Youth bow draw weights

[howl]

I have here a 9 year old boy drawing 18#. I have also a 10 year old girl drawing 23#. I'm about to have a couple bows made for them.

What weight would you order? They really only need enough to penetrate a 3D target far enough it doesn't fall out.

[Orion]

Difficult question.  Kids grow out of bows so fast at that age.  Might be able to pass your daughter's bow to your son and just buy one heavier bow. 

Might consider getting the inexpensive foreign made bows with light set(s) of limbs. That would enable increasing limb weight fairly inexpensively as the kids age. 

[howl]

Good point. Gonna do the import take-down thing for next bows to work up to hunting weight.

Maybe another way of asking this is what is the minimum poundage to reliably stick a wood kids arrow in a 3D target or kill a squirrel with a blunt at less than 15 yards. 20#?

[Orion]

20# should stick in the target OK.  Depends a bit on arrow weight and point configuration as well.

Squirrels are tough to kill.  More likely that an arrow shot from a 20# bow will bounce off a squirrel than a target.  I've put good hits on squirrels with 50# bows that didn't kill outright.  That's with blunts.  Broadhead would have taken them out. 

[hawkeye n pa]

"Squirrels are tough to kill. "  X2  Kids and their grow rate is hard to predict.  My one grandson went through 1-2 bows a year.  My youngest grandson is shooting the same bow for three years.  If they have a growth spurt the strength may take awhile.

[woodchucker]

Thinking back almost 20 years.....

My youngest son Tyler, started shooting at about 3 years old.
He had an old Pearson solid glass bow. An old tube quiver that I rigged a strap on for a back quiver, and some wood youth arrows that I picked up. Everything was fine, and he was cute as a new pup!! 

Only one problem... When he hit the 3D targets with the "bullet points" on the youth arrows, They would fall out.
AND HE WOULD TOTALLY LOOSE HIS SHi+!!!!!

With growing kids, my suggestion would be...
Get a simple 5/16" taper tool, and some good field points.(heavier the better, IMHO) Measure their draw, and cut the arrows a couple inches longer, then taper and glue on the field points. This will do 2 things. Make it easier to aim, using the arrow point, and make sure the arrow sticks in the target!!
Nothing is more frustrating to a kid, is knowing they hit the target and not being able to see WHERE they hit the target!!

I'm totally with you, on ordering bows!!! Everyone wants to spoil kids, LMAO!!!
I'm thinking about ordering a pink maple Little Squirt for my grandaughter and she's only 6 months old!!
However, a cheap glass bow will work just fine. The more they grow, the farther they pull it back, the more the draw weight increases... AND you can't overdraw and break it!!!
(something "stupid big kids" do when they try and shoot a bow that's too small for them)

This is just one old fart's opinion....  Enjoy them while they're young!!! They grow so fast...

[howl]

Thanks all. Gonna take the bowyer's advice and get these bows ordered. When they outgrow them we'll go to takedown recurves and just replace limbs until they are ready to order a hunting bow.

I figure if I start them trad, they'll come back to it after they get tired of fiddling with sights and wheels.

[soap creek]

When my son was young 11 or 12 I bought him a 45lb recurve.  His draw length was short so he wasn't drawing near that much weight.  He grew into the bow. In fact he has it today. Best thing to do is have them try one out.