TBM's "King of the Ring" ... so far anyway.

[Jason Jelinek]

Think of it this way.

If you lift a book off the table you are giving it Potential (PE) or stored energy, if you drop the book it now has Kinetic energy (KE).  Kinetic means in motion, potential is stored.

If you draw the arrow back with the bow the system (bow and arrow) have potential energy, when you let go of the string, the bow will convert the potential energy into kinetic energy in the arrow.  Not all the potential energy goes into the arrow, some is lost due to moving the string and moving the limbs.  The efficiency is the amount of energy the arrow has (KE) divided by the energy the bow and arrow started with (PE).

Some bows are harder to draw back even though they end up with the same draw weight.  The draw weight through the entire draw might not be the same.  They will both take the same effort to hold, but not to draw.

Jason

[Mr.Magoo]

Hey.  I remember this thread.  Anyhow, Jeremy said ... "The one (ACS) tested is 4# lighter than most of the bows tested with speeds that are 4 fps faster."

The arrow's gpp was kept constant across the bows so the speed results look valid to me.  Nothing wrong with being tied for second place (unless you really want the ACS to be first).

[Strutter]

All I know is that if you can't hit what you're shooting at, it doesn't make a bit of difference how fast your bow is or how heavy your arrow is.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hey thank Jason....that was a great engineering lesson in layman's terms...i appreciate it! Kirk

[centaurshooter]

the simplest way of thinking of this is that when a bow is drawn, it stores a given amount of energy, which is not the peak draw weight.  two #55 bows can have a different amount of stored energy.  the efficiency is the amount of that stored energy that is imparted to the arrow.  once again, different bows will have different efficiency.  many things will effect that efficiency, string type, silencers, serving weight, as well as limb and tip design.  OL has come up with one way of getting a high efficiency and as far as norb's tests goes, the blackswan was as high if not a miniscule amount higher.  sooooooo, in general a recurve will have a higher stored energy than a longbow but generally a lower efficiency and hybrids blur the ground in between.  and yes, the difference b/w most high performing bows at 28"amo and 9gpp is about 4-5 fps and the same gpp but 30" amo is about 5-6 fps which is all OL has ever claimed, which is equal to about 1-2" of draw length which means in general, an acs cx or other very high performing bow will allow an archer with a 26" draw to shoot like he had a 28" draw.  if that means alot to you, then great, if not.......fine, wouldn't argue about that point of view either.  the 20 fps difference many talk about is only b/w the absolute top performing bows and the absolute slowest out there.

once again, if you see tests out there that show it to be a greater than that they're generally highly flawed, and the only way to know is to scientifically test it, feel is subjective and a bows properties on draw and on release an affect how fast an arrow seems to be going so relying on feel or sight is very very misleading in general.