Bighorn Legacy Update - We have been offering the Bighorn Legacy....our tribute to G Fred Asbell, for about a year now. Sales have been brisk. It feels good to be caught up and have inventory to offerwithout the wait.
It was important to us that we duplicate the prototype provided by Teresa Asbell as closely as possible. We weren't just trying to build a great recurve. We were trying to duplicate Fred's design and build as closely as possible.
This past Kalamazoo Traditional Expo, the Bighorn Legacy was shot quite a bit by Bighorn collectors. The grip, the lines of the bow were inspected and compared to vintage Bighorn bows.
Everyone that inspected and shot our bows came back with similiar comments...."Wow!"..."It feels exactly like my Bighorn!".
We are very proud of that. I knew that the bow shoots great. I was hoping for the approval of the collectors. We are very pleased. More to come!

I think you are way over complicating it. Get an arrow that shoots good (enough) with feathers and go shoot your bow a couple thousand times before May. You are going to be shooting a bear at 8 yards. You are not competing in the Olympics.  Killing that bear isn't about perfect bare shaft flight, it's about not $hitting the bed when he's standing there 8 yards away and blowing the shot.

Traditional equipment isn't a compound that you "tune" then only need to shoot 6 arrows out of a week before season. You won't have "perfect form" after buying a class and shooting a couple weeks.

Go shoot that bow a bunch with decent flying arrows and kill a bear.

Folks been doing it for a really really long time without all the drama!

 

R

Quote from: evgb127 on February 10, 2026, 07:51:07 PMI've always enjoyed the content Henry put out about traditional shooting, like the video of Byron Ferguson visiting his shop. 

You've also piqued my interest... I've been following your posts about the Asbell recurve, but I haven't heard about the Traditional Woodsman Longbow.  Any details to share?

Not much detail yet.....we have determined the first Traditional Woodsman longbow will be 62 inches, slight reflex/deflex, a locator grip....and the first ones will be in my favorite green glass style.

Big box store similar to Lowes. They got everything even some groceries.

Glued up a blank to knock the rust off, seems like I havent forgotten anything.  I have another one to put up and then its on to my victim.

Between Guster and Porter what are your opinions on flashy or classic in terms of material selection?

I guess why I brought this up (as it relates to Iowabowhunter) is in another post he said he was getting a right paper tear and he moved his brace height WAY up and it helped. If he was a right handed shooter (a big assumption) his arrow was too stiff... and decreasing the power stroke by raising the brace height seemed counterproductive in my way of thinking. He was also trying to move the shelf further out at the same time.

With this post, I think he is making the right moves with the changes he has in mind.

Sooo...after reading all of this past and present....I see that Three Rivers's Stu Miller online calculator has the following footnote... once all your calculations are entered and the results are shown.


Fine tuning can then be done by adjusting the bow's brace height.

If the arrow is slightly weak (lower dynamic spine) for what the bow needs, then lower the brace height.
If the arrow is slightly stiff (higher dynamic spine) for what the bow needs, then raise the brace height.
"


Maybe the previous poster has it nailed exactly; but it still seems to me backwards from the way I always thought.

Trying to find a left-hand Dryad Bushwacker.  I have had to switch from right to left hand and they have not been made for about 20 years.  I had 2 right hand Bushwackers but cant use them anymore.  If anyone knows of someone willing to part with one, please contact me.

Ya Pat we have went through a lot of wood the last few weeks, but things are starting to warm up and dry up a bit now so maybe we can get back on the projects we need to so we will be ready for all our friends by May.Lot's left to do but we have a pretty good bunch of guys and a pretty good plan.
 Pappy

Quote from Stringwhacker... "One of the things I have never understood is why does raising the brace height make a bow shoot better with a stiffer arrow? I have heard this before; though I have never tried this myself."

Gonna go out on a limb here... In my experience, the reason a higher brace height helps stiff arrows shoot better has to do with the bow not being center shot which creates an angle between the arrow and the actual centerline. If say you have a bow that with its strike plate puts you about 1/8" left of center.  When you are at full draw, the angle between the arrow shaft and the center of the bow is minimal but if you let down to brace height and look from behind the bow, you will see that the point of the arrow is now VERY noticeably left of center.  (Right handed shooter) That's where proper spine comes into play and the arrow bends juuuust enough to flow around the riser.  If an arrow is too stiff,  the point will be forced left while the nock is still on the string.  The closer the string gets to the riser the greater angle becomes and the more the arrow has to bend.  If an arrow is too stiff, it simply deflects left.  If you raise the brace height, you are slightly decreasing the angle and as long as the arrow isn't WAY overspined, you can improve it's flight.   There are at least 3 better options though.   First of course is a lower spined arrow. Second is to leave your arrow longer but if they are already cut you are screwed on that option. Last is to increase point weight to make the arrow work harder in effect weakening the spine.

Hope that makes sense.

My line up of Elkhearts