Score Ratings Explained

The score ratings built into Archery Score Pad are based upon the ratings scheme provided by Archery Australia. The ratings should be considered equivalent to handicaps, under other systems. For each score (and round) you submit to Archery Score Pad, you are assigned a score rating which is an estimate of your performance during that round. The higher the rating the better your performance.

The rating is a direct measure of the size of your expected arrow distribution (group size) on the target face (corrected for distance). Thus the higher your score rating, the smaller your group size (and the better your shot).

Ratings Tables

At the Rating Tables page I have provided a list of expected scores for different rounds, according to rating index. This allows you to compare between different rounds, and identify expected scores for different rounds. For example, if you were to shoot a 502 WA 18m score, the tables indicate that that is equivalent to shooting a 1009 WA 1440 90m, or a 500 WA 720 70m, since these are all scores of rating '64'.

The ratings tables show that a WA 18m score of 502 has a rating of 64, and that this is equivalent to a 543 portsmouth round.

Click on the rating indices with the rating tables to view the Rating Comparison page; this allows you to compare scores between all rounds for a single score rating.

Within the tables, scores are presented alongside an expected standard deviation. eg, 502 ± 9, where 502 is the score, and 9 is the standard deviation. This allows you to make a judgement of consistency. The Ratings calculations assume that your arrows fall onto the target in a normal distribution about the pin-hole (target centre). That is, that your arrows fall onto the target according to some statistical distribution such that, even if you are shooting with equal consistency, there will be some small natural variation in round scores.

Looking back at the previous example, for a WA 18m round, a rating of 64 corresponds to a score of 502 ± 9. This means, if you shoot a large number of WA 18m scores, each at a rating of 64, by definition you should shoot—on average—a score of 502; however, it is expected that about 66% of your scores will lie within the range 493–511; that is, 502 ± 9. Hence, if your scores are falling within this range, you can be confident that you are shooting 'consistently'.

Remember that ratings are displayed for all submitted scores, in your score history page.

The score rating is displayed for each submitted score as the fifth number in the 'score' column of your score history.

Compound Scores

The rating index is just another way of specifying your group size (eg, in centimetres, or angular spread), except in a way that attempts to correct for natural variations between distances. Hence, Compound shooters—who we would expect to have tighter group sizes on average, by the nature of the bow—will likely have consistently higher ratings than archers shooting recurve; it is not meaningful to compare ratings between scores shot with different bows, only between scores shot with similar bows. Similarly, longbow archers would be expected to have consistently lower score ratings than recurve archers.

As a further point, the rated scores for indoor rounds are usually smaller for compound archers than non-compound archers, if they are scoring with the inner-10 ring, only, since for the same physical group size, the restriction to scoring only the inner-10 ring necessarily lowers your score.

More information

I will add to this page in time... If you have any questions about the rating system, or suggestions on how I can improve it (or its presentation), please get in touch.