How archery scoring works
The World Archery scoring rules in plain words: rings and colours, X, misses, arrows on the line, ends and tie-breaks.
Rings and their scores
A full target face has ten rings, scoring 10 in the middle down to 1 at the edge. Each colour holds two rings: gold 10 and 9, red 8 and 7, blue 6 and 5, black 4 and 3, white 2 and 1.
Every ring is the same width, one twentieth of the face: 61 mm on a 122 cm face and 20 mm on a 40 cm face.
X and M
X is the small ring inside the 10, half a ring wide (30.5 mm from the centre on a 122 cm face). It scores 10, but Xs are counted separately to break ties.
M is a miss: an arrow outside the scoring rings, or off the face. It scores 0 but still counts as an arrow shot.
An arrow on the line
If the arrow touches the line between two rings, it scores the higher ring. What matters is the shaft, so a thicker arrow touches lines more often.
10Ring does this for you: it measures from where you placed the arrow and allows for its diameter (5.5 mm unless you change it), so an arrow touching a line always gets the higher score.
Ends and the total
Arrows are shot in ends (sets) of 3 or 6 arrows and scored after each end; matches are shot in ends of 3. The round total is the sum of every arrow.
When two archers have the same total, the tie is broken by counting arrows. At long distances the archer with more Xs is ahead, then the one with more 10s (X counts as a 10); at 18 m and 25 m, more 10s, then more 9s. If that is still equal they rank equal, and in a match a shoot-off decides.
Centre faces and the triple face
Some faces print only the inner rings. Anything outside the printed rings is M, even where a full face would have given a 1 to 4.
On the triple face each of the 3 spots shows rings 6 to 10. Shoot one arrow at each spot; if two arrows of an end land in the same spot, only the lower one scores and the other is a miss. 10Ring applies this rule to arrows you place on the face.