Question r/d versus hybrid

[kiltedcelt]

Just wondering what is the real difference between these two designs? From the few photos I've seen here and there, they both pretty much the same. Is the hybrid just a longbow with flipped tips and no deflex?

[TNstickn]

If its not a straight limbed, Hill style longbow then its a hybrid. Take the original standard= Hill style, make a design change in limb profile to gain speed ( reflex the tips some ), add a little deflex to reduce hand shock. Dish the grip for a little locator. Just built a hybrid with reflex and deflex. Once you move away from that basic long bow profile its a hybrid. Reflex/deflex are design charcteristics manipulated by the bowyer to achieve a type of feel/performance from the bow.  

Someone please correct me if I have this jacked up!!

     >>>>------> G

[DVSHUNTER]

the hybrid design has characteristics of a recurve, where the string makes contact for say three inches of the limb; a longbow has only the loops touching. A hybrid has just enough recurve for the string to have a smal amount of contact, say an inch, on the limb. A deflexqreflex longbow is not a hybrid.

[Jason Scott]

It is subjective I think. Depends on who you ask and how you ask the question. It also depends on what answers have been given yet. Hybrid is a broad general term to me. Longbow, in my usage can have NO string touching the limb at all. Therefore, a hybrid longbow - R/D can not have string touching the limb, if it does it is a recurve of some sort. I don't place as much emphisis on the Hill design straight grip as the benchmark for longbows. Various forms of the longbow have been around a lot longer than the Hill syle. Unless you are trying to shoot in a Hill style only shoot then you must abide by that rule. When in Rome do as the Romans I guess. Some think that a true longbow has to be from a stave and not laminated and must be as long as the archer is tall or up to their chin or something like that. In the glass laminated world I consider r/d to be the same as a hybrid as long as the string only touches at the bottom of the string grove and leaves the limb from there.

[kiltedcelt]

It looks to me (from pictures) as if a lot of hybrid longbows LOOK like reflex/deflex bows but seem to have only a very little amount of deflex and perhaps a bit more reflex at the tips than say a typical r/d bow. Most r/d bows I've seen (and the two I built) have only as much reflex as they have deflex. The hybrids I've seen seem to have much more reflex at the tips than deflex but none seem to allow the string to touch the belly as in a recurve. So, some reflex, but not as much as a recurve. I don't know where the Hill style thing comes in. I generally think of any bow as a longbow as long as it's over about 60" and doesn't have radically reflexed tips to where the string would touch the belly. You could further sub-divide that by specifying traditional longbow (straight limbs), versus variations - eg. r/d or hybrid.

[Sixby]

Depends on how much you twist the string, Same bows . any of mhy D and rs can become a hybrid byh lowering the brace height a bit. a D and R is legally a longbow and the string makes no contact with the limb. Close but no contact. When the string touches the limb its technicaly a hybrid. Used to be called  a semi recurve.

[TNstickn]

What Sixby says. Thanks.  :D