The difference in shooting various 'longbow' designs.

[AndyF]

There's much discussion about 'longbows' being flat bows, semi-recurves, non-compounds etc and whether there should be different divisions for them in competition. So I've no desire to raise that subject once more.

What I would be interested to know is how do people find shooting these different bow designs? And, do you feel one style offers real advantages over another?

I have 'longbows' ranging from flat laid to the heavy d/r end of semi-recurves and can't really say I find a vast difference in them at the short distances shot around ABA and Trad 3D courses. I like the feel/speed of my more 'modern' bows, but have shot just as well (or badly) with my more 'traditional' bows. So, I think, for me, it simply comes down to which bow I feel confident with.

So, what do others find?

A

[Mick Smith]

I find my Toelke Whip bows, which are quite deflex reflexed in their design, very pleasurable bows to use. They seem to have all the attributes that make a bow efficient. They really spit out the arrows. I don't have a chronograph or any means of actually measuring the speed, but I can tell they're very fast, particularly the 53# one. They feel as though they have almost zero hand shock and they're both quite forgiving of small errors in form and/or of a poor release, IMO.

I also still occasionally use my older Mohawk longbow. I'll call it a longbow, but it has very mildly deflex reflexed limbs that you can't notice when it's strung. It has the classic 'D' shape when strung. This bow has all the attributes of my Whips, but it just can't equal the Whips when it comes to speed. Overall, it's an excellent bow by anybody's standards. It's very quiet and it has very little hand shock. This bow in particular, seems to be very at home shooting heavy arrows and that's a good attribute IMO.

While obviously not a longbow in anyone's language, recurves are worthy of comparison too, I think. I've used many recurves in the past and I still own an old Ben Pearson recurve. I've always liked using recurve bows. They sit very comfortably in my hand, with their ergonomic risers. There's usually little problem in finding arrows that are suitable for a recurve bow, as they generally have an arrow shelf that's cut to centre or past it. From my perspective, probably the biggest off putting aspect of shooting most recurves is the noise, which tends to be excessive when compared to the other types of bows.

So, all in all, for sheer shooting pleasure, I lean rather heavily towards using deflex reflex bows for the reasons mentioned above. I'm happy to think of these bows as being semi recurves, as they have the same basic limb shape as the semi recurves of the bows prior to 1966 and as such, I believe they're simply a variant of this design. Actually, I don't think it would be possible to find any type or shape of non-compound bow that hasn't been tried at some time, somewhere, in the thousands of years that bows have been designed, so I'm happy to think of them as being 'traditional' bows.

[Mick Smith]

I might add that I have used a Howard Hill longbow for much of my life. My old Howard Hill had a slightly different design to most straight limbed bows that you see today. The limbs were straight, but they were angled forwards in relation to the riser. I'd say the tips would have been a couple of inches or so off the ground when the bow was placed belly down.

I happily shot this bow for many years. I say happily, for I wasn't aware of the horrendous hand shock my bow had. I just thought it was normal. It wasn't until I actually tried using some other longbows that I realised just how bad the shock was.

I'm certainly not saying that all straight limbed bows are like this. They're certainly not. I can certainly understand why straight limbed longbows now aren't commonly made in the same manner as my old Howard Hill Redman.

[GrahameA]

Evening Andy.

... how do people find shooting these different bow designs? ....

My $0:02 worth.

You can compare bows if you run some tests against them with some standard measurement to get some sort of ranking. e.g. Bow Efficiency.

However when you start comparing bows against each over with not so easily measurable items it becomes harder.

If you take the same riser and change between Wood/Fibreglass to Foam/Fibreglass to Wood/Carbon to Bamboo/Fibreglass to Bamboo/Carbon are all slightly different. In addition as you change between manufacturers and limb types the bow can change significantly.

Or you could just change the string. i.e Swapping between D97 to 452X to Majesty has noticeable changes.

In my opinion people need to shoot a bow for some time so they become able to shoot the bow well and then you probably need to shoot them head-to-head to differentiate them.

[scuzz]

Evening Andy.

You can compare bows if you run some tests against them with some standard measurement to get some sort of ranking. e.g. Bow Efficiency.

However when you start comparing bows against each over with not so easily measurable items it becomes harder.

If you take the same riser and change between Wood/Fibreglass to Foam/Fibreglass to Wood/Carbon to Bamboo/Fibreglass to Bamboo/Carbon are all slightly different. In addition as you change between manufacturers and limb types the bow can change significantly.

I think Graham makes a few good points here.

If you want a fast bow look for the highest chronograph reading. But other types of attributes pretty much become a personal preference of the shooter, or different observations of different shooters.

I shot a 72" straight laid Norseman for several years and I found that such a bow is forgiving to small flinches, slightly poor releases, and the strong limb profile seems to make them forgiving for people who tend to torque the bow or twist the string. But due to the general lower speed of these bows, cast is sacrificed.

