Carbon in bow limbs worth it?

[stevewills]

i have every kinda limb made i think,for hunting and the shots made at close range,i personaly dont care what my limbs are..but for my 3d rig i shoot carbon foam and anyone who has to shoot longer distances will see a difference quickly....

[Mint]

I picked up a new palmer with carbon in the limbs at denton hill and they work better than my older palmer with carbon. Mike says he finally found a supplier that has woven carbon and he loves the results he is getting with his limbs. The bow is very stable and fast for 45lbs.

[michbowhunter]

I'll have to agree with Steve (Sixby) on this one.  There so many different aspects that come into play when using carbon...mainly the type of carbon used, where it is placed in the limb, and the limb design it is being used in.  
I can typically gain about 4-5fps in my limbs using .020" carbon as close to the back of the limb as possible.  I also back it with at least .025" glass and grind the veneer(if any)down to around .015".  
As far as the carbon on the belly, it just doesn't work with my limb design.  To much compression force placed on the core will lead to a short limb life.  This is just what I have found in my designs, lots of other guys have been using it successfully on the belly side with no issues.
In short, it is a good thing to have if you’re shooting lighter poundage and are looking to gain every little bit of performance you can.
I'm typically only a whitetail hunter and shoot mid 50#'s and I use carbon in my personal bows...that 5 fps might come in handy if a not so perfect shot is made!  
Of course, my shots are always right on the money so it shouldn't be an issue...  :rolleyes:

[legends1]

JARED , THE INCREASED PERFORMANCE HELPS ME SHOOT OVER THERE BACK.BUT YOUR RIGHT, MY ARROWS GET AWESOME PENETRATION IN TREES.

[JamesKerr]

I love how smooth the carbon core makes my tomahawk.

[Bob Morrison]

I was testing some different carbon than what we have been using.... It was 4.2 FPS faster. Smoother and faster but not as stable as what we are using. At this point I will be shooting it. And now to come up with a way to stabilize it more with out losing and performance.

[kadbow]

I have had high end longbows (same model) with carbon/foam and with glass/wood.  I really didn't notice much difference performance wise (not a chrono guy) and I can't explain why but I prefer the feel of the glass/wood limbs.  So I would say you are going to have to try it to see what you prefer.

[ksbowman]

Raminshooter/ Mint, My single carbons on the Palmer are some of the first Mike made so maybe that is why my classics shoot better to me. Don't get me wrong I like all my Palmers and believe they are a great shooting bow. But my old classic fiberglass laminate seems to shoot better and just as fast, if not faster than the carbons. I have not shot them thru a chrono though.

[Sixby]

For carbon to accomplish much on a recurve it has to be right on the back.
Carbon really shines in a D and r though with foam cores.
I have some premium yew that I am building a special bow with right now that I like as well a foam core though.

God bless you all, Steve

[Bjorn]

The use of carbon is pretty new-certainly within the past 10 years or so. Early on bowyers were getting no positive results whatever; in fact many of the early limbs did not perform as well as glass-they became unglued-and even failed. Bowyers now know a lot more about which designs, what glues, where and how to use the stuff and more recently the results are improving and will even more as more is discovered. If it costs extra, to me it is well worth it, and will only get better.

[Duckbutt]

I worked for a high end fishing rod company over ten years ago that was pushing the envelope with rod blank design.  We hired a guy with a composite materials engineering degree and I believe he was the first in the industry.  I'm a business guy so what I learned on the subject was from him.  He has transformed a few sporting goods products with his knowledge of composite materials.  I think carbon fiber softball bats were his next gig.  At any rate, I don't have any experience with carbon in bow limbs but my guess is that it is somewhat of a situation as Sixby describes.  There are many variables that play into design and performance when it comes to this stuff and most bowyers aren't in a position due to knowledge, time, money etc etc to efficiently leverage carbon's qualities....and a certain part of me hopes they never do.

[sidebuster]

What kind of foam is used in the limbs.  Where do you get it?  Anybody got a cross section pic of a limb with foam in it?

