Long bow

[oldfarmsblueman]

My son asked me a question I had no answer for.He is
thinking of getting a long bow.He remembers my 47# browning
re curve and was wondering if a long bow is as hard
to pull as a short re curve of the same poundage.?

[jlc]

All my longbows and recurves are around 50 lbs at my draw.

after shooting my longbows and shorter recurves for months I took out my longer recurve (62" martin hunter)

It felt like it actually had a letoff.

Reason is..the shorter recurves and my longbows have around 4-5 lbs per inch. the hunter is around 3 per inch.

Jack

[smj]

Pounds to be pulled, are pounds to be pulled. A recurve or longbow will not have any kind of let-off, obviously, yet some bows will feel more smooth than others. Of course, this is all the opinion of the person drawing the bow back, too! Still, length of draw, poundage, limb design - all go in to how the bow feels when you draw it back. The best bow, in either case, is the one that draws back smoothly and does not stack, or gain differently in draw weight per inch drawn, for the person doing the shooting.

In general, I find short length recurves or longbows a bit harsh - they pinch my fingers a lot and most of the time stack on me. But then, I have a 31.5 inch draw length. Most bows, it seems, are designed for a 28" draw length. My personal feeling is that a longer bow pulls more smoothly, I really like longbows, but my take on it all is tainted by my long draw length. That said, another factor in how a bow feels when drawn is the working tiller of the bow. By this, I mean the flex of the limbs through out the draw - where the limb does its work. If all the bend is in one section of the limb, it will shoot just fine but feel much differently than a bow that has a distributed flex all along the limb through the entire draw. Some bows have modified flex in an attempt to gain speed, short recurves are speed designs, with smaller working sections of the limb. For me, the shorter bow does give more pinch and the angle on of the string on the fingers changes a lot. I find that this adds greatly to the feeling of "hard to pull" - where as a longer bow that does not have that same pinch feels a lot easier to pull. I think this is because my fingers are less disturbed when I draw the bow. My fingers are not all bunched on top of each other, unlike when pinched together, and I can maintain my grip on the string better. This allows my hand to be in the best position for strength when drawing, which makes a difference on how hard the bow feels to draw back for a given draw weight.

Now, how this all relates to your son - I really can not say without seeing both him and the bow at the range... I don't think you live in Colorado... So it probably won't happen! Hence, the next best option would be to find a longbow that he can try and see how it feels for him. Also note, if it has been a few years since he shot the recurve - he might just be a bit stronger than before, too. Hence, he might want to shoot a few rounds before making a purchase anyway!

[oldfarmsblueman]

SMJ -- Thanks I'll pass on the info to my son

[smj]

Here is another source on this - Jay Kidwell, in his book "Instinctive Archery Insights" states that once he had a 56 pound draw recurve. He never felt comfortable with the bow. It was short, long riser, very stiff looking limbs. He could never shoot that bow right, was never comfortable with it. He switched to a longer bow with sweeping limbs and a compact riser - it was 62 pounds at the same draw length. The longer bow felt easier to draw - he chalks it up to mental games in his head - states that he never felt comfortable with the shorter, stiff looking bow. While the second bow spoke to him with its long sweeping design. Jay says that it is about feeling comfortable with the gear you shoot. If you are not comfortable with it, you will fight it mentally and never perform well with it... Page 26 of the book for those of you who might wish to look it up!