I now make 66" deflex/reflex, laminated bows and I find them to be more sensitive to flinches, and I assume this is due to the faster speed. But having fairly thick limbs, rather than thin-wide limbs of a recurve, I believe that I get away with slightly poor releases sometimes.

I generally don't shoot recurve, but i have seen some people with poor form struggle with them. And i think that most form inconsistencies are exaggerated shooting one. Maybe that's more of a reason to shoot one, to have a need to improve your form. Having said all of this, I owned a badlands recurve when i was a teenager and I LOVED IT!!

Materials seem to make differences aswell, as Graham mentioned.

These are my thoughts.

Cheers,
Scuzz

[Kendaric]

I happily shot this bow for many years. I say happily, for I wasn't aware of the horrendous hand shock my bow had. I just thought it was normal. It wasn't until I actually tried using some other longbows that I realised just how bad the shock was.

That is pretty common for a longbow that has the limbs reflexed forward like you described. Nil to slight offset is generally preferred.

I understand that long time bowyer John Clark generally only does straight laid longbows, as there is nothing to gained in incorporating of reflex in this manner and it would be better to optimise the limb/handle geometry in order to achieve a faster bow.

[Mick Smith]

It's common enough to have the tip section reflexed up to a couple of inches, but I haven't seen too many bows of recent manufacture that have had totally straight limbs that were angled like the limbs on my old Howard Hill. I believe, without any proof I must admit, that this limb design was the major cause of the massive hand shock this bow had. Physically, it was a very light bow too and this might have added to the hand shock effect as well perhaps.

[Stickbow Hunter]

I believe, without any proof I must admit, that this limb design was the major cause of the massive hand shock this bow had.

I have shot an old Howard Hill bow with back set limbs like you have Mick and I always described it as kicking like a mule! It was a horrible thing to shoot.

That is pretty common for a longbow that has the limbs reflexed forward like you described. Nil to slight offset is generally preferred.

I believe Mick was describing his longbow limbs as being set-back from the riser with the limbs being straight. Bows with this design are not common now days and like Mick I think I know why. Bows with the limbs reflexed as in a gentle curve from the riser can be very good to shoot.

I understand that long time bowyer John Clark generally only does straight laid longbows, as there is nothing to gained in incorporating of reflex in this manner...

I strongly disagree with John Clark about this. A properly made longbow with reflexed limbs will be an all round better shooting bow than one of his straight laid bows IMO.

Jeff

[Kendaric]

Sorry, I used the wrong terminology, I meant back-set but used the word reflex, my mistake. I might have taken John out of context a little, with the reference referring to the large degree of back-set as indicated by the Howard Hill bow. John also went on to indicated handle/limb geometry possibilities to make a faster bow, which would probably include the reflex you are referring too, but wasn't part of the scope of his book at that time. His reference to reflex, at the time, referred to straight limb back-set.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Thanks for clarifying your comments Kendaric.

Jeff

[Dennis La Varenne]

Mick,
I owned one of those older Howard Hill made bows years ago. It was one made by the Kramers when they had the business and before Craig Ekin took it over. It shook your fillings out. I can only think that somehow the limb timing was out for some reason. They were made in the old fashion of having the top limb one inch longer than the lower as Craig Ekin still does, but there would have to have been something wrong with the tillering to create that amount of handshock. Here is a picture of a HH bow from the Kramer stable which I googled.

Kramer HH bow.jpg (155.18 KiB) Viewed 6059 times

If I were closer to you, I would let you have a go of any one of the several Ekin HH bows I have in my collection to compare. Back when I had that Kramer bow, I wish that we had had fastflight then, because it would have made a big difference on the amount of handshock, but would certainly NOT have removed all of it, it was so bad.

I would not blame the handshock specifically on the set-back design however. Very many of the old pre-fibreglass bows which were made from billets were set back in the handle and they did not have the problem. I have a few in my collection here. I consider that it would have to have been a tillering problem, but I did not know as much then about the topic as I do now, so I can't tell you exactly what was happening.

Also, Jeff is correct about the difference in performance between reflex-limbed and straight-limbed longbows. There really is a very obvious difference in arrow speed if you compare same draw-weight bows. The performance of set-back limbs is around halfway between straight-laid and reflexed limbs. I have a Bear Polar (62") and Cub (60") which have a resting reflex of almost 4" and they do not have the slightest amount of hand shock.

AnyF,
Most of the debate on the nomenclature of the different kinds of bows arises from personal opinion versus evidence based information derived from historical sources such as publications of all kinds from the period before 1966. Playing archery lawyer with definitions does not prove a case.

