60cm or 40cm in diameter, and rounds are shot at a single distance of 20 yards or 18 metres. Indoor rounds are usually shot in ends of three arrows instead of six, and scoring is 10-zone. A popular round is the Portsmouth, consisting of 60 arrows (20 ends of three arrows) shot on a 60cm target face at a distance of 20 yards with 10-zone scoring. Some indoor rounds, such as the Vegas and Worcester, have their own non-standard target faces.
After shooting each end, archers advance to the targets and record their scores. Archers do not record their own scores, but call them out for another archer to witness and write down. Archers call scores starting with the highest scoring arrow, pointing at but not touching each arrow, in groups of three. For example, an archer with two golds, two reds and two blues would call “nine, nine, seven” then pause while the scorer writes this down and repeats it back, then “seven, five, five”. Arrows that touch or cut the line between two scoring zones are awarded the higher score.
The scores are written down on a scoresheet left to right, followed by the total for the six arrows. The scores for the next six arrows are written on the same line, then the total of 12 arrows (dozen) is recorded, along with the number of hits, and the number of 9s scored (or for WA rounds, Xs and 10s). The second line of the scoresheet is used to record the second dozen arrows shot and so on. A running total score is kept during the round. When the round is complete, the totals for the round are added up and checked, before the sheet is signed by the archer and the scorekeeper.