Ugh! Well, I'll offer a different perspective.
About 10 years ago, I scraped together enough cash to buy a custom made recurve. An arrowsmith named "Brad" who had a close friend who made bows & gave me his contact info. Fellow by the name of "Abe Penner", really nice relaxed dude & I ordered a plain Jane shedua Taiga T/D. Great bow! Whacked a dozen or so critters with the past 10 years.
Loved the bow, learned to shoot it well, to the best of my ability etc. Injury has kept me from shooting any bow the past 3 years until last summer. Good news, I saved all my "hunting" bucks & had been saving all my "change" for the past decade waiting for the canuck buck to get close to even with the US $. It's happened.
Good thing, cause I could barely draw, let alone hold my bow. So a "rehab" bow or 2 wouldn't be a bad idea so research I did. E-mailed a few bowyers, & it turned out Brandon Stahl had a T/D proto-type bow with 2 sets of limbs for an excellent price. I also ordered a high poundage fancy-smancy Wildcat.
Now, once you have good, or at least "consistant" form, it's there. I loved the rehab bow too. The grip was lower than I prefer, but I've mostly always shot bows with kind of grip.
Golly gee, that was fun! Think I'm getting a TradGang condition, bowaholic! So next, (I already had done a pile of research) I purchased a bow from the clasifieds here. A Brackenbury Quest, LH, as I shoot both, but an 1 1/2" draw length difference.
Smoothest bow I've ever drawn, still. But so many great bows out there. I'll try & shorten this up.
Next the Wildcat arrived, with a truly custom grip that Brandon crafted. Super high, straight wrist. It's pictured now on his website, the wenge-tulipwood one.
Then a used Border Black Douglas Super-Ultra appeared at Raptor Archery.
One bow I had to get, was a J. K. Chastain. Kinda of a hero to me....LOL. Again with a super high custom grip. Amazing!
Happen to see an interesting bow while crusing Pete Ward's site. So called up Brent Rudolph, great personable dude, & ordered a SheepEater. Due to arrive soon.
Talked to Beth Windauer & ordered a LH Silvertip FF model due in May or June.
I then thought maybe I should try a shortish long bow, my first & only. Everyone here kept saying how much "fun" Shrews were to shoot. I like fun. Saw a used one on the classifieds & e-mailed Ron about any info he could offer. He replied within minutes, & I happened to mention to him what I was looking for. Ron replied it might be my lucky day, as he had a SS Deluxe that had "survived" Kal-Zoo. It arrived last Friday. A joy to shoot!
Point is, every one of these bows is a joy & thrill to shoot. They vary in poundage from 43# to 59#. I've been flingin' quills now for nearly 30 years & some days I feeling frisky & grab the heavier ones. Other days I'm not looking for a workout but just some fun stuff.
Every one of 'em is a favorite, so far. Every one of 'em can shoot way better than I can.
It's been a real hoot so far going on a feeding frenzy of bows, but alas, sadly, I'm now out of funds!
Now I have to agree with you that a new bow does not make me shoot any bit better. But after shooting basically one bow for 10 years, other bows are great too!
Plus, we support our truly custom bowyers, who, on an hourly rate make very little money really. But they're doing what they love to do! There's a little bit 'em in each bow they craft. We can get 'em at bargain prices really. I mean really, you can get a plain jane Balistic for what? $350 or $400? A hand crafted custom bow cheaper than a production bow?
Where else can you get such a deal?
Sorry about the length, but thanks for listening to the rant...LOL. I obviously enjoyed this thread, thanks! - Q.
Topic: Latest greatest bow (Read 452 times)
