Heavy (possibly extremely heavy) self bow questions.

[rascal]

Ok, Ive had some fun building bows for the last 3 years, all selfbows and all longbows.  Ive used Pacific Yew, Black Locust and Osage Orange so far and have made decent bows of all of them.  Ive made bows as low as 38# and as heavy as 83# at my draw length of 26.5".  Two of the heaviest bows Ive made are a 78# @ 26.5" Black Locust 67" nock to nock and an 83# @ 26.5" Osage Orange 59" nock to nock.  

Ive enjoyed shooting the heavy bows and shoot them quite well and have an itch to make what some might consider an extremely heavy bow.  I want to make a bow closer to 100# @ 26.5".  I would consider either Black Locust or Osage Orange (and possibly Hickory though I havent made a bow of it yet) as I have several excellent staves of each in suitable width and length.  I also would not turn my nose up at Pacific yew I just dont like it as much due to the high price and softness (hate worrying about denting and scratching).  Ideally I would like to keep the bow as short as possible that being said I have hunted with a bow as long as 72" which seemed awfully long for a fella standing just 5'6".

I would be interested to hear your experiences building heavy selfbows, design, rough dimensions, wood choices etc.  Would you consider backing (sinew or otherwise) an absolute necessity?

[Dave Bowers]

I don't have any experience, but I have seen alot of boys build some really heavy long bows. Over on Paleo Planet there's fellas making bows 200lbs+.
So I don't think you'd have a problem.

[rascal]

Wow!  Not sure I would want a 200+ pound bow just yet but it sure would be nice to know how they are making them.

[Pat B]

I built a Pacific yew war bow a few years ago. 95#@30" The problem was I could only pull it 15" maybe. James Parker gave me the yew stave so I gave the bow back to him. He can handle it.
  I'd say yew or osage for sure. Hickory would be fine in your drier climate. I can't recommend locust because I personally have bad luck with locust. It would probably work fine too.

[John Scifres]

For me, target draw length determines the bow's length so whatever you have used in the past should work for that.  I prefer 62-64" rigid handled osage flatbows for my 27" draw.  Bendy handled can be 4" shorter for me.

For me, target draw weight determines bow width.  I'd go 1-3/4" for a >75# osage flatbow.  For >100# I think I'd try 2" to start and work down from there. The heaviest osage bow I've built was a touch over 70# and 1-1/2" wide for half the limb.

I have made a 70# elm bow that was 70" long and 2" wide but followed the string about 3".

[AKmud]

Get in touch with Kegan over at Archery Talk (I think he may on this forum as well), he shoots/builds monster bows too.

[Tom Leemans]

STOP! Yer makin' my shoulders hurt!

[rascal]

Not sure how my shoulders will handle something like this either to be honest but I can shoot my 83# osage bow all day with no real fatigue.  I definetely do not plan on making this simply as a novelty though, I want to shoot and hunt with it.

[rascal]

bah double post