A little while ago I was talking to a friend in Church about him getting back into shooting archery more spacifically shooting a Long Bow for possibly hunting & target shooting but he is a little strapped for funds & I gave him some ideas for new long bows to buy.
Here is the emails between us so far:
ME
Great Tree Long Bows are great bows for the cost.
http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?c=44&s=156&p=314&i=2100X
Mad Dog Bows are really good & quite affordable.
http://www.maddogarchery.com/
Arrows is a personal choice really, Wood, Aluminum, & Carbon.
I've gotten to be fond of Carbon because of how they are really easy to tune & build, they are also super tough & last a long time, they are either straight or broken.
Aluminum I still use from time to time but they can get a bend in them & it takes some time & know how to straighten them.
Wood is ofcorse the traditional shaft material & I'm slowly getting back into building myself a set of Cedar arrows but being that it is a natural material it can bend & warp due to weather & use, straightening them & maintenence is something to be ready to do for these.
I suggest either Aluminum or Carbon because of the tighter tolorence to spine, straightness & ease of tuning will give you.
Feathers ofcorse.
Once you decide on a bow weight & type, & find your draw length I can help in selecting the right spined arrow for you.
Ither items like Quiver, Arm Guard, Finger Tab & what will be a personal choice & I can help you if you need.
Frank
So looking them over I think I liked the Maddog bows better. I also found it amusing that they're made in Mountain Home, Idaho and I used to live out there a long time ago but that really had no bearing on the choice. I'm waiting on selling our old car before purchasing a bow so it won't mess with our monthly budget and that buys me a little time. I'm using the time to look over some questions but most of what I'm looking for really seems to always come down to... "pick the one you like better".
So my main question is still whether I want to go with a longbow or a recurve. It looks like if I get a longbow I want to go with a reflex/deflex longbow to bring it closer to the strength of a recurve.
I think what I'm mostly looking for is which would be better in the following categories...
Is one preferable for actual hunting purposes?
Does one typically shoot quieter than the other?
Is one likely to hold up longer over time without losing resilience and draw weight over the other?
Given my background in having some (long time ago) practice with a bow and open to using either; with your experience which would you suggest would likely be a better choice for me (if either)?
Weight is another consideration.
After measuring length nearest I can estimate is that I'm probably looking at about a 30" draw length.
I recall that I used to shoot with about a 40-45# bow when I was younger and shorter but I wasn't sure if I should be looking at a 45 or 50# at this point. Given the bows in question should I be looking at keeping it lower, the same, or higher? My only real gage at this point was that if I was shooting with a 40-45# bow before when I was younger I might want to go with about a 50# based on the idea that I should be able to handle it now that I'd be using a longer bow as well.
Anything else that comes to mind?
Me
You can go to Gander Mountain in Fredericksburg, they have a measuring bow there that you can use to measure your draw length, that will get you a better idea of your draw length for ordering your bow.
As far as weight goes that is your preference but it is better to err on a lighter weight so that you the shooter can shoot with proper form without fatigue in the long duration.
Long Bows are more forgiving than Recurves because of the limb design, a recurve limb can twist to follow that archers pull of the string where as the long bow limb will stay resilient & make the string follow it's path "as told to me by Byron Ferguson" & with today's Reflex/Deflex designed bows they are as powerful as any recurve out there of the same weight & length so in reality it is again a preference of the archer as to which design he/she chooses.
Many archers prefer the Recurve because they come in shorter designs for shooting from ground blinds & tree stands but others like me am very happy to pick a bow that feels right in tip to tip length for more shooting time & another reason a recurve is more popular is because there is so many to choose from by comparison to the long bows but I see the market bringing more long bows out as the years progress, My happy bow length is a 60" recurve & a 64" long bow & I taught myself how to shoot with a longer bow like these from the ground & tree stands.
As far as one shooting quieter than the other I can not say because that is relative to the tuning of the bow-arrow-shooter more so than anything else.
With today's bows both recurves & long bows will last a long time as long as they are stored correctly & not abused, for instance my grandfathers Bear Grizzly from 1969 is just as good as it was when new & you can keep it strung for a long time with no ill effect to the bows power.
I do wish I still had the left handed Grizzly so that you can shoot it some to see if you like or dislike how it feels but what I will do is ask around to see if there is anyone that does have a LH bow I could borrow for you to try but something tells me because of your past history with shooting a long bow you would be more happier with a long bow, as like you said "Pick the one you like better."
In everyone's opinion did I give the right information?
Any thoughts to what else I could tell him that I may have missed?
Topic: Thoughts & Opinions please (Read 162 times)
