I know these horsebows look cool, but the truth is, performance beats cool all day long. I had one of these horsebows. I could never get any accuracy out of it and I tried everything I knew of. It also had tremendous problems casting the arrow, i.e. it was almost like this 60# bow was a 25#. Could it have been me? Perhaps. But the minute I sold this horsebow and bought myself a Martin Saber recurve 50#, accuracy returned. Imagine that.
Look, when I saw that horsebow, I thought that horsebow was just too awesome. I tried it. I was very unhappy with it. If you're planning on hunting, the coolness factor of the bow isn't your first consideration. Your first consideration is to the animal: What bow will make a clean kill? I would strongly suggest you start hunting with a standard recurve or longbow, get accurate with that, hunt with it. Most American traditional bowmakers and bowyers have been making bows for several years, if not several decades, with hunting in mind. We're not fighting wars and shooting people with bows anymore and that's specifically what these horsebows were made to do. These bows were the weapons of war of nomadic people that lived a very tough, harsh, and often very short life. They lived in a society that afforded them the time to practice constantly with these bows because they were warriors. And these modern horsebows, I think, are made as novelties that an archer can play about with. I really don't think they're made with hunting in mind.
I see you've "TTT'ed" several times here. So, look, I'm telling you the totally unvarnished truth here. Those horsebows look cool, yeah, but do you have the cash to go through several sets of arrows to find that perfect matched set? These bows are not centershot and are very finicky about arrows. More so than the standard recurves and longbows out there. Just one little thing off and you've got arrows flying around all over the place. I know, because this was my experience.
I've been shooting this Martin Saber for years now and am pleased as can be with it. And, look, the principle is absolutely the same. Pull string, release, arrow moves forward. The design varies from people to people, tribe to tribe. But way back when, no one saw casualties of a battle and said, "Yeah, this guy got nailed with a horsebow. This guy over here, he got tagged with an English longbow. Check out this guy; he got doinked with some old grandpa's neolithic flatbow." Bows were made as per the needs of the people they served and the materials they had to hand. If the English had fiberglass in 1440, they'd have made fiberglass backed longbows or even recurves and avoided having to import yew from less-than-friendly nations. The tribes here in the U.S. were all about steel arrowheads the second they could get them. Again, the principle is the same. We like looks and I'm not saying it shouldn't be part of your choice. I'm just saying don't make looks the sole deciding factor. Because that's a good way to get something you'll be frustrated with.
Really, if a person could go back in time with, say, a Martin Dreamcatcher, people in an ancient era would think the bow unusual, but not necessarily something as unusual and outlandish as, say, a compound bow. They'd think you had a lot of gold to pay some artisan bowyer to have made it for you, that's all, or that your come from some far-off tribe or people. If you went back into ancient time with a production Howard Hill longbow, most people wouldn't know any difference from what they had until they got close enough to you that they could see your eyelashes in detail.
All I'm saying is, put your skill as an archer first. Hunting isn't job one with a bow. Shooting that bow very well is job one. Hunting comes after that. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Anyway, good luck to you and hope this helps.
Topic: Turkish bow (Read 2994 times)
