Composite/ wood bow comparisons

Fenris · Post by **Fenris** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:16 pm

As I guessed: Quite a few hits within a short time

.
Anyway, to make a reasonable comparison between the both types you should define the test conditions. I think that the tests in Adams book can be taken as a good example:
- take a certain bow (Holmegaard)
- take a certain draw length (28")
- calculate the potential energy as given from the F-D-curve of the bow at 28"
- shoot the bow through a chrono an calc. the kin. energy of the arrow
- put both in relation and you got the efficiency
- now you can vary the arrow weight or the draw length (only once at a time) and put it all together in a diagram (that would be 3 D).
You can get the efficiency related to the arrow weight, maybe further on to the draw lenght and so on. That would be a great overview about the topic. I think as a result of numerous tests there will be no simple conclusion anyway: composite or selfbow!? As it's been already posted by others, the decission always depends on the preferences/possibilities of the archer himself.

Kevin

redhawk · Post by **redhawk** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 8:32 am

Why standardize?
Efficiency does not match at all the qualities of a bow. Best drawlength for flightshots seems to be 23", the high-speed of short bows shot with light arrows is somehow ignored in the efficiency- term. F.e. the short bow casts an arrow(190grs.) with 210f/s, efficiency is about 40- 50%. What?s that?? I know why it is like that. In this case efficiency is not telling the truth.
I guess we need additional criteria for to really rate a bow.

Patrick, I was always wondering how an army equipped with hornbows has ever won any battle. You know, a bit of humidity, a small rain, increasing temperature, tiny airflows, insects, even mice and dogs like hornbows, I know guys chewing sinew, bracing a hornbow seems to be a the ultimate near- death- experience...........I better stop now, cause I think I?m the first candidate to be banned here.

Please hornbowyers, I really appreciate your work, but don?t be so vain, hornbows are just bows..........
Michael

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:02 am

Of course they are just bows

"the short bow casts an arrow(190grs.) with 210f/s, efficiency is about 40- 50%. What?s that?"
Low

but normal. Suppose it was 70%, guess how fast the arrow would go? Maybe 280 fps, not bad

Same bow but with a stored energy 1.2x shoots the same arrow faster. Thats why a hornbow

you got more energy stored.
Efficiency is what make a bow shot fast. Till the limit were the limbs can't go faster, but we are not there yet

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:19 am

Yep, I did put the boe outdoor over night, it's have 10 gram more mass today, should bee water

Now I must make a point and a nock for the arrow, the old is somwere in the bush.
A 5mm Beman carbon arrow did split last time I shout it

can't take the power of 70 lb bow

A wood arrow will be 350 grains but I want go down to 200 grains with my draw 26 " 350 may do 230fps. But I like to know what 200 gives.

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:47 am

Done

Started with few inch draw 250 grains cedar, 134, few inch more, 161, few inch more, 218. And the arrow did break in 3 pieces.
Well, a night outdoor and no crack sounds

How do I make an arrow for 26" draw 200 grains? Not a 23" with siper.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:44 pm

Just to add something to what Adam said about Jaap and I shooting in Utah: we were shooting as well as we could on the day and none of the composite bows we have been shooting are not optimised for flight. Shooting with a siper requires complete mastery of the bow for it to be effective. I have only ever shot one really effective arrow with a siper at Bonneville and that was with a 60 lb bow made by Edward McEwen and it wasn't in the contest. The bow of Adam's I recently used is now outside my capacity these days and as he pointed out it is not a flight bow. Plus it has an alarming habit of getting even stronger in the Utah climate. Jaap's bows were all experiments not intended for flight. In my case, I only have two shootable composite bows and I don't want to break them by pushing them to the limit yet. Only one is suitable to use with a siper and it is not designed for flight. We haven't tried a lot of different bows so it is a slow process, but we are out there trying.

I shot one of Jaap's bows last year and it was not one I had ever shot before and, when we weighed it, it was stronger than usual. (It was a good year for bows jumping up ten to fifteen pounds.) I admit I worry with composite bows I am not used to since I have had several string breakages and twists that resulted in the string coming off the bow on my bows so I don't want to break someone else's. I stood next to Marlon Torres when a 135 lb American longbow exploded after a slight over draw. I have had a Turkish bow break into three pieces at full draw in my hand and draw blood on me and a bystander. (It wasn't my bow so it was even worse than breaking one of my own.)

The attitude and the skill of the archer have an effect on how much they can get out off any given bow. I believe that the bows Adam has been recently making could, in the hands of a stronger archer than me, replicate some of the Turkish flight shots of the past. I am sure that his war bows would also prove very effective. One of the things that I do wrong is use much heavier arrows than the original arrows I have owned and others I have tested. I do this because I am scared of what will happen when an arrow breaks just as it leaves the bow since I have had that happen with a siper and part of the arrow shot the buckle off my wristwatch.

Flight shooting breaks bows and arrows. I have dozens of pictures of arrows and bowstrings breaking at flight shooting meets. People like Steve Gardner can be both good bowyers and excellent flight shooters. I have watched him destroy many strings and a few bows. He pushed his bows to the limit as many flight shooters do. And he carefully analysed what was happening. This is not something that you can compare to shooting in battle. The requirements are different, the constraints are different and the mindset of the archer is different.

