Back Tension Release Aids

So-called back tension releases have been around for a long time, but are only now coming of age and entering the mainstream.  Most archery buffs are vaguely aware that Mel Stanislawski invented the modern back-tension release in the early 1970’s but in fact neither the mechanism nor the idea were new. Leaving home made gadgets and several ancient oriental devices aside, commercial peg-and-loop and ‘Bowlock’ releases pre-date the ‘Stan’ by at least 20 years (see www.archeryhistory.com) and they and their modern successors have always had a small but dedicated following.  The claimed advantages of all these aids are that, logically enough, they encourage the archer to use back tension, and that they help cure target panic.  Both these statements are true – up to a point – but they are by no means the whole story.

What Is a ‘Back Tension’ Release

You may think that a back tension is a release that is shot by back tension, but you would be wrong – archery life is never that simple!  All releases, of whatever type, can be adjusted to shoot purely by the use of back tension (see below).  Conversely, ‘back tension’ releases can be shot without the slightest trace of back tension! What is unique about ‘back tension’ releases is that they are shot by rotation of the entire device and therefore have no separate trigger.  This is important because while these releases do make it easier to use  back tension – or at least, the well-designed ones do -  just because you are using one does not mean you are using back tension.  You may well be triggering in a perfectly conventional manner by deliberately rotating the handle.  Failure to understand this lies at the root of most misconceptions about these releases and much of the disillusionment that is all too common amongst their users. 

The Carter Solution 2

Excellent, but handle doesn't fit everyone - the Solution3 may solve this

The latest version of the original Stanislawski, by Copper John

Still no floating head!

One of the Tru-Ball Sweetspot family

Excellent handle - disappointing mechanism which is literally held together by a rubber band!

How to Use a ‘Back Tension’ Release

There are two completely different ways of using these releases.  First, you can do what most people do and use them as just another form of triggered release.  If you attempt to shoot by closing your fist, pulling on your fingers or bending your wrist in any way, this is what you are doing, even if you don’t realise it.  This is not wrong, if it works for you, but you are not using the release in the way for which it was designed, and may be throwing away the main advantage of a ‘back tension’ release – a consistent, unanticipated shot. 

The other way is to use true back tension to achieve the shot.  To do this:

• Set your release as fast as is safe.   There are all sorts of different adjustments, ranging from extremely fiddly and unpredictable adjustments to the half-moon itself, like the original Stans, through slightly more positive systems like the Tru Ball Sweet Spot family to very simple and positive systems, like the Carter Solution.  Always test each setting before shooting by attaching the release to a loop of nylon cord, or something similar, and pulling hard.

• Stand with an arrow on the string, no more than 10 yards from a safe butt.

• Take a firm, deep hold on the release, forming a closed fist – think ‘knuckle-duster’ (‘brass knuckles’ to our US friends).  This is perhaps the most important step;  the knuckle-duster grip goes a long way towards ensuring you don’t ‘cheat’ and use finger pressure or wrist rotation later in the sequence.

• Draw to your normal anchor position keeping firm backwards pressure on the stops.

• Make sure your grip is firm, your draw elbow high, and slightly out of line to the right (for a right hander).  You will work out what ‘slightly’ means as you shoot: it is enough to give a reliable release, but not so much that you lose left-right accuracy.

• Settle your aim and release the safety catch -  if the release doesn’t have a safety catch don’t use it.  See below.

• Slowly and steadily move your draw elbow back and round, keeping your elbow high and your forearm, wrist and fist as a single, rigid unit.  This action needs some practice; we will come to that later.

• If the release has not gone off by the time your elbow has moved about an inch (an observer is useful here), first check that you are maintaining the rigid forearm/wrist/fist unit, and if you are, readjust your release to be even faster.  If, on the other hand it goes as soon as you start to move, or even as you release the safety, change your underwear and slow the mechanism a fraction.  An almost imperceptible, tissue paper thickness, movement in the half-moon can make a very big difference in the speed, so be careful.  Also be careful as some releases – and not just the cheap ones – cannot be safely adjusted to this degree of sensitivity and have a nasty habit of failing as you come through peak weight.  My Tru Ball Sweetspot was particularly prone to this fault, so much so that I had to stop using it: great handle, crap mechanism!

