Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: sleek on May 13, 2025, 09:12:59 pm
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I know most of yall aren't very involved in flight shooting, but we all love to watch an arrow fly.Im sure most of us are guilty of having shot an arrow at 45 degrees to see how far it would go, and if you have, guess what? Welcome to flight shooting!
The capabilities of each bow for distance very greatly based on draw weight, length, and arrow weight. Find the proper combination and you can really be in for a long walk in what I like calling the oldest game known to man, human fetch.
For reference, most 50 pound bows will shoot a flight arrow between 200 and 300 yards. The current record is right around 350 yards for a self bow, which is what I am most interested in. I have a goal to shoot a flight arrow into the 400 yard mark. That would shatter the 50 pound record and the unlimited draw weight record.
This year for the flight shoot coming up at the last weekend of August, my goal is to build 3 high performance bows. One as a 35 pound proof of concept, a 50 pounder and a 90 pounder. I'll be updating this thread as I go along. Progress will be slow until July, when I'm able to take some time off of my contract job, and hit it hard and heavy.
These bows will do more than test limits of a wooden bows capabilities, they will challenge my craftsmanship and also test some theories I have on how to make any bow perform better.
So, stay tuned for updates and video links.
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Watching ! I’m still trying to hit 350 yds.🤠🤠🤠 but I’m looking to shoot a broadhead 260yds with a selfbow.
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If you build a 64 inch version of the bows I make, and pull it to 35 inches, you will absolutely blow way past 264. Arrow shafts will be your hardest part.
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Looking forward to this. My goal is to attend next year after some practice at home and building the equipment. What is the arrow length and weight you are trying to achieve for the shot?
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Looking forward to this. My goal is to attend next year after some practice at home and building the equipment. What is the arrow length and weight you are trying to achieve for the shot?
Arrow length is 23 inches, legal minimum for the event. Arrow weight will be whatever flies best, wish I had a better answer. 50 pound bows do well in the 170 to 220 grain range to give you a ballpark figure.
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Kevin you need to talk to Jim Davis if you want to make thee arrows longer. He makes a arrow repair that’s about three inches long that glued on to the taper tooled shaft. So taper tool your arrow and glue his piece of shaft on the end. It adds about 3-4” to the length. Pretty slick arrow repair for those of us that miss a lot .🤠🤠🤠
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watching with interest.
My PB is 341yards with a self Osage (the Osage was from Osage Outlaw when I visited the TN Classic).
I can't pull the heavy weights anymore, so I can't see myself bettering that.
I was testing a release aid that I made last Autumn with a heavy flight bow, it released before I was expecting and it gave my left elbow a huge jolt with the recoil (it made me yelp and say bad words ;D ), it's not been the same since. :(
Hey ho, none of us getting any younger I s'pose. ::)
Del
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I will be watching this. (-P
My wife, son dog and I drove almost 1500 miles to play with Arvin.
Never did get to watch the arrow fly for distance. I’m still looking forward to that some day.
It was worth the drive anyway
Good luck sleek.
Bjrogg
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Kevin I could be very wrong ! But if you have only 50# of energy in a35” draw well that’s what you have no matter how far you pull the arrow back. Now if you add 60 gr of arrow shaft by making the arrow longer you defeated your purpose so to speak. I think there is a happy place where the mass of the arrow and draw weight and length peaks. That’s why shorter bows with shorter arrows do better in flight. Now you take a 70 or a hundred pound bow it could be different I think mass ratio between arrows and draw length and weight might be the key to distance. But what does the related math guy know.🤠🤠🤠
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Arvin, if the bow was drawing 35" you would likely have about 62# stored energy. That would not be near enough to make up for the drag of an extra 10" of the arrow. Monuz seems to do pretty well at 30" for the hundred # bows but who is to say he wouldn't do better with shorter arrows? Hard to say. I know only about 230 fps is needed to hit 400 yards with a very well-tuned arrow. 300 fps will not reach 300 yards if the arrow is not tuned.
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If you build a 64 inch version of the bows I make, and pull it to 35 inches, you will absolutely blow way past 264. Arrow shafts will be your hardest part.
can we see the unbraced side view of that design? sounds radical.
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I’m watching this one too. Can’t wait to see what you come up with sleek!
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Here is a test bow pulling 35 pounds at 25 inches. The bow is 46 inches long along its curves.
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Great update Kevin! Looks awesome.
