Track Your Progress with USA Archery Achievement Awards

The 8 USA Archery Adult Achievement pins for adults. As with the JOAD pins, each pin has small stars indicating pins 1-8. The last 5 pins are white, black, blue, red and yellow–the order of the colors on a FITA Archery target, from the outside in.

Improving your archery is one of the great satisfactions of the sport. But how do you know if you are improving? Shooting a specific number of arrows, at a specific distance and at a specific type and size of target and keeping score is called an archery “round,” and it is the most objective way to keep track of how you are doing. There are lots of standard kinds of rounds to choose from, different distances, kinds of targets and numbers of arrows. By using the same round consistently, you can compare your scores from previous sessions, to other archers, or to a series of benchmarks, such as those created by USA Archery specifically for adults learning archery.

As a USA Archery affiliated Adult Achievement Program, Golden Gate JOAD periodically offers optional achievement shoots during our regular sessions. They are a fun, low-pressure way to learn how archery competitions are run and scored. You shoot to earn your achievement level, not to beat other archers. Earning achievement awards is a great way to set goals and keep track of your progress in archery.

The targets used for the Adult Achievement Program are standard 10 zone FITA targets, which are scored as follows:

Here are the basic USA Archery Adult Achievement levels for traditional class, which includes recurves and longbows shot without a sight, and for recurve class, which includes recurves with a sight:

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE SCORE TABLES ARE CURRENT AS OF 2012 ONLY.  SINCE 2012, USA ARCHERY HAS CHANGED THE SCORING TABLES SEVERAL TIMES AND THESE TABLES ARE INACCURATE.  SEE OUR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT PAGE FOR THE MOST ACCURATE SCORE TABLE.

Indoor, 30 Arrows, 18 Meters, 40cm Target

 Indoor Award Pin

No Sights Traditional Class Score

Sighted Recurve Class Score

Green

70

100

Purple

100

150

Gray

120

200

White

150

220

Black

175

240

Blue

200

260

Red

225

275

Yellow

250

280

Outdoor, 36 Arrows

Outdoor Award Pin

No Sights Traditional Class Score

Sighted Recurve Class Score

Distance and Target

Green

150

175

30 Meters, 80cm Target

Purple

160

225

Gray

170

250

White

170

260

50 Meters, 80cm Target

Black

180

275

Blue

190

280

70 Meters, 122cm Target

Red

200

290

Yellow

210

300

The indoor rounds can be shot outdoors if necessary. For the full details on all the levels and other bow divisions check the USA Archery site.

Achievement shoots are shot under tournament-like conditions:

  • Archers have 10 seconds to walk up and straddle the shooting line, and 4 minutes to shoot each end of 6 arrows or 2 minutes for each end of 3 arrows.
  • No arrow may be touched until all arrows are scored by the archers—touching an arrow could move it or the target and change its score.
  • Double scoring is used. Two separate scorecards for each archer, scored by two different people.

The scores are written down from highest to lowest. Xs are written as “X” and count as 10. Misses are written as “M” and count as 0.

Xs don’t actually have any special value in the Adult Achievement Awards. Their use on the sample scorecard is for fun and as practice for how they are scored in competition where they are often used as tie breakers. Also, indoor rounds and short outdoor distances typically shoot 3 arrow ends. Our program shoots 6 arrow ends during achievement shoots for efficiency.

So, that’s everything. Now to practice on your own all you need is your archery gear, the correct archery target and distance. No need for double scoring cards 🙂 Standard FITA 5-color targets are available at almost all archery shops, locally and on-line.

Adults are also eligible for the 6 Gold Pin, for archers who score 6 10s in a row . The 6 arrows can be in one 6 arrow end or in two consecutive 3 arrow ends.

Achievement shoots are also available for JOAD kids using a similar but more complex matrix due to the different age ranges. See USA Archery for details.

5 Comments

  1. […] more information earning awards at Golden Gate JOAD see our Adult Achievement post and USA Archery’s JOAD Awards for kids […]



  2. […] Archery also has an achievement program for adult archers. See our USA Archery Adult Achievement Program post for more information. This entry was posted in Archery How To and tagged Achievment, JOAD, […]



  3. […] JOAD Awards System page. For more information on the Adult Achievement Awards please see our Adult Achievement Awards blog post. This entry was posted in Club News, Uncategorized by Gerard. Bookmark the permalink. […]



  4. Tomahawk Archers on January 12, 2014 at 2:04 pm

    I noticed on your score cards you shoot 5 6 arrow ends rather than 10 3 arrow ends. Is this simply to speed things up? What advantages/disadvantages do you see? We have been shooting NFAA rounds(12 – 5 arrow ends) and slowly working in this JOAD/Adult achievement.



    • Gerard on January 20, 2014 at 12:52 pm

      Thanks for the comment. We did use 6 arrow ends at both indoor and outdoor distances for efficiency. With so many beginning and intermediate archers, Robin Hooding arrows really isn’t an issue, even on single spot targets at 18 meters. However, have have now moved to the more common 3 arrow ends for indoor distances. They take a lot longer. The only reason we do them now as 3 arrow ends is to better simulate tournament conditions.