• If  all is well, the release will trigger unexpectedly (!) and you will experience sharp fly-back of your drawing hand, combined with a distinctive movement of your bow hand down and left (for a right hander) .

Practice Makes Perfect…

If you are starting from scratch with this type of release, you will probably need to practice the shot sequence 200-300 times before you can achieve even reasonable accuracy.  At first most people find that they are spraying their arrows in all directions, particularly right and left.  They also find that, even when the release is set correctly, they get ‘flyers’, where the shot goes off before they are ready and ‘hang-ups’ where the shot won’t happen at all. The flyers are usually due to movement of the fingers after releasing the safety: the hang-ups are usually due to not having a firm enough grip in the first place.  Either way, the solution is to make sure you have a firm ‘knuckle duster’ grip, and not to move it.

A lot of people give up at this stage when they realise that there is nothing magic – or even easy – about ‘back tension’ releases and that there is no such thing as instant success. However, those that persevere will find that they gradually master the technique, and start to experience its advantages for themselves.  First and foremost, the shot cannot be anticipated, so all the twitching, jerking and freezing which so many of us have had to contend with all our archery lives becomes far less of a problem, or even disappears entirely.  Also, because we are now taking much of the weight of the bow on the big muscles of our back, the whole shot becomes steadier.  Gradually but steadily you should find your scores approaching, equaling and finally, if you work hard at it, surpassing anything you have achieved before.  What is more, most people find their scores become far more consistent, as they are less at the mercy of the demons of target panic than with other systems.

Back and Round – The Critical Movement

Apart from the knuckle-duster grip, the other major requirement of true back-tension shooting with these releases is using the correct draw-arm movement during the final shot sequence, and most people find this the most difficult part of the whole process.  The two main pitfalls are either trying to trigger the release by pulling it straight backwards or trying to trigger it by rotation alone.  In the first case the release simply won’t go, or at least, it won’t go reliably (and there is a big difference between being reliable and being predictable).  In the second case, the release will go, but you will never get the degree of left-right precision you need.  As you will have guessed by now, the secret is to pull back and round simultaneously and the easiest way to make sure this happens is to start with a high elbow.  Try it for yourself.  If your elbow is level with, or below your arrow you can equally well draw straight back, or back-and-round.  If your elbow is as high as it can comfortably go, only back-and-round is possible.  If you are worried about the idea of a high elbow, watch Michelle Ragsdale, or Kirk Etheridge and you will see what I mean.

Use a Bow Simulator

Some sort of bow simulator is very useful for learning and perfecting the release movement.  In fact I rate it as the biggest single break-through for me personally in learning to use a back-tension release effectively – or any other type of release, if it comes to that.  A simulator takes all the stress out of the release action – you can’t possibly miss, because you can’t possibly shoot.  Therefore you are able to give your full attention to executing the proper movement, and really feel what is happening. 

My bow simulator is a thing of beauty!  It is a 37 inch piece of scrap 2x 1 wood with an old hand grip taped to it and a piece of nylon cord for the bow string.  It cost next to nothing (even the hand grip is not strictly necessary), took 10 minutes to make and works extremely well.  The important part is to spend as long as it takes to get exactly the right length of wood and cord so the angle and location of the string are correct on your face and locate exactly the right nocking point, so the angle of the handle is correct in your hand.  Now I can practice my release to my heart’s content whenever I have a spare moment and I even take the contraption with me to shoots where I use it a couple of times before taking my first practice shots.  This is like ‘visualisation plus’ and reminds my body what is expected of it before it has to cope with all the other issues involved in shooting real arrows at a real target.  My strange behaviour gives great amusement to the other competitors - apart that is from the growing number who can be seen in dark corners and behind convenient trees with their own bits of wood and cord – and I don’t just mean the longbow people!

Incidentally, I am working on Mark 2 right now.  It has a couple of pieces of shock cord to simulate holding weight and a sand bag tied to the bottom to simulate weight in hand – hi tech, or what!

Choosing a Back Tension Release

There are a growing number of back tension releases on the market and, as ever, the final choice will depend on your personal preferences.  However, my recommendation is that you look for a release that :

• Has a safety catch.  In my view this is essential and I would never again use a back tension release without one.  A safety catch means that you can draw safely, without the danger of sending an arrow into the next county or smacking yourself in the jaw (not a joke – just try it once and see what happens to your confidence, not to mention your teeth).  It also means you can use your whole hand to draw, not just the first one or two fingers.  Once upon a time back tension release shooters had no option but to live dangerously, but now there are plenty of releases with safety catches and, however experienced you are, I strongly suggest you use one.

