Youth Archery Kit Recommendation
Equipment
Contributors to this thread:
Guy at work said his son has shown some interest in archery and has been in his back woods shooting a plastic bow. His son asked him for a bow for Christmas. He is a 14 year old that is interested in archery only at this point and not hunting. He would like to get him a better bow and I think buying him an archery type kit (bow, a few arrows, finger tab, arm guard, etc.) would be best at his price point of around $100-$150. If he likes it, then the next step would be a better bow. I think a recurve is the way to go at this point at a 20 lb draw weight. I see that Easton sells a kit, even LL Bean. Just wondering if anyone had any feedback or recommendations on an archery kit for a beginner 14 year old youth that wants to target and stump shoot.
Not a kit, but Maddog makes a couple of great kid/youth bows at reasonable prices. Black Rhino does the same. Another great option is a Sage takedown recurve, which sells for around $125. You can switch to different limb weights for around $65 as the boy gets stronger. Ebay has several for sell (I just looked). On trad websites there are many Sage devotees.
Take a look at Lancaster Archery. They have all sorts of youth bow options.
And depending on the size of the kid's hand and overall build...
Well, first-off, I'd definitely look at Black Rhino, though Chuck will probably run you over the budget initially set out.
Maddog - Mike makes a very fine bow from all reports, but is already booked out well into January unless you need a #50 ambidextrous - then he can make you a deal unless somebody beat you to it.
I can't recall off-hand if the Bean's kit is a Ragim (Italy) or a Sage (Korea). Both are fine.
And if the kid is reasonably stout, there's the Galaxy Black Ember, which can be had on various shopping sites for around $100 in either recurve or longbow down to about #30...
If the kid is under 5 1/2 feet, he'll likely draw around 25"-26", so a #30@28" should net out at around about as many pounds as inches... And most Youth bows in this kid's range are around that.
Probably best bet is to talk to Lancaster or 3Rivers - both sponsors, BTW - and have them set you up. The Lancaster package includes a Sage and comes with a single-pin sight which (JMO) is someting that more beginning "trad" archers wold be well-advised to start off with. That way, they'll at least know whether they missed because of a form error because they never had the arrow pointed at the target to begin with.
"Instinctive" archers are MADE, not BORN, and more people would stick with it if they didn't pretend otherwise...