From a distance, it may seem like archery can be a dangerous sport, but did you know the National Safety Council classifies archery as 3x safer than golf? Only 1 in 2000 people are injured on average, with 90% of those injuries occuring in bow hunting. At Blackthorn Archers, we only teach target archery and incorporate USA Archery safety standards in every lesson and event. When done correctly with proper instructions and gear, archery is a very safe sport.

We use a collapsible frame for our ballistic grade netting that serves as a backstop behind our targets. This netting combined with our low targets and safety markers ensure that arrows are shot downwards and away from people, property, and open areas. Depending on the number of archers in your lesson or event, we'll use anywhere between 15-30 feet of this backstop netting to leave at least three feet of space to the left and right of our targets. The average assembly time for us to prepare our portable range is 10 minutes for smaller groups, and 30 minutes for large events.

We have a full range of equipment to cater to right handed and left handed individuals ranging from 5 years old and up. During our lessons, instructors help outfit archers with size and age appropriate gear. Equipment we provide for archers during lessons include a wooden takedown recurve bow, carbon arrows, arm guards and finger savers.

In addition to our delivered services, we offer weekly Academy Classes that are hosted at Northstars Sportsplex in Canton, CT. We may be able to accommodate requests to host special events at this location based on availability. If you're interested in this option, please let us know!

We only practice field and indoor target archery and do not teach or promote bow hunting.

For insurance purposes, USA Archery requires all of our students to obtain their own membership after three lesssons. A recreational membership is available for an annual cost of $15 and covers the archer with a variety of benefits, including liability and excess accident insurance. Before your fourth lesson, we will need your membership number to keep on file to continue doing lessons with us. To sign up for a membership, visit https://www.usarchery.org/memberships/become-a-member