3 under woes

[RC]

Howdy fellers. I shoot 3 under of late and can tell you I am a good bit better like that. I love evrything about shooting three under except that I can`t get my bow quiet enough to suit me. I actually started shooting 3 under last year but went back to split for that very reason. I got a Widow pl for my Birthday in June and love it. I shot a few arrows three under last week and was so impressed with the groups that I decided to live with the noise if I have too.

  You fellas got any suggestions on making this puppy quiet?I only shoot 48 pounds at 27 so adding silencers or bogging it down with arrow weight is not what I`m after I need all the performance I can get.

   Do you fellas that shoot three under have this same problem?Thanks,RC.

[The Night Stalker]

My Dye is tillered for split fingered and quiet but I also believe it is louder shooting 3 fingers under. Looking forward for the responses. Do you think your tiller has something to do with it. You might try to contact black widow. Is your Pl tilled for 3 under.  Tim in NC

[RC]

No its tillered for split.thanks,RC.

[Benny Nganabbarru]

I also shoot my split-tillered PLX 3-under, and I just use the standard BW string with their silencers. It's quiet-enough for me, but I often have to ask my wife or my students to repeat things!

[ishoot4thrills]

You may end up having to add some light weight silencers. I recommend some type of wool silencer. Put them on your string out towards the ends as far as is practical. Should make a big difference without robbing you of much speed.

I shoot my Beeler longbow 3-under without any silencers and it's still pretty dang quiet. But, it's not a recurve either. I put some Hush Puppies on a very loud Predator recurve last year and they worked perfectly. Anything you add to your string will rob you of some speed, just use the lightest silencers you can find that still work.

[dragon rider]

Yeah, what he (ishoot4thrills) said; I've had good luck with the Quivit (or however you really spell that) silencers from Alaska Bowhunting Supply.  Cat whiskers work well too, but they reduce string speed more than the wool, etc.  

There's an article from earlier this year in TBM written by Paul Bender who did a study on various silencers and if memory serves, concluded that the hush puppy style was the best combination of light weight and silencing.  Cat whiskers, I think, were the most effective, but also took the most speed from the string.

[TexasTrad]

RC -- I have been struggling with the same issues.  The most effective thing I have done to quiet down my recurves (shooting 3 under) is to play with the brace height.  Usually, one twist at a time until the bow settles down.  Once I get the bow as quiet as possible via brace height, I add cat whiskers at the 1/3 and 1/4 points on the string.  One other thing that seems to make a big difference is to use a skinny string -- the skinny string with some silencers at the right brace height for the bow gets it pretty quiet for me as possible.  I will be watching this thread for other ideas.

[Bruce Martin]

I had the same issue with a Martin Vision longbow but I put hush puppies (just 1 of the pair cut in half was plenty) and I went to a 10 strand instead of 14 strand TS-1 string. Kind of semi-skinny. I did not put on the bow hush but have heard it will quiet a longbow as well as a recurve. I did put the bow hush on a Martin Hunter. Both bow are very quiet now. I noticed just a slight dynamic spine increase, so just used a thinner side plate and arrows go where I look. I am shooting at least 10 gpp with 26+% FOC gold tip arrows. This means a 29.25 inch arrow with 3 shield cut 4 inch feathers, 100 grain brass insert and 100 gr adapter with 125 grain head. I am satisfied with that set up for accuracy and penetration along with a quiet bow for 3 under. I use Rick Welch's system.

[mikieg]

i have been told that a three under shooter will have short range accuracy. but their accuracy is only short range. it's said that the arrow will be too close to the eye. where as the split finger shooter has his arrow one finger lower from the eye than a 3 under shooter does. the split finger shooter has a bit longer range with that set up. i shoot 3 under and cant hit a damned thing far away or up close!

[Don Stokes]

Why do it if it causes problems? You can learn to be accurate either way. Practice, practice, practice and forget the shortcuts.

I know, easy for me to say!  

[marshall brown]

As stated above, try adjusting the brace height a turn or two at a time. It worked on my widow. Mine went from 8.5" to 8 1/8th" before she quieted down.

[bawana bowman]

Ben,

I don't believe your problem stems from the string.
My wife likes to call it "selective hearing". I was forever being accused of it until I finally broke down and saw an audiologist. That's when I found out I'm basically deaf in the upper pitch ranges. According to the doc it's the range  most females and kids vocalize in. (Think it has something to do with 15 years of sitting at my drums in front of a wall of 16 Marshall cabinets and 8 amplifiers.) Wife still calls it "selective hearing", says the doc is on my side!

