Just found this thread and wanted to chime in. I was the guy DocNoc was referring to. Kirk had given me his name as someone who was close to me that had one of his longbows. Doc was kind enough to extend an invitation and I gladly accepted.
The first thing I noticed in handling Doc's bow was how thin in cross section the limbs were. They were literally half the thickness of my bow and mine is 3 lbs. heavier at the same draw length. The bow I was comparing it to is a fairly radical R/D longbow made by a well know bowyer who's been making bows as long as I've been alive so it's no tool shed creation. Kirk's grip was great and very comfortable and I found it near impossible to grip it differently each time. My hand just slid into the sweet spot every time which not every bow can duplicate. Now it was time to shoot. Doc handed me his arrows and we started at around 15 yards. It drew extremely smoothly and put 'em right where I was looking. We moved back to 20 and I was really enjoying how the bow handled but to be perfectly honest, wasn't blown away by the trajectory. It was no dog, don't get me wrong, but after everything I had read I was expecting near wheelie bow like speed. (That may be a stretch but the performance of Kirk's bows is kind of legendary on this site.) I mentioned this to Doc and he suggested I shoot his arrows with my bow. Doc wasn't exactly correct when he said they were hitting 6" lower out of my bow, it was closer to 8" or 9"! I don't know how stinkin' heavy Doc's arrows are but they had the rainbow arc coming out of my bow. Now I'm just depressed! I thought I had a decent performing bow in my stable and it just got blown away! Picked up Doc's bow again and those logs he shoots flew just as flat as can be. Keep in mind the Sasquatch is 3lb lighter at 28" than mine. I was impressed to say the least.
I really wanted to shoot a Flatliner and Kirk had also provided the name of a fellow in NY that had such a bow. I gave him a call and found that he was about 6 hours from me. Now I love shooting new bows but a 6 hour drive is a bit much for my taste but fortunately he was headed to Denton Hill as was I so we made arrangements to meet. Very different bow style but I found the grip to suit me just as well. The draw was a bit different than the Sasquatch but still very smooth. At about 15 yards, the first three shots were dead center bulls-eye. Just as impressive, the much improved cast of that bow with my arrows was visibly noticeable at just 15 yards. To say I was impressed was an understatement. Like I said, I love shooting all kinds of stick bows and normally find a few at the Denton Hill shoot that catch my eye. And every time I shot them, no matter who made them, I left with a feeling of, "Well it shot nice, but not really any better than mine so why spend the money". Not this time. The week after Denton Hill, I had my order placed with Kirk for a Flatliner. Kirk told me I'm coming up on the list and I may see my bow as soon as mid December. Can't wait!
Anyway, the point to this rambling is I've been shooting traditional equipment for over 20 years now and Kirk's bows have been the only ones I've found that blew me away. I've shot some bows that were very nice, shot well, etc., but was NEVER as impressed as I was with Kirk's. If you're on the fence, find one, shoot one and you'll be buying one.
Topic: First post on tradgang and a call from kirk lavender (Read 1460 times)
