Selfbow share/question

[nineworlds9]

Recently acquired a Holmegaard style selfbow from a bowyer out west, nothing expensive but it seems well made.  The Holmegaard design is good looking and pretty cool, neat that it dates back 9000 years.  They called it ahead of its time.  Anyway, I've never shot a selfbow until this one and man does it have some handshock...like tooth rattling, I used the bowyer's brace height rec and did some fiddling and it still is like WHOA!  The bow is made from elm.  Also, this bow, being a Holmegaard type, has the really wide flat limbs with thin squarish tips the last third...now this is something I didn't notice right away before I strung and shot it, but saw after my first shooting session, so I have no way of knowing if it was like this right out of the box and I let the bow sit for 3-4 days to acclimate and also strung and pulled it multiple times to warm it up, then strung it one more time and shot it-- but the bottom limb appears to have a pretty good twist in it.  The bowyer claims that is how this style of bow can be, said as long as the tips align in the same plane as the handle that some twist in the limbs is ok...???  Any thoughts/comments?  The handshock is crazy to me.  I have lots of other bows now and I shot this one for one session and so far, other than the fact that it looks cool and is my first selfbow, I'm having trouble finding the urge to shoot it again, haha.  I posted another topic about the Martin Stick I recently acquired (and actually really like) and it has less handshock than this crazy thing.

[Eric Krewson]

Sounds like the limbs are slightly out of tiller, post a picture of the bow strung at normal brace and at full draw so the tiller can be evaluated.

[DVSHUNTER]

Yeah like Eric said probably a tiller issue. The twist is no big deal although with that design I definitely wouldn't want it there.  It's true with Selfbows, twist is not an issue as long as the string lines up with the center of the bow and tracks true. Some of the handshake may also be from overly large tips with excess mass.

[Red Tailed Hawk]

Pics would help. If it has a straight style grip a high wrist hand placement could cause handshock. Not really sure until you post pics.

Tiller out or brace height are other things that come to mind.

[nineworlds9]

Thanks, I will work on getting some decent pics of the bow and then we can figure it out.  Stay tuned.