• Has a floating head.  On the best modern back tension releases the half-moon and hook unit – the head – is hinged free and safe until the safety catch is released.  Then the head locks in position and back tension does the rest.  The advantages of this arrangement are enormous.  Most importantly it means you can correct your hand and arm position as much as you like at any time before you release the safety.  It also makes shooting slopes more consistent.  Slopes shouldn’t be a problem with fixed head releases, but unless the archer sticks exceptionally rigidly to the principles of unit aiming they are – floating heads give you just a bit more leeway.

• Has a comfortable, secure handle that lets you take a knuckle-duster grip without your index finger fouling the mechanism.  In general, beware of highly swept back handles and very short ‘noses’.  Both are more suitable to finger-squeezing than true back tension.

Currently, the only mass-market release that conforms to all these criteria is the Carter Solution 2 (and probably Solution 3, although I haven’t seen one yet).  As I write this (June 2003) the new Copper John engineered Stans are beginning to come on the market, but so far, none has a floating head – I will watch with interest, given the high reputation for quality Copper John have built with their bow sights.

Shooting Conventional Releases by Back Tension

Earlier I said that any release could be adjusted to shoot by back tension alone, and I believe that to be true, at least in the vast majority of cases.  It might however take a lot of practice close to the butt, or on a simulator before you work out exactly how to do it.  Everything depends on getting the correct trigger pressure and working out how best to apply it.  And please note, the correct pressure may turn out to be surprisingly heavy and will rarely be at the hair trigger end of the spectrum.  The problem in fact with many releases is that they can't be set hard enough - if you are buying a release specifically for back tension shooting, make sure it can be set very firm, without jamming or becoming rough.

I have had considerable success (including a personal best Indoor IFAA round of 300 with 45 X’s) using a Tru Ball Chappy Boss.  I took off the trigger extension (it was too fast otherwise, no matter how I adjusted it) and placed my thumb directly on the short piece that emerges from the handle.  The shot was made by simply pulling straight back while keeping my thumb rigid.  The problem was that I found it difficult to trigger reliably at longer distances and on slopes due, I think, to the different angles involved. 

My next relatively successful experiment was with an unmodified Scott Ole’ Faithful wrist release.  Once again, the triggering action was a simple backward pull.  The trick was to find a trigger pressure that was firm enough to allow me to take a confident first pressure, but that would go when I moved my elbow backwards about an inch.  I was looking for release in about 2 – 4 seconds without consciously squeezing the trigger.  The process was simple, but took hundreds of shots over several sessions to finalise.  I started with  the trigger rock hard, gradually softened the pressure until I was in the right ball park and then worked in tiny, almost imperceptible increments, backwards and forwards, until I was confident that I had the right pressure.  In the end I finished up with what I would describe as a ‘medium’ pressure which was neither a hair trigger, nor the rock hard setting sometimes advocated. However, I found that even slightly too hard or too soft was a disaster.  Fortunately most Scott releases are very easily and positively adjusted and, crucially, stay put, without wear or 'self-adjustment'. This arrangement is good enough that I still use the Ole' Faithful off-and-on to avoid getting too familiar with my Carter Solution 2 and risking anticipating it. 

Other, less successful, experiments have been with a Cascade which I found over complex, difficult to adjust and inconsistent in fact it had nothing whatever to recommend it in any mode; a Carter Hole Thing which is an excellent triggered release, but difficult to use in back tension mode and finally a Bernie Pellerite Can’t Punch, which has a strong reputation, but even after several hundred shots and a really determined effort, I simply couldn’t master it.

What I Want……

For me, and I suspect thousands of other archers, the ideal is a release that simply goes when I pull straight back.  No trigger, no half-moons, no rotation, just pull-and-shoot.  Obviously it would need a safety catch to get over the peak (coming down, as well as up), but I would not have thought the design would be too difficult.  In fact, some of the early releases seem to have worked in just this way, but I can’t find any details.  Any ideas for do-it-yourself?  Any manufacturers out there want a challenge?  Send me a email - I’ll even provide a modest amount of funding for developing a good idea (seriously).