No reason to avoid a Hill ASL, there’s no difference in shooting one trad bow vs another other than hand placement, and ASL is the simplest to get down. When you release the string, just like all bows, the arrow goes where it’s pointed, literally no difference. I’d avoid carbons unless you really want to fuss, and spine is more critical for good arrow flight. Aluminum or wood are easiest to dial in.
They’re American traditional, simple, elegant, and effective.
The original hill bows were wood self bows, lemonwood. They tapered to the belly to keep the back stable and strong, and that’s how you carve out a self bow. Tapering to the back with glass is more stable. The back glass basically holds the bow together, leaving the belly glass wider and that’s your power glass, and gives the compression. So we typically use thicker glass on belly and thinner on the back. It’s fun to debate what’s true Hill or not, and there’s basically little made today like the bows of the past. Materials are different, processes and materials are better, different, and each bow is its own creation. Some are 1” at the fades, some are not even an inch, and some over. Not really a big deal, risers are of little consequence whether they’re 12”,13” or whatever. The working limb length isn’t affected much or at all depending, especially with long bows of 68” ish. It’s great when you watch video on Hill crafting a bow, how he just cranks it out with minimal exacting specs, mostly by feel and eye.
I couldn’t agree more with shootability, some bows just don’t feel like others. There’s often a huge difference in feel.
Gluing up a Reverse Handle this evening…