A&H short limbs

[Cherokee Scout]

I would like to hear from anyone who owns or has shot an ACS CX with the short limbs, 58" or 60".
I have shot the longer ones, but have not even seen the shorter ones.

[Lewis Brookshire III]

John, get ahold of "Comber" here on TG. I know he has a set 58" and a longer set of limbs. He could fill yu in on the differences.

[sswv]

hey John!   Al just got a 58"er. he has a post on here about it.

[Cherokee Scout]

I can't find Als post, what is the title?

[Cherokee Scout]

I found his post. But I would like to hear from someone who has shot both the short and the longer models. I would like a comparison of the two.

[Lewis Brookshire III]

PM Comber John. Jake is a great guy and has shot both. Im sure he would fill you in.

[Peckerwood]

John, I have a set of 58 in. ,62 in. and 64 in.
Out of the three the 64's are the fastest followed by the 62's and the 58's.  Even though the 58in. limbs have slightly less speed ( about 3-4 fps less than the 62),they are the most quiet and dead in the hand after the shot. I draw 28in. and really like the 58in. limbs for hunting.

Bill

[pacopperhead]

i was wondering also

[COMBER]

The 58" limbs I've got belong to Peckerwood and he let me use them unitl I got my own set and they are 62". The 58" limbs are amazing and so is Peckerwood, if you need any info Peckerwood is the authority on ACS and perfomance bows.

[JohnV]

I had one of the guys at A&H test their new 60" limbs and compare to 62" limbs, both having the same draw weight.  I was told the 60" limbs were 5 fps slower but quieter.  Don't know what the arrow weight was.  If you are thinking of ordering the 58" or 60" limbs you need to consider your draw length.  I was told the 60" limbs were okay to 29" and then they began to stack.  Don't know about the 58" limbs.

[Kingwouldbe]

Help me out here guys, are you saying a 66' set of limb will out perform a 60" set of limbs, both drawing 60lbs@28?

[Bjorn]

That's what they told me too king-something about 'long limbs and stored energy', before I knew it my eyes glazed over, and I was fast asleep!  

[limbow]

That's correct, there is more limb working in your favor to create speed on the 66" limbs.

[Kingwouldbe]

thanks guys, so why would anyone use short limbs

[Steel]

I am looking at ordering a set of ACS 58" limbs right now I know they will not be as fast, but I like a short bow for treestand/blind hunting. Anything over 58" just seems huge to me since I have been shooting 54" and 56" shrews the last year I can't even think of owning a 62 or 64 inch bow again it would seem like a broom stick to me now.

[Lewis Brookshire III]

Im curious to see thier testing results on the different bow limbs for a shorter draw, say 26" to see if the longber limbs are still faster .

King, maneuverability (SP?) in a Treestand/blind would be one reason to get a shorter limb. Speed is great but it is not everything. And did you notice they said the shorter limbs were QUIETER, thats huge in my book for hunting.

[Peckerwood]

I think that the 66 in. limbs are the fastest and then drop in speed from there. I know that the 64 in.limbs are faster than the 62 in.

From my own testing the 58 in limbs are about 3-4 FPS slower than the 62 in. limbs . ( same # and arrow weight) . I shoot the 58 in. limbs at a lower brace height ( 6 1/2 ) compared to the 62 in. (7 1/4 ) and that helps compensate the speed difference.

I cannot tell any difference shooting the 58 limbs . ( except they are more quiet )

Bill

[killinstuff]

A little off subject but Peckerwood you are picking up speed with the lower brace height? I have my CX at 6 1/8 with the 62" limbs the reason being is for a smoother draw and  shoots great but I didn't think my speed is different.

[Big_Al]

Let me tell ya, the 58" ACS I have now is faster than anything I've owned so far long or short, and I've gone through a LOT of bows.  I shot it last night for the first time out to 25 yards, and let me tell ya - I've never had a bow in my hand that was more forgiving.  I have what equals 1/16th of a cat whisker strip at the quarter points of a 6-strand G-Sting and the sound of the string coming off my tab makes more noise than the bow itself.  You definitely get what you pay for with these bows.

[John Havard]

I can't say that every single shorter 3PTD longbow limb from every single bowyer is slower than their longer ones, but every single one I have tested besides ours bears out the same simple result:  longer limbs store more energy than shorter limbs.  That result is true at a 24" draw and it's true at a 26"-30" draw as well.  Not just ours, but all that I have tested.  

I have not given up on the pursuit of greater energy storage from shorter limbs, but can attest to the fact that I have built and destroyed quite a few experimental molds in an attempt to find a shorter limb design that stores more energy than a longer one.  Not saying it isn't possible, but so far I haven't been able to find a way to match the energy storage of our 66"-64" limbs in shorter limbs.  The mad scientist in me just hates to give up, so I haven't.

The dynamic efficiency of the shorter limbs is just a tiny bit higher (imperceptable unless conducting very controlled comparison testing) than for longer limbs.  But that slight increase in dynamic efficiency does not make up for the decreased energy storage.  That results in about 1-2 fps per length increment (from 62" to 60" should be about a 1-2 fps difference in speed).

Long story short - there's no reason to not get a shorter bow if a shorter bow fits you better or feels better or is more maneuverable in a tight tree stand.  For most folks the few fps in tradeoff is more than made up for by the increase in maneuverability.  Just so there are no surprises we always want folks to know that there is a small tradeoff between performance and length of the limb.

I'm expecting that tradeoff to be somewhat-to-much less in the 1P bow.  Based on long-ago tests that I performed on our earlier 1P bows (ranging in length from 66" to 56") I recall not finding any measurable difference in performance out to 28".  Beyond 28" of draw I never bothered to test the 56" and 58" bows since most folks who want one of the shortest bows rarely draws more than that.  By the time our production short 1P bows are available I'll have complete test data on them.