My bows are all tuned to the point where they don't even make a sound, just a wisp of air, at least that's what I hear. I think!

[smokin joe]

I have gone to making my own string silencers out of skirt material for bass fishing jigs. Basically they are cat whiskers, but I make them longer. The typical cat whisker is about 5 inches long before you tie it on. I make mine at 6 inches and it seems to make a difference in the level of noise. I also raise the brace height a bit higher than I had it for the split finger release.
Good luck. You may have to experiment a bit to get things quiet, but good shooting is worth the time it takes.

[RC]

I`ve decided to stay with split simply because the bow is to loud. I been shooting like this for nearly 30 years I was just trying to improve a bit.

  No disrespect Don but wasn`t looking for a short cut. Around 300 deer and hogs with a tradbow split finger.RC

[mikieg]

screw don, i need the short cut. i need all the cheats i can get! lol!! unfortunately don is right. traditional archery is a must practice discipline! there is no short cut. well there is and we call it the whiz bang cable gun. i recieved my new bow in early august. therefore i will not be hunting with this one this year. maybe spring turkeys. but not deer this season. traditional archery is one of the few places where you MUST put the time in. and when you don't, it shows. we owe it to the game we persue to be on our "a" game.

[Don Stokes]

Sorry, RC, I didn't mean to be critical of you. With that many deer and hogs downed you need to shoot better? I think not! I can still count mine without taking off my shoes! No hogs where I live, and the deer population on my place isn't that great. My comment was for the neophytes who think that's the answer for better archery without getting the basics down, the "I want it NOW" syndrome that seems to permeate today's society.

[mikieg]

hey don, have you noticed there aren't many of those "i want it now" types in the trad game? yup, once they get here they tend to notice "this is hard" and they head for the wheelie bows! but there are the few hard headed types. you know the ones. they get a new bow every few months because "that other bow was this or that wrong". they spend more time and money chasing that "magical" bow. a competent shooter with a $100 internature imported recurve will out shoot a poor form shooter using a black widow! sad but true.
the only difference in the trad game today as opposed to 20,000 years ago... if your hungry cause you shooting is not going so well, theres always mc donalds! hows that for immidiate gratification?

[Ken Foss]

I started shooting my bows 3 under last winter and this was my first year to hunt shooting 3 under.  My bows are all tillered for split and sound louder to me when shooting 3 under.  I have been successful in quieting all of them down to a tollerable level with wool silencers on the string, placing velcro in the string grooves on the recurves and fine tuning the brace height.  No matter what I do they still sound louder then when shooting split. However, I think that I may have been paranoid about the noise for no reason based upon my experience this season.  The first deer that I shot at this year was a whitetail doe at 25 yards that was alert and knew something was wrong.  It was a calm quiet morning with no wind.  I made a perfect shot and saw no reaction to the bow sound from the deer.  The arrow was through her before she reacted.  The second deer was a young 7 point buck at 25 yards that again showed no reaction until the arrow hit home.  I also shot at another deer that I missed, but again it did not jump the string.  I have shot at a lot of tree squirrels and ground squirrels alternating between split and 3 under and cannot tell any difference in their reaction to the sound of the bow.  I do know one thing, I have been bowhunting for over 50 years and have never shot better or had more confidence in my shot out to 30 yards than I do now that I have switched to 3 under.  Ken

[bshunter]

Ken, excellent post! I agree with you 100%, I have all my bows tillered for 3 under and they still seem loud when compared to shooting them split...but in the woods it doesn't seem to make a difference. I second the other posts on wool silencers. Thick 'n Quick wool, brown and tan, wrapped 10 times,(20 strands total).

[Bruce Martin]

Another comment in this thread was that 3 under was only good for short range, but if you shoot with both eyes open, use a double anchor and look at the spot you want to hit, you can shoot much further accurately. You 'look through the riser' with both eyes open and do not gap shoot at all. This is Welch's system. Not many are as accurate as he is at longer ranges but he proves it can be done with practice. Practice, practice, practice. That is perfect practice. As to the loudness of the bow, they can be quieted very well and the game does not notice as noted by ken foss.