I don’t know if this is a bug or not, but I now get a message with the bow saying “You’ll need a more accurate gun to keep improving your aim,” even when at a skill level of zero. It makes sense that this sort of feature has been added, similar to skill advancement with crafting, but it seems like the self bow should at least get you to level one. Otherwise, the only way (and correct me if I’m wrong) to improve archery skill is with a found bow or found book. That part doesn’t make much sense to me.
Blowgun is the archery training weapon for now.
Self bow is quite useless, as are nail gun and nail rifle.
Maybe the “you’ll need more accurate gun” thing should wait for level 1 in skills? You can gain 1 melee by kicking a wall for an hour, so gaining some basic bow handling skills by toying with a bow-like stick with a string sounds reasonable to me.
I’m gonna opine that this is an Unintended Consequence and the self bow should be buffed to permit learning archery to at least 1. Its sole reason for existing is as a bow for survivalists who (for whatever reason) don’t have any archery skill.
If it can’t train archery, then it’s being useless and then becomes Bloat.
On 0.B stable, despite being told “You’ll need a more accurate gun to keep improving your aim”, I was still able to gain a level in archery and marksmanship through the method of “Repeatedly shoot a tile in front of me”. I’m not sure if this changed in one of the experimentals, but it might be worth trying it a number of times in spite of the warnings, just to see if it still actually works!
