Limb material

[Carbon Jack]

Like most shooters I have favorite woods for limb cores. I tend toward Red Elm or Osage. Red Elm always seems to make a quick limb and Osage does too even though it is fairly heavy.

A while ago I read a bowyer claim that limb core wood matters very little if at all. He points to the fact that the best (fastest) limbs made today have cores of foam. Foam has no snap at all. It would seem the core material's only real job is to hold the glass or carbon lams apart so that they can do their work.

Foam being very light impedes limb recovery the least with resulting fast arrow speeds.

This makes great sense to me but I swear that Red Elm is the fastest wood I've chronoed in various bows not using foam for core material.

Any thoughts on this?

Jack

P.S.  I'm a big Howard Hill fan but always find bamboo bows to be a little sluggish. I would not choose bamboo for a core material. All my Hill bows are Red Elm, Yew, or Osage. I stopped using bamboo years ago.

[JRY309]

I too like red elm as a core wood,looks nice and performs great in my opinion.I have many bows with red elm,it's a great core wood.You can use it in edge grain or flat grain.I do like bamboo and yew in my Hill's.