trapping recurve limbs

[FoMoCo429]

Ok, So a buddy of mine had these limbs that he wasn't going to use cause they are to heavy. right now they are at 120lb at my draw. I could use this bow at 100lbs. my question is would anyone risk trapping the limbs? Or just leave them alone and work on trying to shoot it at 120lbs. please any help will help.

[canopyboy]

Holy smoley! I'd cut them down the middle and make 2 60# bows. I can only imagine working up to 120 lbs ending with me having shoulder surgery.

Depends on the limb shapes. Generally recurve limbs are thin relative to their width, I can't see trapping removing that much weight. You'd also need to reduce the width a bit. But of course I'm not sure I'd do either until I understood the limb design a bit more or you'll start to affect the stability of the limbs and probably the overall shootability.

But then again, if they aren't costing you a fortune it may be worth playing with a bit. And in that case, what do you have to lose? Except possibly some limbs you can't shoot anyway?

[TradBowyer]

Round the edges over really good and you can drop 5 easy. Trapping won't really work with recurves. You'll more likely to really mess the limbs up. Longbows are more easily worked to lose weight but recurves are really hard to mess with the weight

[beachbowhunter]

A bow that heavy is likely to have pretty thick glass. You can sand the glass down to reduce weight. You need to go slow and do both limbs evenly. A friend of mine has reduced some heavy bows by quite a bit.

[FoMoCo429]

Canopyboy, Haha yea my friend says im an animal for even considering shooting it at all. I can shoot my 85# long bow all day. however this is an entirely different animal. These limbs are really thick. lol I haven't measured them but if I had to guess I would say between 1/4 and 3/8. that's why I figured trapping might work.

[FoMoCo429]

TradBowyer, Yea that's what I was afraid of.

[FoMoCo429]

beachbowhunter, I can ask what thickness glass these libs have. How much weight do you thing I will be able to take off? Say the glass was .05 thick and I took of .02. How much weight would you say we are talking about?

[beachbowhunter]

I haven't done it myself. You can send Blue Monday a PM. He doesn't visit here much though. He is on LW more often.

[FoMoCo429]

Okay thanks I will.