long bow question

[stack]

Found a longbow at a garage sale for $15.00 the question that I have is: one of the limbs has a bit more bow to it than the other is this normal and if it is, is it the top or bottom limb. It does not look like it has been shot at all. There are no marks on either side from arrows. it looks like you can hold this bow either way and shoot off either side. It has no rest or shelf or markings at all.

[SCATTERSHOT]

It may be shootable. If it was mine, I'd exercise it a lot before I ever came to full draw, and use the more severely bowed limb as the bottom. You have to remember that this old bow has been around a long time, and it may just let go on you when you least expect it.

Good luck!

[David Mitchell]

Normally the lower limb will be a bit closer to the string than the upper limb. This is to balance the limbs on recovery at the shot due to the fact that your hand is not right at the center of the bow when shooting. the lower limb will be made just a bit stiffer than the upper limb. This "tiller" difference should not be more than about 1/4" or so however.  If it is obviously more than that the limb is probably weakened maybe from being stored wrong (standing on the bottom limb tip in a closet, etc) or from being otherwise mishandled.  You would want to check the distance from the string to the limb right at the point where the handle fades into the limb and see how much variation there is. The good part is that you aren't talking about much money here so you can play around with it and see what happens.

[Orion]

The more severely bowed limb will yield the larger tiller measurement. It's the weaker limb.  It should be the top limb.

[Rufus]

Agree w/above. Bet bow is a winner!