Vegan archery glove and bracer

I love archery but animal products are very common in the equipment (especially the style of equipment I like) and so you have to be careful when making purchases. I would love to shoot an old fashioned longbow but you shoot off the hand and plastic fletchings do no not fold down like feathers do as they pass the hand, this can make the arrow flight erratic.

So I compromise, I shoot an olympic style recurve but I shoot barebow, no sights or stabilisers here. I am switching to wooden arrows as I prefer the look and feel of wood and the fact they can rot away when they break, but I still have to use plastic fletchings on them.

I compromise with my protection too, I wear fabric gloves that get worn very quickly by the string and leave me with numb finger tips after a day of shooting. Hopefully Timber Creek have brought an end to this compromise.

Timber Creek have just released for sale Alcantara gloves and bracers, but what is Alcantara?

Alcantara is a tradename given to a composite material used to cover surfaces and forms in a variety of applications. It can be described as an artificial substitute for suede leather. - Source

Alcantara is often used on performance car steering wheels, it is currently the seat material in Formula One cars and is being used in SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

Despite the main material being Alcantara I wanted to make sure no leather or other animal bits made it into the products so I asked Timber Creek on Facebook and they confirmed it was all synthetic, YAY!

My glove and bracer arrived today, they look and feel great. 

The bracer is thicker than I though so should provide a large amount of protection, I chose the Viking model too as it is longer and covers more of the arm. 

The glove is very sturdy feeling too, a little stiff but I am sure that is because it is new an unused (like leather can be when you first get it). The fingers have a a second layer of reinforcement which should hopefully protect my fingers more than the fabric gloves I use.

I plan to use these at the weekend and will update this post as to how they feel in use and how they last under normal conditions.

They are currently available from Merlin Archery.

Glove - http://www.merlinarchery.co.uk/timber-creek-microfibre-full-glove.html 

Bracer - http://www.merlinarchery.co.uk/timber-creek-ancarta-bracer-viking.html