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This thread is part of this experiment. The lesson from this is that there is a minimum bend radius wood can make before it wants to split long ways due to a cupping effect. I am going to build another bow that includes stiffeners spaced down the bow limb almost exactly like frets on a guitar neck or railway ties on a track to guard against this cupping issue. If that has the desired effect, I'll start carving them into the bow like a relief carving as I tiller, that way its still a selfbow of one piece.
Another more simple idea is to remove the crown completely so its flat as a board on both sides. That may reduce the tendency for cupping as well.
One more idea is to make the belly convex to match whatever crown there is and hopefully stop the cupping. The problem with that is that its hard to distribute the compression forces across the belly evenly. This will likely end up causing compression frets and set.
Either way, lots to explore here. This is a poc of what im thinking about with the guitar frets.
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Great update Kevin! Looks awesome.
Thanks Ryan! Just trying to beat the bow you built years ago that won the contest for longest draw for its overall bow length! Haha.
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I think if the crossection wants to cup, there is nothing you can do to prevent it, but consider a flat back that cups creating high edges. those edges will have a bit more tension than the middle of the back, so if the back is crowned some any cupping might not raise the edge enough to cause trouble.
or just plan around the cupping effect.
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If you build a 64 inch version of the bows I make, and pull it to 35 inches, you will absolutely blow way past 264. Arrow shafts will be your hardest part.
can we see the unbraced side view of that design? sounds radical.
It didnt turn out as radical as I would have liked. Its split lengthwise in several spots while tillering which prevented me from applying the heat treat process I typically do. Its kept some reflex but none of the extra ai put into it. I blame the wood being likely too damp and not heat treated enough to hold the shape. It should have held the inch I put in it, it already had 1 inch naturally.
The reduced reflex is hurting my string tension and early draw weight. So, I dont expect much from this bow. But I will finish it and test it, trying again on a new stave.
Hopefully I'll figure out how to stop it from splitting.
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I think if the crossection wants to cup, there is nothing you can do to prevent it, but consider a flat back that cups creating high edges. those edges will have a bit more tension than the middle of the back, so if the back is crowned some any cupping might not raise the edge enough to cause trouble.
or just plan around the cupping effect.
Not bad ideas. This seems to be the only hurdle I have to test this design, so I'll give that a try too.
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Another more simple idea is to remove the crown completely so its flat as a board on both sides. That may reduce the tendency for cupping as well.
Flat rectangular cross sections cup very noticeably, so I doubt that will solve your problem. I think a slightly crowned back will give you the least amount of cupping, but that is just a gut feeling.
Mark
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Flat rectangular cross sections cup very noticeably, so I doubt that will solve your problem. I think a slightly crowned back will give you the least amount of cupping, but that is just a gut feeling.
Mark
I was thinking the same thing. A very slight crown might help.
How wide was this one? I’m really surprised this would happen in sound wood.
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This is 2 inches wide. The wood seemed sound but im not sure how dry it was. It cracked a lot when I put the heat to it for heat treat. That may be a factor. But this is the 3rd at least to do this.
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This is 2 inches wide. The wood seemed sound but im not sure how dry it was. It cracked a lot when I put the heat to it for heat treat. That may be a factor. But this is the 3rd at least to do this.
Yeah. 2” isn’t super wide IMO. If you look back at my red oak board bow recurve, it was 2.5” wide and had a similar bend. That one was super thin. I did crown the back slightly on that one.
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Really enjoying this thread thanks for sharing
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I got it back to a full 25 inch draw, the epoxy is doing its job holding it together. However its taken a full inch of set and thats unacceptable for a flight bow. It does shoot a 380 grain arrow 152 fps so its got what I'd call a low average speed. A good target bow or small game.
So, what happened? Too wide for its thickness, bending too tight a bend radius, and I think I had it bending too much in the inner limbs. As well as not being able to heat treat the bow the amount I like due to the glues intolerance to heat.
What am I going to do next? Well, Im going to build another 35 pounder but 50 inches long vs 48. The hope being the extra length will open up the bend radius just enough that it won't split. My normal bow length is 54, so im hoping I can make them shorter and harness benefits from the shorter length.
Here it is at full draw:
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It’ll be stave dependent but I’d go wider. I don’t think width is the issue here, especially in the inner limb where mass movement matters least.
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So, what happened? Too wide for its thickness,
not sure what you mean about "for it's thickness"
are you thinking thin and wide add to the cupping?
many short working limbed wide primitive bows often have lenticular crossections,
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/paleoplanet69529/stone-age-bows-lenticular-crossections-questions-a-t68624.html