Drove up to Lebanon IN yesterday to meet Dave Miller and collect my Longbow. Had to drive through hail, tornadoes and heavy rain but I made it.
First, I will say that Dave is one of those few people I've met over the years that is passionate about building longbows and perfecting the form of this distinctive style of bow. As many of you know, Dave learned how to build longbows firsthand from John Schulz. And as many of you also know John Schulz's bows were a a bit different from Howard Hill's bows.
Second, I have seen the grail and it will be mine...hopefully by Christmas. A Miller Expedition 70" 70#@30".... But more on that later.
So I met Dave in his shop and we talked a good deal about bows then Dave pulled out my Bow and we started shooting. I brought a quiver of Arrow Dynamics Hammer Heads with 225 grain points. These arrows are cut 31" and are tapered. Dave was a little skeptical that I was a 30" shooter until he saw me shoot. His comment was "you use all 31" on that shaft and then some!" Shooting the bow inside the shop (it was still raining outside) and trying some other arrows that I brought with softer spines we quickly figured out my Hammer Head AD shafts were flying true. They might be just a tad stiff but as Dave told me--Howard and John Schulz both liked an arrow a little stiff as they though it would recover quicker from a bad shot than a soft arrow. In any case it looked like the arrows were flying good and the bow was quiet but just a little vibration from the string (there were no silencers on it).
The good lord smiled on us, the clouds parted and
we took the bow outside to Dave's range. Shot maybe 40 arrows at 10 and 20 yards. The bow was putting them where I was looking and Dave said my form looked good I just needed to follow through a little more with my bow hand. I told him I was probably dropping it to watch the arrow. Also, at 70# this bow is about 10# more weight than I normally shoot so it will take some practice to get into
my best form. I made a concious decision to step up a notch in weight and it will take some work to get there. But I managed fine. I'll probably be able to manage about 40 arrows a session with it before I get fatiqued and it impairs my form. In 3 months I'll be shooting 100 arrows at a pop with it fine.
Dave's comment to me about my arrows was: Damn if you hit a deer with that arrow it will knock him over! The Old Tom zips them out there for sure!
Will continue with pics later. My little girl is bugging me about cooker her some breakfast...
Topic: HH bug got me ... Part One! (Read 139940 times)
