Anyone hunting with a PVC bow?

[Legolas]

I've seen the youtube videos by "The Backyard Bowyer" and purchased one of his books. Anyone out there hunt with one?

[KOOK68]

never tried one, but have seen lots of folks use them successfully for bowfishing.

[Slickhead]

Nope
But I may make one next year to bowfish with
I think it would be cool and you wouldnt worry about scratching it.

[johnnyk71]

i have a friend that built a couple after watching those videos, and they will FLING an arrow! i estimated one of them to be at least 40-45# draw weight. plenty enough to kill a small deer. he really wants to try to get a deer with one.

A friend of mine tried to build one that would shoot good enough to hunt with. He found a nice chunk of shag bark hickory spent a couple of hours with his belt sander and files and came up with a bow that outshot the pvc by a wide margin.  He wanted to compare his with my pignut, with a little bit of tweeking he declared it to be a hunting bow and tossed the pvc onto his junk pile.

[Conner Parry]

I have.... I am the scout leader in our area and we built PVC with the scouts and then took them with us on a wilderness survival camp out. We mostly hunted squirrels, lots of shots fired. No squirrels were harmed. They are a blast. Mine was pulling around 40lbs. I would hunt small game all day long with the bows that we built, very simple design. We used paracord for the strings.

[Wallis Wetzel]

The cast on those PVC bows is so low, you would need to shoot a 60 pound or better just to equal a decent 40 pound wood bow.  It certainly can be done, but draw weight alone is not enough to determine effectiveness for big game.

[Ifrit617]

I have to disagree with you there Wallis. I've personally seen a 50 pound PVC bow shooting a 500 grain arrow shoot 160 fps. You're going to tell me that that is too slow to take a deer? Like any other bow it all depends on design.

Jon

[Ifrit617]

I have to disagree with you there Wallis. I've personally seen a 50 pound PVC bow shooting a 500 grain arrow shoot 160 fps. You're going to tell me that that is too slow to take a deer? Like any other bow it all depends on design.

Jon

[Thumper Dunker]

Just way too hokey looking for me.      

[JamesV]

Advantage of the PVC bow is that what you got is what you got and it will last forever. With a wood bow, it starts to fail as soon as you put a string on it.

[Legolas]

In hard times I think PVC bows can help fellas have a weapon.
Most of the deer Ive killed (8 in the last 12 years)
have been at a 15 yard range.
I am surprised that someone does not make a hunt able model  for 50 bucks and put them on a website?
We talk a lot about getting kids into trad hunting and this would help get that started.

[gregg dudley]

Originally posted by JamesV:
Advantage of the PVC bow is that what you got is what you got and it will last forever. With a wood bow, it starts to fail as soon as you put a string on it.

???????

PVC develops a memory faster than any wood I ever saw.

[tomsm44]

Originally posted by Legolas:

I am surprised that someone does not make a hunt able model  for 50 bucks and put them on a website?
We talk a lot about getting kids into trad hunting and this would help get that started.

That would be a little cheaper but you could get a brand new youth recurve/longbow for around $100 from Mike at mad dog bows and probably other makers as well.  You could find a used one even cheaper and it'd offer more performance than the PVC bow so I don't think they'd sell very well.  Now letting the kids help build them at camps and such is a great way to get them into traditional archery.