New Reverse Riser ASL

[Sixby]

Dave, Congratulations on a very impressive bow that is well designed and well finished. I find absolutely no fault with it. Beautiful work.

God bless, Steve

[Caboo]

Ditto what Ray Lyon said. Can you tell any difference in less torque with this extended section forward of the sight window? If you can I would say stay with this design. I like your long wedges in the limb tips. I bet that helps keep the string angle to limb tip from opening up as fast giving you a tad more leverage on the draw.

[RC]

No good..should be packed up and sent to my house right away!!   Great looking bow sir.RC

[Ulysseys]

Yep....that's awesome

[old arrow]

Very nice... I enjoy shooting a forward riser...

[ProAlpine]

It's a new look for me, but more importantly - what are the advantages of reversing the riser? For me, a radical change from the status quo needs to be justified by performance gains, not jus aesthetics.

Just my $.02

[Steve Jr]

I like it    

[Sixby]

With an ASL the advantage is that you shoot a 2 inch shorter bow without overdrawing the limbs and with same finger pinch as the 2 in longer bow.

God bless, Steve

[Mud_Slide_Slim]

That is a stunner for sure!  How does it perform is the real question.  I just love the forward handle design.  Nicely designed with color and wood choices.

Bill-

[Ray Lyon]

In general forward handle presents less torque, more natural pointing and as Steve says the ability for a shorter bow.

[Caboo]

"In general forward handle presents less torque, more natural pointing and as Steve says the ability for a shorter bow."

Yup,absolutely correct because the fade-outs of the riser are closer to the pivot point in the web of the bow hand. I could be wrong but I believe the larger the cutout of the sight window results a tad more torque too. Cut a big notch in a tree, tie a rope on above the notch in the upper part of the tree and pull. You will see the tree twist into the notch cut as it comes back. Just my thoughts of torque.

[Hatrick]

Really appreciate the comments both positive and critical. Nice to see it's started some discussion on reverse riser ASL's. This is the 5th one I've built like this but I placed a bit more taper in the limb this time. Whereas I usually go with .004 I cut tapered the lams for a total .006 per inch. As Steve (Sixby) and Eldon (Caboo) explained, the reverse riser does allow for making the bow a little shorter. In theory I always believed that it would allow for less torque but I'm not fully convinced of that yet. I love experimenting. You never know, Both Sixby and now Steve Turay make a string follow forward riser bow. "In theory" that should never work. Surprise, I've shot both and they both shoot nicely.

This bow design came along as a mistake at first. I built an ASL stringfollow form and made a couple of bows. On about the third on I cut the sight window out for a lefty by mistake. Mad at myself I finally realized that with the same form I could make a backset reverse riser bow. The first one I made I put red cedar lams in the limbs and made it 64". It shot great so I made 4 more. This will be the last one I make for a while with the higher sight window. This one shoots really well. I don't chronograph bows but I probably should just to see any differences. Speed with this one seems to be right there with any other reverse riser ASL's I've shot and maybe a tad better than some. Draw is smooth to 29" and gains 2 pounds from 25" - 26" and 3 pounds at each inch from 26" - 29". The backset is only 1/2". Riser is 15 - 1/4" long from tip of fade to tip of fade. I left the grip as straight and 2" front to back. I don't care for smallish grips on an ASL.

Again, thanks all for comments.

Dave

[Yewbender]

Nice looking bow you built there!!! At first i wasn't to crazy about them but after shooting a couple i really liked how they shot. Any way if you don't like it you can send it my way...i'll hang it next to my reverse handle HH Tembo II.

[TSP]

Hills are great bows but I'm not a reverse handle fan...the look just doesn't do it for me.  Your bows are very nice, if I were to change anything I'd lose that extra inch of upper handle section just above the laces.  Again, for the looks.

Fine job, you definately have a knack!

[Ray Lyon]

Here's the look of a full handle, like yours, on the Berry Northstar.

 

 

[Hatrick]

Ray, that does look similar to the grip on my bow. JD really does some nice work. I really like the way he placed the light accents (maple I guess) around the riser.  That looks like it would take a lot of extra work marrying that into the fade outs.

Funny you should have the "Autumn Legend" arrow there. On the top limb of my bow pictured I have written "Autumn Wind."

[Ray Lyon]

Dave, James does great work. The two arrows pictured are two of the finest arrows I've ever used. The Autumn Legends by Paul Jalon as made for Ron LaClair's shop are second to none.  The other is a vintage Forgewood arrow. I purchased 19 matched arrows in St. Jude auction and I try one from each bow I purchase but I'm saving them for special hunts. They're in great shape and hit like a ton of bricks.

[frank bullitt]

Very nice Ray!

One of the best longbow shooters I saw, Jim Cochran, at the '86 Great Lakes Marshall shoot.

He was shooting a Shultz reverse handle, I think,
Cougar, bow.

Anyone have one of these?

[Sixby]

I used to breed and raise Reg., Appaloosa horses. However I liked every breed of horse and liked them for what they were and for their specialized use. You can see their good points if you look.
Bows are like that too and some people kind of get stuck with liking just one kind of bow and shun the rest. I'm not that way. I like super recurves and I like string follows and everything in between. I guess that is why I build them all.
I do see and feel the shootability and feel of the string follow and the ASL bows and if you can add speed to them by innotative design and material use no harm done.

those are good looking bows and look to be very well made.

God bless, Steve

[njloco]

I like it, very pretty bow !