3D Divisions
Hopefully by now you know that for each target on a 3D range, the distance is unmarked - that’s up for you to guess. There’s also 5 different coloured pegs at each target - white, red, yellow, green and blue - and which peg you shoot from depends on your division.
At PSA, we’re happy for newcomers to shoot from wherever they feel comfortable. Eventually, you might want to challenge yourself to shoot from a peg - and to compete at a 3DAAA tournament, you’ll have to.
So…what division are you in and where do you shoot from?
Divisions are split based on age, sex and gear. Your best bet is to look at the 3DAAA Rules of Shoot - it goes into detail on each division and the peg they shoot from. That or you can either reach out to us or just come along to a shoot and ask on the day. Usually by the time you’ve gotten into archery enough to be shooting the ranges outside of the club, you know what gear you have and where to stand.
Here we’ll try to give you a brief overview of what factors go into splitting people into divisions.
Age
For determining what age grouping you fall in, 3DAAA calculates age from the last day of the previous year - so even if your birthday is on January 1st, you’ll be counted as the age you were on December 31st.
There’s 6 age groupings: cub juniors, cubs, youths, adults, seniors and even senior masters.
Sex
This one is pretty apparent. As many women have shorter drawspans and shoot lower-powered bows - both of which lead to reduced arrow speed - we have some divisions that are women-only so as to not put them at a significant disadvantage. Our women-specific divisions are preceded with an F/Female (like FBO/Female Bowhunter Open). We also have some divisions that have no split, like RU/Recurve Unaided and TRAD/Traditional.
However, that doesn’t limit women to only shooting in those divisions. While our other divisions are preceded with an M/Male (MBO/Male Bowhunter Open), women may freely choose to compete in any of these divisions also. This applies from our female cubs through to our senior divisions.
Gear
This is where it gets a bit more complex. This can be as simple as whether you shoot a recurve or compound, fingers or a release aid. Or for some divisions, it can come down to the length of your arrow fletches or the radius of your stabiliser system.
Generally, there are two big decisions:
Aided vs Unaided:
This one is pretty obvious. Unaided shooters don’t have sights or release aids (they can use a finger tab or glove). There’s a couple of categories for aided shooters (like whether they have moveable sights or not, or whether they shoot with a release aid) that may determine what division they’re in.
Recurve vs Compound (vs Trad):
We have some divisions which are limited based on what kind of bow you’re using. There are special divisions for recurve and traditional bow users - though they’re free to shoot in other divisions (excluding Compound Unaided) if they meet other division criteria.
If you have no idea where to start with figuring out what division you should shoot in, then drop us a line. We’re happy to go over your set-up and what division/peg is suitable for you.
