Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: bushboy on December 23, 2015, 09:37:36 am
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Can a well made self bow come close in performance to a modern composite?thx's
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Yep ,close. In most cases not hardly but close. ;)
Pappy
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Ask Marc St Louis.
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A fast bow makes a bad hunter...
I had a boat-building friend one time tell me that "A good motor makes a bad sailor." And I think his wisdom applies here too.
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The all wood composite bows can come very close to the some of the better modern bows. Self bows are usually but not always a bit slower than the backed bows. But still close enough you will hardly notice a differnce. At the flight shoots shooting the broadheads with my slef bows I usually outshoot most of the modern bows in my weight class.
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Fiberglass is heavy. I made 3 bows of the same d/r profile and draw weight. The bamboo backed yew bow out shot the bamboo backed osage, which outshot the fiberglass/maple laminated longbow.
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for speed or distance, what Badger said,,
but for me, yes they can equal the performance of a modern bow for hunting :)
I am a hunter,,the self bow performs just as well as any bow at close hunting shots,,
I dont feel like I am giving up anything to shoot a wood bow for hunting,,thats just me,, and I love to make them,, :)
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I find backed bows, especialy bamboo backings on the hardest tropical woods are able to take significant recurves and reflex, that self bows cant handle, thus they can store more energy and therefore shoot faster, with a smoother draw... but some self bows with a natural reflex come very close, but then I probably havent shot the best made self bows that some of the guys here make, so this is only an opinion based on my experience
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I like that wood spring.
And it's very true.
When I read that I think of compounders that shoot 75,100 yards.
Trying to put aquipment in front of every thing else.
Their missing the thrill if getting inside 20 yards of a mature buck.
My answer after building a lot of selfbows, 6 horn bows, selfbow have better cast.
Horn bows are a tad faster at lest mine were.
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I like that wood spring.
And it's very true.
When I read that I think of compounders that shoot 75,100 yards.
Trying to put equipment in front of every thing else.
Well, we teach archery to a lot of kids every year, and one of the most frequent questions that we get asked is "how fast is it?" My usual response is something like "I don't have a clue."
The most important aspect of a bow is if you can hit consistently with it. And if your bow is shooting bullseyes at 100 yards, you're not hunting, your target practicing with flesh as your target. Foam targets are one thing, but there is SO much that can go wrong in a hunting situation between you and the animal (wind, twigs, bad release, etc.), that I really don't think its very ethical to hunt at those ranges.
Just my personal opinion though.
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The fastest dozen or so I've built might have met/beat your average f****glass bow but I haven't done much chrono work as mine is cheap and a pain in the butt to use.
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Don't know if it matters but perhaps I should clarify... I've never shot them through a chrono. I shoot them for distance when comparing them.
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A modern composite/compound bow can outperform a traditional selfbow. For example; humid conditions, shots over 25 yards, holding at full draw, blasting through bone.
A selfbow can likewise out perform a modern composite; more parts to break, getting all those sight pins confused, a false sense of skill, expense.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses. For me it comes down to which one do I prefer to shoot. The ones I build seem to feel better in my hand and at time I swear they even seem to get sad if I leave them on the rack. Plus, bow builders tend to appreciate a challenge from what I've observed.
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I have said this over and over, there is osage and then there is OSAGE. Every now and then I make a bow from a piece of wood that is a super performer, don't know why, it just happens, I am sure it is the wood not the builder's skill.
Case in point; my current static, unreal performance. I haven't chronoed it but can tell from shooting alongside a variety of other bows that it is special.
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I have said this over and over, there is osage and then there is OSAGE. Every now and then I make a bow from a piece of wood that is a super performer, don't know why, it just happens, I am sure it is the wood not the builder's skill.
Case in point; my current static, unreal performance. I haven't chronoed it but can tell from shooting alongside a variety of other bows that it is special.
Eric, you are right on here. Some wood is just lower in hysteresis. I rely on that when building flight bows. I know if I build so many a couple of them will stand out.
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Yep ,close. In most cases not hardly but close. ;)
Pappy
That makes two of us being honest pappy. I have a 51# Fatal Styk that will out-shoot 97% of the wood/wood composite bows in that 51# range. Accuracy, distance and speed.
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I have said this over and over, there is osage and then there is OSAGE. Every now and then I make a bow from a piece of wood that is a super performer, don't know why, it just happens, I am sure it is the wood not the builder's skill.
Case in point; my current static, unreal performance. I haven't chronoed it but can tell from shooting alongside a variety of other bows that it is special.
Interesting; exactly what is considered Static.? last 6"-8" of the tips non bendy...?
Thanks.
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I assume badger is refering to a static recurve
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Static is just the non bending portion, whatever length that might be.
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/ekrewson/bow%20making/fulldrawstatic001_zps634f1378.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ekrewson/media/bow%20making/fulldrawstatic001_zps634f1378.jpg.html)
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For comparison the world record for a modern r/d longbow shooting a 550 grain broadhead is 233 yards, the records for a primitive r/d longbow shooting a 500 grain broadhead is 231 yards. The modern was using a skinny fast flight type string while I was using a much thicker linen string on my longbow. The difference in strings would more than compensate for the slightly lower weight of the primitive broadhead arrow.
