Limbsavers

[Prairie Drifter]

Where do you place limbsavers on a recurve limb to get the best effect but not hurt performance?

[cyred4d]

I place them at the end of the fadeouts. They seem to work pretty well there.

[cyred4d]

I place them at the end of the fadeouts. They seem to work pretty well there.

[nineworlds9]

End of the fadeouts.  I hate em though, think they are ugly and have no place on a well designed beautiful bow.  I'd rather use different silencer materials, strings, and up my arrow weight before I'd stick chunks of rubber on my high dollar bow.  I got a Schafer Silvertip in the mail in a trade recently and it had a pair and I about gagged.  To each his own.  IMHO they don't do enough to justify the eyesore.

[ron w]

They are ugly and have no appeal to me at all.....they work great on half the bows I own. Helped quiet my Black Widow big time!! I can live with ugly if it works.

[Prairie Drifter]

Believe me guys , if I had another option I would do it. The bow is 50#. I have tried wool silencers, padding the string, padding the string groove, cat whiskers and arrows up to 650grs. There is still a slight "hum" when I shoot this bow. Very disconcerting.

[Stumpkiller]

IMHO anything you place on a limb or string to deaden noise is a concession to poor design or tuning.  I use wool puffs on the string about 10" from the tips and that seems sufficient ONCE I HAVE WORKED OUT ARROW SPINE WEIGHT AND BRACE HEIGHT.  

If I had to add moleskin, wraps, "Limbsavers", or anything else to a bow that would slow it down in order to reduce noise I would sooner change brace height, arrow weight, string material or bows.

[Steelhead]

Put them about 3 inches above the fadeouts.Not at the end of the fadeouts.They wont slow your bow down when placed thier and will dampen out limb vibration best thier.I have played with these things quite a bit on many bows

Put them up too high on the limbs and you get more limb vibration and add weight to the ends of the limbs where you do not want it.

Too low and thier not really dampening out the limbs vibrations.Because thier not even on the limbs.

[olddogrib]

I'm having an ongoing PM discussion with Kirk II (Big Foot Bows)on this topic.  There was a TBM article a few years back that said put them at the tips and the performance loss due to the added weight was a negligible 1-2 fps. Kirk (he builds them, he should know)says the ideal location is dependent on the individual limb design and one location does not fit all. He's generously offered to look at pics of my limbs at brace and full draw and tell me where the Limbsavers should work best. Kirk, if you start getting swamped with pics and start charging for this service, I want a "finder's fee" cut on the action! (or more likely, if it cuts into your bow building time and you decide to sue me, I'll delete this post immediately and swear I don't know how this got out, lol)

[Kevin Dill]

Limbsavers are ugly. Rubber tip protectors, yarn balls, string leeches, arrow grippers, elevated rests, brush buttons, steel limb bolts and many more things strike me as ugly, too. Ugly is not a concern when it's my bow going up against an animal in the woods. I can't recall ever thinking about the looks of my bow as a big whitetail or caribou or moose came dead-walking toward me. Ugly is often what gets the job done.

[chase perry]

One of my bows took a little more effort than usual to get as quiet as I wanted it.  Relative to my other bows it had the "hum" that Prairie Drifter is talking about.  I attributed this to riser density; the bow has a myrtle riser, and is notably lighter in the hand than a coco or bocote riser bow.  The mini Limbsavers made a very great improvement.  I used my daughters pony tail bands to hold them tight against the limb of the bow, shoot, then slide them around, and shoot again.  This way I was able to find the most effective location for them on my bow, which ended up being near the fade outs.  It was a last resort, as they are unattractive, but I am pleased with the result.

[Bobby Urban]

Have them on all my recurves at the fades.  Ugly or not the only thing that sees my bows are dead deer and they have never complained.  Necessary?  No - do they help get the bows down to a light thump or less? Yes.  My bows are considered tools in pursuit of my greatest obsession and although I take care of them - they get used!  If I can get a little advantage with a couple grams of rubber I will take it.  

I get accused of sacrilege for drilling little holes and gluing small pins to the back of all my risers for my arrow holder too but I don't care.  If it helps me become a better predator that is my only goal.

[Burnsie]

Originally posted by Bobby Urban:

I get accused of sacrilege for drilling little holes and gluing small pins to the back of all my risers for my arrow holder too but I don't care.  If it helps me become a better predator that is my only goal.

I have been thinking about drilling in a little brass pin for an arrow holder as well,  but I can't bring myself to do it.

[bowtough]

I have an older original tip that after shooting a while would leave my left tricep sore from limb vibration. Installed a pr. of limbsavers just passed the fadeouts and presto no more soreness, and a very noticeable loss of vibration. Really lengthened my practice sessions. And I don't think they look bad at all.  

[BWallace10327]

Limbsavers installed on the fadeouts has improved every bow that I've put them on.  The only bow I have ever owned that would not benefit from them is my Saxon American Recurve.  They do no look so bad that i would sacrifice the dead in the hand sensation that the limbsavers enable.

[Bowwild]

I have various sizes of these items. My hearing isn't great but I have never been able to tell a difference when I've applied to any of my bows.

I've only tred to use them when I have a particularly cantakerous noise-maker. They have never made a difference I could hear.

Maybe I'd notice a difference if I had put them on very light curves but I don't shoot those.

[-snypershot317-]

i dont know about limbsavers, but i do know that bowjax work well too..i have four on my string (i dont like the wool silencers because they hold too much water when raining and i cant really be picky about the weather when i go hunting so i opted for rubber instead) and i had a set of jax on my 'modern' bow that really made it dead in the hand...so i personally am considering doing this too. im not concerned about ugliness cause i think my bow wins that category hands down so looks im not concerned with at all only how well it performs
   

[S C Mercer]

I have them on my Silvertip recurve just above the limb fade outs.  They work perfectly.  Like others have said, this is a work horse bow.  I could care less about it being a museum piece of art.  I want it to perform when it counts and anything I can do to silence it and reduce vibration/noise, even if it is minimal, works for me.   These Limbsavers do work.  If anyone has seen a slow motion video of a recurve/longbow when shot you will be impressed with the amount of actual movement of the parts.  Looks like a wet spaghetti noodle with all the parts & string moving all over the place.  Limbsavers are very effective at reducing and taming all that movement.  Another benefit that is often overlooked is in the rare event you might accidentally dry fire the bow, these will help save the bow from catastrophic failure by absorbing and dissipating a lot of the excess energy.  That alone could be worth the $12 and "ugly" looks.  ~Steve