What a range footprint is made of
Three measurements set the width and three set the length, and the shooting distance is only one of the six. Across the range you have the number of targets, the lane width from centre to centre, and the margin beyond the outermost lanes on each side. Down the range you have whatever sits behind the shooting line, the shooting distance itself, and the overrun behind the targets.
Eight targets on two and a half metre lanes with three metres each side comes to twenty-six metres of width, of which six metres never has a target in it. That is the part left off a sketch and then discovered when the ground gets measured. The length is worse, because the overrun behind the targets is frequently larger than anything else on the drawing and it is the piece that is hardest to acquire.
The number this page will not give you
The overrun field is deliberately empty by default. How far the ground has to keep running past a target line is not something a calculator can decide, because it depends on the site, on what the backstop is made of and how it is built, on what lies beyond it, on the equipment being shot and on the rules of the body that inspects the range. Those rules differ between countries and between organisations within a country, and they get revised.
So the figure is an input. Get it from your club or your national governing body, put it in, and the arithmetic will tell you what it does to the footprint. What this page adds up is a layout you have described. It cannot approve one, it is not a standard, and no number on it should be quoted to anyone as a requirement. A range is designed and inspected by people who can stand on the ground.
Face sizes and what the rings measure
A ten-ring target face divides into rings that are each one twentieth of the face diameter wide, so the diameters of the scoring rings step in tenths of the face. On a 122 cm face the ten ring is 12.2 cm across, the nine ring 24.4 cm, the eight 36.6 cm and so on out to the one ring at the full 122 cm.
| Face | Ten ring | Ring width | Five ring |
|---|---|---|---|
| 122 cm | 12.2 cm | 6.1 cm | 73.2 cm |
| 80 cm | 8.0 cm | 4.0 cm | 48.0 cm |
| 60 cm | 6.0 cm | 3.0 cm | 36.0 cm |
| 40 cm | 4.0 cm | 2.0 cm | 24.0 cm |
Two things follow from that geometry. The first is practical: the face has to fit the lane. A 122 cm face on a 2.5 m lane leaves 128 cm between the edges of adjacent faces, which is comfortable; the same face on a 1.5 m lane does not work at all. The second is that ring width is what your aiming error is being measured against, and it shrinks in proportion as the face gets smaller.
Angular size, and why the same score is harder further out
What the archer is actually working against is not the size of the ring but the angle it subtends. A 12.2 cm ten ring at seventy metres subtends about 1.74 milliradians, which is a shade under six minutes of arc. The same ring at eighteen metres subtends nearly four times that. Nothing about the ring changed; the entire difficulty of distance lives in that ratio.
It is also the cleanest way to compare formats. If a smaller face at a shorter distance subtends the same angle as a bigger face at a longer one, the aiming problem is roughly equivalent, whatever else differs. The calculator prints the angular size of both the ten ring and the whole face at your distance, plus what a single ring of error is worth in milliradians, which is the number that connects a layout to the aiming side of the sport covered on the sight tape and gap calculator.
Working backwards from ground you already have
Most layouts start from a field or a hall rather than from a target count. Put the available width in and the calculator subtracts the side margins first, then floors the lane count to whole lanes and reports what is left over. That remainder is worth looking at: a leftover of nearly a full lane usually means the margins or the spacing can be revisited with whoever set them, whereas a small remainder means the layout is genuinely full.
The length is the harder constraint and the one that fails quietly, because the shooting distance always fits and the overrun is what does not. If you are sizing a space rather than a range — a shed, a hall, a covered line — the floor and clearance arithmetic on the workshop layout planner works the same way, and the wider question of what belongs in an outdoor plan is covered in the outdoor safety guide. Whatever the numbers here say, the range itself gets signed off by people standing on it.
Questions people ask
How wide does an archery range need to be?
That is set by the lane width and side margins your club or governing body specifies, and those are inputs on this page rather than outputs. What the calculator does is the arithmetic once you have them: targets multiplied by lane width, plus a margin at each end. Eight targets on 2.5 m lanes with 3 m either side is 26 m. The part worth noticing is that the margins are frequently a fifth or more of the total width and are the first thing left off a sketch. For the figures themselves, ask the body that will inspect the range.
How far behind the targets does the ground need to run?
There is no answer this page can give you, and you should be suspicious of any calculator that offers one. The overrun depends on the site, the backstop, what lies beyond it, the equipment being shot and the rules of the organisation that inspects the range, and those rules vary by country and by governing body and are revised over time. Get the figure from your club or national body, enter it, and see what it does to the footprint. That is the honest division of labour: they set the requirement, this does the multiplication.
What are the ring sizes on a 122 cm target face?
Each scoring ring on a ten-ring face is one twentieth of the face diameter wide, so the ring diameters step in tenths of the face. On a 122 cm face that gives a 12.2 cm ten ring, 24.4 cm for the nine, 36.6 for the eight, 48.8 for the seven, 61.0 for the six, 73.2 for the five, and so on to 122 cm at the one. The same proportions scale to every other size, so an 80 cm face has an 8 cm ten ring and 4 cm rings, and a 40 cm face has a 4 cm ten ring and 2 cm rings.
How many targets fit in the space I have?
Take the available width, subtract both side margins, divide by the lane width, and round down to a whole number, which is what the calculator does when you enter the width you actually have. Rounding down is not conservatism, it is arithmetic: a partial lane is not a lane. It is worth looking at the leftover figure as well. A remainder close to a full lane usually means the margins or the spacing are worth revisiting with whoever set them; a small remainder means the ground is genuinely full at that layout.
Does this calculator tell me if my range is safe?
No, and it is not capable of doing so. It adds up a layout you have described and converts between units. It has no view on the backstop, on what is behind the range, on the ground, on sightlines, on where people stand, on how the line is controlled, or on whether any of the figures you entered are the right ones. A range is designed and inspected by your club and your governing body on the actual site. Use the output as a sketch to take into that conversation, not as a substitute for it.