Fake snake & arrow speed

[Robert Armstrong]

Does adding fake snake over glass slow arrow speed? Should I do back and belly?

[John Scifres]

Tim Baker found that 65 grains of weight at the tip of a selfbow will slow it 1 FPS.  I have used the fake snakeskins once and I don't remember them being anywhere near that heavy and most of the weight was not at the tip.  Based on this, I would say the answer to your first question is no.  

I would not do the belly.

Fake snakes look fake in my opinion.  They don't look awful but it is pretty obvious that they are not real.  If I had a nice bow, I would not put them on there.

[LittleBen]

My take is this.

Yes they slow arrow speed.

It's probably less than 1fps.

They look OK, but like John said I wouldn;t put them on a nice bow ... maybe an old beater that looked sickly already.

[Bob at Work]

I use the vinyl limbskins or whatever they are called on a couple of my NICE hunting bows...as camo.  My take is they make no real difference in speed, and they protect the limbs.  I even spray a mist of satin poly over the stickers to make the finish less reflective.  I just pulled a set of a bow after 3 years and there was no damage at all.  It now has real skins on it.

[LittleBen]

Good point Bob ... it's nice that theyr'e reversible.

I've been doign this to my turkey gun for years with the camo tape. It's an old 1100 in high gloss walnut ... not ideal for bird hunting. I removed the tape after years of hot wet hunting and there was no damage, just a little tape residue that was easily removed.