Late medieval tournament distances?

I found a mention in Payne Galway of typical guild members shooting oyster shells at 50 yds, but cannot find what tournament contestants would be expected to shoot.  In the darkest recesses of my mind, a 6 inch disk at 90 yds seems to ring a bell. Anyone know what 15th or 16th century tournament ranges/targets were,  other than the popinjay that is.

A Deadly Art, refers to a contest in Nuremburg 1458,, target less than 6", range 300ft, 50 bolts per contestant (321 contestants) winner had 11 hits

Oh, that's where I read it!  Imagine being able to hit a soccer ball in one goal while shooting the length of the pitch from the opposite goal, on a crossbow without sights, just using your thumb, or maybe the bolt clip, as a rear sight.

Sorry, rewind, they could make bolts accurate enough to do that?!?!

100 yards is pushing the envelope pretty hard for medieval crossbows and bolts.  A friend has spent much of the last year shooting a medieval type bow daily at ranges @ 100 yards, and on some days get gets results comparable to the ones listed for the Nuremberg shoot.  The difficult part is seeing where the bolts are striking.  It's my impression medieval ranges often had a little hut with an observer near the target.... he used a pointer to indicate where the bolts were landing.  My buddy has a friend stand somewhere 'nearby' and talk him in on his phone.. modern conveniences.  He also has some bolts with lighted nocks for shooting in poor light. Geezer.

Yes, I can see that would ne the case, I always struggled with archery at ranges over 25m for rhat very reason

Hi Geezer, I've been pondering the design of bolts for that kind of shooting, I'm guessing at a small point, barrelled shaft, vellum flights angled to induce spin, centre of gravity at or just ahead of bolt centre?

Bolt center of gravity should be about 1/3 of the way back from the head.  Moving the cg too far back will probably result in instability.  Vellum vanes with a bit of spin should work fine.  Most of the medieval bolts I have seen were equipped with wooden or parchment vanes.  The wooden vanes are fairly long, about 10 to 15 centimeters.  Bolt lengths run anywhere from 30 to 50 centimeters, with the average around 34-38 cm.  It looks like high-quality target bolts were probably fletched with feathers, but of course the feathers have a very limited life in storage.  Bugs eat them.  Payne Gallwey shows some target bolts that were fluted over the back half (no feathers or vanes) ... sometimes spirally, sometimes straight.  If your points are small, those will fly nicely, with higher velocity.  Josef Alm's book suggests preferred material for war bolts was ash, possibly birchor oak... depending on what was available. Ash in particular was more resistant to breaking on striking armor.  For target bolts, you might want something lighter and more resilient.  Geezer.

Thankyou,  that's very useful.  Poplar or spruce might do the job.

Hi Geezer, I've been searching the internet and can only really find hunting and war bolts, do you have any images of period target bolts?