These days, most people want to hang their hat on the Traditional Archery hook using bows of a design which simply did not exist prior to 1966. Claimants to the Traditional Archery fold always bear the burden or proof that their equipment is genuinely pre-1966 traditional rather than the reverse. It is up to them to prove with historical evidence that their bow existed back then.

Just because one or another part of a modern bow has characteristics which can be found on a pre-1966 bow does not mean it is traditonal in the Ozbow sense of the word. Modern non-compound bows often have characteristics which are a mix-and-match combination of pre-1966 bows which did not exist in that style back then.

For any kind of archery equipment to be traditional means that it must be traditional to a defined previous period of archery history, not a modern innovation. Ozbow defines the traditional period as that previous to the development of the compound bow in 1966. In the future, archers may regard traditional archery as being equipment developed during the 20th Century and prior, who knows.

But for the present on this site, the period before the compound bow is the traditional period so far as Ozbow is concerned, because after that, archery underwent astounding innovative developments in directions our forefathers probably would not have foreseen. That period is continuing and includes all the modern non-compound bow designs.

[Mick Smith]

Dennis, my old HH Redman was still an effective bow. I shot lots and lots of bunnies with it over the years. The hand shock wasn't that bad that it made the bow any less effective. I only realised that it had bad hand shock after using noticing the lack of hand shock when using someone else's bow. It had an unusually shaped grip too. It had a very narrow, almost sharp, edge where it met the palm of your hand. This certainly didn't make the bow more comfortable to shot. I ended up changing the grip to make it more comfortable and this make the bow a lot easier to shoot. Finally, I ended up selling the bow to 'Ole Silver' a member of Ozbow, based in Townsville. He is happy with it, I believe.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Mick,

I have no complaints about the way my old 'big Five' pushed arrows out either. But it was a swine to hold onto. It had the same very narrow grip, almost sharp, on the belly you are talking about and I probably should have done a bit of rounding off too. Interesingly, I have seen some pics of actual HH bows he made for himself and they are notable for that very sharp handle too. I wonder what he was thinking of when he designed them. I suppose they were comfortable to him.

[Chuditch]

In defence of the HH longbows, there is a good chance that the actual 'grip' shape can make a huge difference. I had a Kramer takedown when they moved over and made their own bows "Autumn Longbows". It was an 83lb menace styled after the Wesley Special, yet I suffered little to no handshock shooting it. The grip profile was the 'traditional' or straight profile, and my current go to bo, a HH Cheetah has the same profile. Again, hand shock is not particularly noticeable and I dont want it to be either!

I have had handshock off Martin bows and other recurves, quite noticable at times and enough to make me want to get rid of the bow. The worst handshock I have experienced was from a spotted gum self long bow made by a certain Aussie bowyer who I dont think is in business any more. Absolutely 'Shocking'!

I have an early custom Gary Sentman Longbow with a more modern design, it just smokes arrows and has no handshock whatsoever.

Correct handposition is vital in shooting the straight laid longbow... shoot it like a recurve and yes, you will be checking your teeth and fillings afterwards.

Longer limbed bows are more forgiving of shooter inconsistency in form. Locater grips seem to alleviate some shock problems for some folk too.

[littlejohn59]

This is my 35 cents worth. All bows shoot differently. Some have more kick than others. Some have a smoother draw. Some bows have pistol grips some have recurve grips and some have no grips. Some bows shoot fast, others slow.

The real question should be not what bow shoots the best but what bow do you shoot the best.

[greybeard]

I believe, without any proof I must admit, that this limb design was the major cause of the massive hand shock this bow had.

I have shot an old Howard Hill bow with back set limbs like you have Mick and I always described it as kicking like a mule! It was a horrible thing to shoot.

That is pretty common for a longbow that has the limbs reflexed forward like you described. Nil to slight offset is generally preferred.

I believe Mick was describing his longbow limbs as being set-back from the riser with the limbs being straight. Bows with this design are not common now days and like Mick I think I know why. Bows with the limbs reflexed as in a gentle curve from the riser can be very good to shoot.

I understand that long time bowyer John Clark generally only does straight laid longbows, as there is nothing to gained in incorporating of reflex in this manner...

I strongly disagree with John Clark about this. A properly made longbow with reflexed limbs will be an all round better shooting bow than one of his straight laid bows IMO.

Jeff

An opinion/observation from the 1850's.

"In shape, the bow should be full in the centre, and taper gradually to each horn; not bend in the hand, or the cast will be deficient, and it will most likely jar in addition. (See plate 111.)
A perfectly graduated bend from a stiff centre to each horn is best.
Some self-yew bows are naturally reflexed others quite straight, and others, again, follow the string. The reflexed are more pleasing to the eye, but liable to the above objection of jarring.
Those which follow the string a little are the most pleasant to use."

D Section Longbow.jpg (93.09 KiB) Viewed 5915 times

Daryl.