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Thanks for the input,so the margin seems quite small.
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No, its big IMO. Day in and day out glass will out shoot wood. If you look at Steve's work, yes it seems close with that ONE bow. But, Steve cant be as consistent as the glass guys can from bow to bow. So Steve builds 100 bows a year looking for the next golden ticket :) If you build a glass bow and love how it shoots, you can replicate that bow right down to the thousandths and there will be immeasurable differences. Steve might have to play around with 100 osage staves to find another to perform as good as his record bow did. And he probably will, he is good.
Correct me where I'm wrong Steve, please.
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It would be more correct to say that the margin can be quite small
Many years ago I posted a recurve along its with chrono results. A guy posted scoffing at the results, it turned out that he was well known in the custom glass bow world and made some of the fastest recurves. I suggested a trade. He tested my bow when he got it and it turned out that it was faster. Steve, not Steve Gardner, is now a member here and has abandoned glass bows
The right design and proper execution is the key
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You have to compare the same designs.
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Pat, Marks recurves have tested right up there with some of the fastest modern recurves built. In very recent years carbon fiber has given the recurves a new little boost but only talking a few fps.
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For what it is worth a friend of mine Gary Hutchinson[finish carpenter by trade] but a devoted articulate bow maker of FG bows and some self bows for over 40 years has adopted the stiffer lever type action to his FG bows.He made a composite levered type bow[sinew,horn & osage] to hold around 5" of reflex and concluded with his trigger release shooting machine on a saw horse he made shot just as fast or faster than his FG bows.These were same designs tested against each other.Seems like if the working part of the limbs can be smaller but withstand the stress the bows got faster.Hard to do with natural materials but executed right like said once in a while it does happen.Like said too FG has no problem duplicating it consistently.So like designs on FG and natural material bows do benefit both as far as speed goes.Makes total sense to me.
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I just meant that many people compare a straight selfbow to a R/D or recurve glass bow.
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Yes pat I was thinking of same design examples.it was more of material question.i think modern material are superior but greatly superior i'm not sure?a few fps or yards would suggest a small margin to me.that being said there are still loads of variables.
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If you read speed reports of the latest new modern bow you will tend to see the potential speed dumbed down considerably by the time the owner gets the bow shooting like they want it to.
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Yes Steve....Gary has really liked the carbon fiber component in his FG bows the last few years.The designs he did were recurves.
bushboy....Loads of variables is right.I'm not on as hard a mission of this as Marc and Steve and some others are but do like a flat shooting bow 20 yards or under with a heavy arrow.
The thing Gary likes a lot is the higher margin of repair that can be made to natural materials than FG.So do I.Our bow making ancestors did it with trial and error just like nowadays.The one thing though too making a good FG bow does not take as long as a natural materials bow.
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Modern materials do not make yourself good bows, good bowyers make good bows ;). I have used modern and traditional materials on theseme d/r longbow ipe/ash/hickory and fg/carbon/maple , differend in speed was about 5 fps for modern materials, but shooting comfort much better in natural bow, without vibrations after shoot.
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this armchar bowyer's opinion:
I don't really understand the big risers on western recurves... well, guess they give more efficiency for lighter arrows at the cost of less energy storage? Like whip ended tillering or I guess a setback handle. The limbs are still often too wide. And very little reflex, if any. Korean synthetic bows take a lot more stress than most western recurves. They bend more and have way narrower limbs, and are reflexed. A bow with a big stiff handle section but more reflexed and narrow limbs would be faster. guess most western recurves are all about stability or something.
With heavier arrows, bow speed/efficiency with lighter arrows matters less and energy storage matters more, so I guess whatever material can bend the most without breaking would do best?
I have to try compression pine and cordage backings. I would probably try nylon, I can't be arsed to make a ton of sinew cord and nylon seems like it does a little better. Heard some really good things about reaction softwood, but not from many sources. With enough energy storage, could make a great bow for heavy arrows
this was interesting, only the better korean synthetics did better than selfbows
(https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/995360_894727503930160_897110325522323933_n.jpg?oh=27c17960ff16210e0979ea11371841a9&oe=571CC8F6)
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That was realy great pyramid selfbow made of black locust. Bowyer is high class engineer and all dimension was put to extreme. He focus on bow but arrows had very bad. We chrono this bow and shoot about 230 fps 5GPP arrows im sure he can shoot well over 300 metres
Im sure that traditional material bows can beat on flight tournament modern material bows. 2 years ago my wife shoot on flight tournament 239 metres on only 30 lb turkish hornbow .When turkish hornbow shoot on ff string speed are similar or even better to modern bows, more important is arrow.Selfbows can be ultra fast becouse of low limbs mass. For this reason we do not have multi class system. We shoot all together - I think it is very attractive for competitors - all natural bows archers have something to prove :).
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Check out the stats in Redhawks tests here.
https://redhawk55.wordpress.com/
Plus I've got to personally hang out with badger for a few days and he has more bows sitting inside 55 gallon drums and all of them would more than likely wipe the smirk off a Fiberglass archer's face.