whats your top five bow woods?

[yazoo]

osage
hickory
locust
elm
iron wood

[bcbull]

yew ,osage,blk locust  ,ironwood<ipe>anything i can get my hands on ha  brock

[Shooter_G22]

i really need to learn my wood...

   i think osage is soo blah...  just becuase that is all i know how to hunt for that and of coarse oak that i have plenty of around here...   but i have some differant typw of oak around here...   i dont think the oak i have is red oak it dont look red a like the lowes boards... is there such thing as black oak..?   
   and of coarse there is pecan....   i need to learn what hicory looks like and elm.. i'm sure i can find maple becuase of the leaf but i dont know what hard or soft maple is and the differance....

terhe is soo many differant trees here in our wood but mainly all i can identify is oak and osage... and pecan... becuase of the pecans...    i nee to harvest alot of osage and drie it out soo i can see what all the hooplah is about...  i only made one bow fro the osage it was for a survival bow challange a few months back... but he thing shot kinda slow and sluggish i would suggest that being because of the green wood and the tips were left fat and round...   i then tried to let it drie out and then a couple of months later i tried to thin the tips and re tiller and it borke on me... 

soo i have not had a good start with the osage...   and its hell getting it cut and harvested i cut two potential staves of it yesterday and today and it has beeting me up with thorns and has scratched me to shreds trying ot get  to the branches i wanted to cut for the satves...   i hope it is worth the hassle...lol...   i will be harvesting osage fromnow on just becuase now that i now how it looks i have been running into the tresse every where to day i pulled ove in an open field close to a job site and i was driving home and saw the tree call out to me out of the cornner of my eye soo i pull over and with a hand saw i got formthe dollar store..lol.. be $1.50 i have spent for bow wood...hehehe...   
anyhow i got another stave from it but man did i get scratched up...

soo....   sorry didnt mean to go on oand on... but for my top five i would have to say:

1 .  osage  (although i hate it)
2.  pecan  ( because it the only one i have used succesfully so far)
3.  oak   (of some sort becuase i can identify it...  but yet to use it)

and thats it for me right now becuae that is allthe experaince that i have soo far...   other than the mystory woods that i used as a kid....   i tell you what i had better luck making bows when i was a kid than now that im all growed up...lol...

[sailordad]

1. real good osage (you know the stuff )
2. free osage
3.ipe
4.hickory
5.any wood i can get

there are probably others that would make the list and some that might disappear,but i havent used that many differant types yet

                                                                peace,
                                                                        tim

[bambule]

1. Elm 
2. Hickory
3. Black Locust
4. Maple
5. Hazel


Greetz
Cord

[Hickoryswitch]

1. Hickory
2. Dogwood
3. Ash
4. Maple
5. Cherry

[Pappy]

Osage,Ironwood,Hickory, I have made several for a lot of other wood but not enough to
make a fair judgment on them,Dogwood,persimmon,white Ash,BlackLocust,yellow locust
and some I don't even know what they were. By the way Mike I tried to post your Osage logs but for some reason I couldn't get the picture downsized small enough so it would except it here,don't know what is going on with that.Nice load of logs.
   Pappy

[GregB]

osage, hhb, hickory, dogwood, hackberry

I'm sure there's probably some better then the last two, but I haven't experienced them yet...

[George Tsoukalas]

I don't really have a favorite bow wood but osage and black locust do well in our dry cold winters and humid summers. Hickory is practically bullet proof and comes together quickly. Making a red oak board bow is just fantastic fun and they shoot fast. Hop hornbeam is a fun wood to work. It's the only wood I've been able to use a spokeshave on. Jawge

[Hillbilly]

Osage, locust, mulberry, elm, hophornbeam at the moment. I'm working on a dogwood right now, and I'm liking it a lot so far.

[NTProf]

I have not made that many bows, so I have little experience with a wide range of woods, but based on what I have made so far...

1. Maple
2. Maple
3. Maple
4. Red Oak
5. Elm

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

walnut heartwood
elm
osage
ash
hornbeam

i dont care too much for hickory, but that maybe be b\c i live in a humid climate,  but i also like cherry, hazel, and i really like oak staves, it should be my number#6.  and mulberry...oh the list goes on and on.

[adb]

yew
osage
ipe
maple
ash

[Underwater Basket Weaver]

My list:

1.  White oak
2.  Osage orange
3.  Hickory (any)
4.  Black locust
5.  White ash

But if you asked me tomorrow, the list might look different.  There are a lot of really nice woods to make bows from.  I don't think anyone does themselves a service by insisting on only making bows from a few different woods.  'Tis good to be adaptable!

-Eric

[Kegan]

1. Osage
2. Hickory
3. White/Red Oak (each has characteristics that I really like)
4. Bamboo (not really a selfbow wood, and I only have a couple bows made with it, but I really like the stuff)
5. Elm/Hornbeam (I've only a little expereince with hornbeam- not hop- but it proved superior to elm, however we have alot more elm around ehre that will yield a stave than we do hornbeam)

Of course, I haven't used alot of different woods. This is probably my prefered half of the list