HH BUG GOT ME - Part Two!

[smoke1953]

Keep those shootn fingers warm. Good luckily

[iohkus]

This last picture of Howard looks more like what is called a "semi-reverse" handle. The face lams do not go straight up the handle, but flare a little putting the handle, in essence, in the middle of  the limbs.

[David Mitchell]

iohkus, that was my thought as well.

[Blaino]

Rossco- Beautiful place! Good luck this afternoon. I want to see one of your hill laid across one of those giant Canadian bucks!

[Gordon Jabben]

I have seen that picture of Howard a hundred times and never noticed the handle being in the middle of the limbs.

It has a fadeout piece added to the belly side of the handle. Hill added his glass after the core was glued together. I wonder if that was an in the process idea or planned. That pic is from 1957. I thought my first Hill longbow from way back would have that, but no. I was heart broken, not really. John had his own ideas on that when I orderd mine.

[Sant-Ravenhill]

Does the fadeout piece make it a semi-reverse handle?

For me the semi-reverse/extra fadeout makes a more pleasing appearance than the straight reverse handle.

Thanks for the pictures!

[Mudd]

Allen Boice(another TD sponsor) makes a Liberty longbow that has the handle in the center.

They are easy to shoot with a lot of the same traits as a reverse or forward handle bow.

 

   

   

God bless,Mudd

[Overspined]

Great Northern and Northern Mist whispers all have that similar split in the lams with the riser in the "center".  Again, more forward handle, more resistant to torque.  

Pavan, I've been thinking about how to ramp up the arrow speed on a reverse handle bow and most the bowyers use a similar reflex in the limbs as the std hill style bow they make as far as I've seen.  I'm not sure you could take that loss of draw length and make it up in velocity somewhere else in the build. I think it has to be a different limb design altogether.  

Shooting Hill style bows doesn't mean we are into arrow velocity big time, but it would be a neat accomplishment for the forward/reverse handle bow to equal the performance of the standard.

[Overspined]

[Bob B.]

Rossco,

Great pics, great story ... too bad you did not connect ... keep at it man, I will cross my fingers for ya.  Great looking bow by the way!!

Bob.

Overspine, I am pretty certain that there are very few bows that will match my dearly departed Schulz Legend for power at a less than a 27" draw. I got close with my yew/bamboo, but then that bow is two inches longer and less draw. But then I did get a very forgiving and accurate bow that would have been faster than my 68" 72@28 Schulz Hunter, had I not slipped on some icey leaves and broke the tip on that one, so other than comparing yards of cast with the same arrow, I have no chrono number.  My only real concern is that the hundreds of 1918s that I own will shoot out of it, I think they will with some heavier points that will match my broadheads.  I think by focussing the bend and keeping the brace under control it should be good enough speed wise. One thing about that Schulz, if the brace was higher than what John liked, the cast did suffer some. I do not know if that is particular to how he layed out and tillered a bow, but it seems to hold true for the ones that I tillered using my Schulz bows for the tiller lines.  It only ever bothers a bit when using 5.5" feathers, they have about a half inch lap on the arrow shelf.

[Brianlocal3]

Matt,
I've heard the claims of reverse handles being slower, and honestly my Whisper was not the quickest, but I have also noticed the same to hold true for stringfollow bows, they seem to loose cast down the way.  But with that said my JD Morningstar chronos 183 FPS with a 8.64 GPP arrow (my hunting arrow) and 179 FPS With my 9 GPP arrow,  I'm not a speed freak at all but this is comming our of a 50@26" bow, I drew 26".  Maybe mine is a fluke, or maybe the range who's chrono I used is not calibrated, but being the shooter behind the stick I can see the differede, and that speed and cast along with te other great attributes of James design moved the Morningstar quickly to my top shooter slot.

An odd observation we made concerning chronos and longbows. If one shoots a 27" draw with a locked up straight arm and then the same person shoots a 27" draw with a bent arm out of the same longbow. The bent arm shot will be a faster arrow. We had the same results with three guys and three different bows, although two of us already shot with bent bow arms normally.  It all started with trying help a longbow newbie shoot his Hill better.  I should add that he was trying to shoot his Hill three under and gunbarreling the arrow. A dead bow arm, head goose necked against his shoulder and with the drawing arm quite high. Getting to the split finger and corner of the mouth anchor gained nothing. Getting him to bend the bow arm, square up the shoulders and and get some snap to the release made a good difference in arrow speed and a good difference in his accuracy. With us it was just a couple of fps slower when shooting with a dead bowarm, but a consistent reading of a slower arrow with the straight arm versus the bent arm.

[Brianlocal3]

Oh, pavan brought up a point I left out, I'm a 3U shooter

I know, that is why I mentioned the formally three under goose necker. He is an odd duff for his age. Heart of gold, a tight ass, no cell phone, no computer, and stubborn, he will admit to killing more deer with his longbow than he got with his short recurve or his Bear Whitetail Hunter.  He has yet to actually pay for a bow. That compound was a thrown out antique by the time he got it, the recurve was one that someone had in a closet since the 60s and never shot it, but the relatively new Hill, he calls his old bow.

[Brianlocal3]

Ha ha,
You calling me a goose necker!!!! Those are scrapping words. LOL

Just warnin ya. Don't be goose neckin when yer peaking over that arrow.

[tg2nd]

Originally posted by pavan:
An odd observation we made concerning chronos and longbows. If one shoots a 27" draw with a locked up straight arm and then the same person shoots a 27" draw with a bent arm out of the same longbow. The bent arm shot will be a faster arrow. We had the same results with three guys and three different bows, although two of us already shot with bent bow arms normally.  It all started with trying help a longbow newbie shoot his Hill better.  I should add that he was trying to shoot his Hill three under and gunbarreling the arrow. A dead bow arm, head goose necked against his shoulder and with the drawing arm quite high. Getting to the split finger and corner of the mouth anchor gained nothing. Getting him to bend the bow arm, square up the shoulders and and get some snap to the release made a good difference in arrow speed and a good difference in his accuracy. With us it was just a couple of fps slower when shooting with a dead bowarm, but a consistent reading of a slower arrow with the straight arm versus the bent arm.

pavan,
I think it's not about the elbow.

BUT:
With a bent elbow you don't loose as much back tension, as with a straight elbow.
Release over back tension will need an arrow 5# - 10# heavier in spine. Same thing for chrono results (but in fps).

Hope you understand what I'm writing. English is not my mother's language!

With my friend it was about the overall strength of the shot, certainly. However, if the arm is not locked out, there is some driving force left at release that can give the bow forward momemtum. I agree, that most of it is the fact that bending the arm keeps the shoulders more definately in the power line with a bit of forward recoil which adds a little bit to the available energy. I was thinking that for him it was more about the strength of the release and the fact that everything else helped a bit here and there. Now if the arm was locked in a bent position it would not have that added push any more than a straight arm, providing the rest of the power line was good. But that is not possible to do because one has to be pushing the bow towards the target, and as long as there is some push left, there will be some benefits from that push, however small they may be. Like I stated, I only saw 2 feet per second when I locked my bowarm. Not enough to see with the naked eye. However, with Ron we could definately see a faster arrow. We were curious how much faster.