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Be careful what you wish for?

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Marc St Louis:
I cut an Elm about 10 years ago that looked a bit like that, relatively thin sapwood and very dark heartwood.  It was all pretty well useless as bow wood.  I'm not saying this is what you have though

AndiE:
Hi

We never use the core of an elm, only sapwood. You can take the piece with the thicker sapwood for one or two great warbows and the rest is firewood.

Kind regards
      Andi

mikekeswick:
I've used many elms like that. The heartwood is superior in compression. I think it will be fine. I probably wouldn't split it. I also wouldn't be trying to get more than one stave out of it, if I got more than one great but all my effort would be concentrated on getting one beauty out of it(the reflexed side). If you fancy a trip up north anytime I could show you a place where there are hundreds of elms upto 8 inches that you could cut with no problems.

Lucasade:
That sounds good Mike - this is about as big as Elm gets in ths part of Warwickshire as far as I can tell.

I've had another look at it and the boundary between sap and heartwood doesn't seem to have such a dark layer as I remember any more. I guess I'll find out when I start working it if it's any good or not.

Yeomanbowman:
I agree with Mike that the heart wood is tough under compression but all sap is fine too.  It's about density foremost.

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