[Sixby]

The foam that is used is called syntatic foam. It is the variety that is used in snowboards ect. I don't buy in a large enough quantity to order factory direct but I buy from Dale Stahl.
God bless you all, steve

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I don't have much to add here that hasn't been said.

i think it's worth it to some guys, and not so for others. it really adds performance levels to the long bows, and recurve as well depending on the type of carbon used and where it's placed in the limbs.....the thing it does for recurve bows that makes it a good choice for target shooters is adds serious torsional stability.

in regards to Harrison's statement about carbon having less compression strength than glass... Well this is actually an incorrect statement, it's just the opposite. but.... the results he described in his book is right on the money.. The stuff is so strong, It doesn't compress at all... it literally shears the core it's glued to if the core isn't stout material.

they have some great carbon lay ups available, like Steve was describing. it's a "Carbon Matrix" that seems to be the ticket. a mixture of unidirectional and Bias weave.... they even have recipes with E-glass laid up with the composite.

The geometry of the limb has a whole lot to do with it too.... some designs work well, and others don't.


Hey Jared, Try laying one up putting your belly carbon over uni-weft or .020 glass. I've had excellent luck doing that on my long bows...

Beware though... the poundage really jumps up putting the carbon on the outside of the limb, vs under the glass...a lot more than you would think too.

[sidebuster]

Thanks Sixby    Is the foam from  Dale sold just like wood lamination's?   If so how do you figure what you need in thickness like the Bingham chart which shows the combination of lamination's to get to a certain poundage.  Does Bingham sell it

[Sixby]

Binghams does not sell it. I figure it just like any other core for thickness.
'when you start adding and changeing carbons though all the equasions go out the door. Its expensive. I just built a set of limbs with some new carbon that jumped the poundage 30 lbs over what my other carbon was doing with the same stack. You just set those aside for the next guy that wants an elephant bow and build another set of limbs. LOL
I would imagine that Dale sells ground laminations. I buy mine heavy and grind all my own laminations.
God bless you all, Steve

[Str8Shooter]

I have somewhat mixed feelings on the use of carbon in longbows and recurves. As others have said it isn't a magical ingredient that will make every bow better.

In longbows I tend to prefer carbon on the back. It does tend to boost the speed 3-4 fps over a similar glass design and because a longbow tends to have a thicker limb core there generally isn't a negative effect on lateral limb stability. That said, some heavily reflexed limbs lose some vertical stability with carbon. Normally carbon allows a bowyer to use less core material and have a thinner limb. Lots of reflex and thin cores sometimes makes for a whippy tip that is very sucseptible vertical variance.

Recurves can benefit but I really feel it depends on the type of carbon used. I've owned piles of ILF limbs from glass/wood all the way up to high-end carbon/foam limbs. As some of the bowyers have noted there are straight uni-carbon laminates to bias-ply type carbon available. In my experience the uni-carbon may bump speed a little in a recurve but doesn't improve lateral or vertical stability one bit. The reality is in some limbs it makes them worse than glass limbs. Now, if you add in some of the 45 degree biased carbon it can improve the lateral stability to a point. Some of the limbs I've shot with those laminates are incredibly stiff.

In the end I think it really comes down to the design and how the carbon affects the limb design. If a bowyer really does the testing and homework than you can get some good results but if he's just slapping carbon in it I'd rather drop the $50-100 bucks on something else.

In the bows I own I have two carbon backed longbows that shoot fantastic. My recurve is not carbon backed although I shot the exact same model with carbon. The glass limb was more stable, quieter and faster. In fact, that glass limb is easily as stiff and stable as any of the high-end biased carbon ILF limbs I've owned. Like I said, it comes down to how the carbon acts in the bowyers design.

[Rob DiStefano]

a few months before his death i had a phone conversation with earl hoyt and our chat drifted to limb lamination materials.  he felt that carbon as a limb material was more environmentally stable than fiberglass for target bows (olympic recurves) but it didn't matter much if at all for hunting stick bows.  i've had longbows with limbs of carbon and bamboo laminations, and the same model longbow, with the same length/weight spex, but with glass and bamboo laminations.  i'm not just good enuf to tell the shooting difference 'tween the two.  i think that for the most part, we think too much about bows and not enuf about arrows and shooting form.  

[Gator1]

 Right On Rob....

[T Folts]

I thought I was the only one who did tree penetration testing. You know single bevel-vs-double bevel, tanto tip ect...