Well, I'm having a blast! In spite of the negative visit to our nearest archery shop today and getting practically no help, I think we are having some progress.
With some of the other questions Elusive had put on this great site you have here, we had determined that he needed 1816 arrows and I needed 1616 arrows. We went to try to buy some today and the guy at the shop kept insisting that we needed the 21/17's that we already had. (He sold those arrows with the 40@28 bow he sold my parents as my husband's Christmas present)
We told him what we had been told and explained about the site and he informed us that people on these forums will just babble anything, and that he had won many many tournaments. "Oh, and by the way....did we know he had a 31 inch draw??"
I asked him about measuring my draw and he showed us his measuring arrow that you can draw back and it has the inches marked on the side of the arrow, proudly proclaiming his draw was 31 inches..."seee??? See it right there??" but he wouldn't let me do it because he was afraid I would shoot the dang arrow off in the shop.
So...still best guess we have on my draw is about 23 inches, if we are doing it right. We told him my draw length was 23 inches and after he finally quit laughing and smirking, he told me I just needed to get a kid bow and arrows, that they don't carry 16/16's there...there's no need for them. Anyhoo, I dug around and found some of what he best guesses is 18/16's (no markings on the arrow anywhere) stuck way back in youth display and we bought six. They are carbon and have plastic tab thingees where there is plastic feathers on the other ones we have? Is that called fletching? Vanes?
Anyway, even with these arrows, man what a difference! They fly faster and don't make half the noise the 21/17's do! It is so much easier to do and after the first couple of times getting used to them, it definitely improved my shot.
I pulled my hair back, and we put some velcro on the bow as an arrow rest, and with the new arrows, it was just better all the way around.
I did notice that when we first tried them, we used a three foot target the guy at the shop gave us and we were shooting all over the place. After we got frustrated and pulled it down and put the volleyball and tennis ball back up there, I nailed the volleyball three shots out of six and the tennis ball twice, with the ones that didn't hit the ball, landing just beside the ball.
Thanks a million for all the tips. They really paid off. Still going to be getting us some better arrows, but I feel like we are headed in the right direction.
Sorry about the length of this post, I'm a regular Chatty Cathy once I get going. :p
Peace
dee