Wooden bow makers definitely have an advantage in the modern world. We understand the concept of prototypes. We know how to analyse performance. Wooden bows can be made rapidly compared to composite bows so it is natural that in the modern world greater progress is being made in wooden bow design than composite bow design. The point in time we are in is the one were great progress has been made with wooden bows, but it is a mistake to think the performance of composite bows today is as good as it gets. People like Adam and other bowyers have solved many of the technical problems of making effective composite bows, but with such a small pool of bowyers and archers in the field it is hard to get the right bow and the right archer in the right place. There is still research to do. Arrows and bowstrings are one area. Siper design and technique is another.

I think that the bowyers of today and the archers will eventually equal and probably exceed the old records. With our different viewpoints to the archers of the past we will find out what the limits of old designs were. I think that has already been done with long bows and flat bows even if the ultimate bows have not been built yet. But that knowledge will only gives us the constraints which limit performance; it will tell us what people might have done. It cannot tell us what they did. People, the weather and motivation would have more effect than whether an arrow goes another fifty metres.

I think the bowyers are leading the way. It is up to the archers to catch up, build up their strength and improve their technique.

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:31 pm

"I think the bowyers are leading the way. It is up to the archers to catch up, build up their strength and improve their technique."
Tru, I can only shot in meters the speed of arrow. 200fps and I shot 200 meter.
Ones I did a 300+ shot but did not find the arrow. My boy find it after a year in the bush so it did maybe 330m. 280 is longest distance that I could verify.

Patrick Menzies · Post by **Patrick Menzies** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:36 pm

I agree with all this but it merely confirms my thoughts on present day comparisons.
I just tire of the rather blunt statement often heard that a composite is superior merely because it "has" to be because of all its perceived advantages.
I understand that the bows by Adam and Jaap were not optimised for flight but neither are self bows I have made that well exceeded 300 with no tweaks of bow or arrow.
Even if they are not optimised for flight should those bows made by our present master composite bowmakers be quite superior to bow made by guys that have just done their woodbow homework?

Justin Ma · Post by **Justin Ma** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:24 pm

Fair to say the sub-optimal comparison is partly a result of the composite-shooting community (and the corresponding Asiatic archery community) being small. It hasn't reached the level of development that the wood bow shooting community has.

I'm doing my part to develop my strength and technique, but most people in mainland China consider pulling 60# to be "godly" strength. Lack of strength training regimen is one problem. Another problem is technique: I see some people in mainland China advocating having their bow shoulder/arm joint bent, or bending their bow elbows, all of which isn't conducive to using your skeleton to support the weight of the draw. Since it's a developing community, there's a ways to go in terms of getting a group of people capable of pulling military-weight bows.

Adam Karpowicz · Post by **Adam Karpowicz** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:53 pm

Given the problems we are facing (well said Bede), I believe there are three options I am presently pursuing:

1. Shoot bows for distance with a machine. I have one nearly made and hopefully ready by spring. It will shoot any bow up to 200lb.

2. Send bows to non-thumbring shooters, which will give us the cast of a bow. I have talked to Marlon about this. The problem I see is that an archer, who is not familiar with hornbows, will not have the skill to string and adjust the bow before competition.

3. Make a good bow and send it to someone who should have the dedication to train with the siper. I have done it, but there have been problems on the way (still do not know what will come out of this).

Adam

Gokmen · Post by **Gokmen** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:23 pm

''3. Make a good bow and send it to someone who should have the dedication to train with the siper. I have done it, but there have been problems on the way (still do not know what will come out of this)''

well I guess I am one of these guys, or maybe 'the' guy.
-I continue practicing like crazy for strength which takes up an enormous part of my week.
-I also practice with siper, however it is not easy at all because the whole technique is too much different. E.g. just recently I had a new insight: in the old archery treatise they say to put your chin on your shoulder firmly. I couldnt figure out why and didnt follow it. Now I found out why, it is to put your bow arm and arrow in nearly one line so the arrow is the same angle as the siper. But in this technique combined with the cenk-baz grip the use of muscles and the pressure on limbs is much different/more difficult and I have to adapt. No English warbow archer could do that, and I slowly get used to it.

I still didnt get a chance to try Adam's bow as I moved to Ireland in the meantime and the bow was sent to Turkey. I will fly over and try it though as soon as the temperature gets warmer there, at the moment it is freezing. I will still have to learn how to string and look after it and a flight bow is not easy thing.

btw, I really feel that some comments are ridiculous. I recommend everybody to learn Turkish and Ottoman Turkish and read the old original treatises and e.g. the archery pillars at the Okmeydan in Istanbul. Some guys did still not grasp what the Ottomans achieved centuries ago. Read e.g. Kavsname, or Telhis or T?rk Kemankeşleri and please see the original equipment in the military museum Istanbul. Flight shooting is far more sophisticated than some people think.

http://www.atli-okculuk.com/p/literatur.html

G?kmen

Justin Ma · Post by **Justin Ma** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:33 pm

Gokmen wrote:But in this technique combined with the cenk-baz grip the use of muscles and the pressure on limbs is much different/more difficult and I have to adapt.

"cenk-baz" is the wrist-forward grip? (same as falcon's talon / oblique grip / FITA high grip?) if so, then yeah, that's hard to do with very high poundage bows. it would be a tremendous adjustment for anyone who's used to shooting with the square grip / full grip / FITA low grip (with the wrist up).

Orda Khan · Post by **Orda Khan** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:26 pm

I do not understand the fixation with what bow was best, try as we might we will never make these bows in the same manner ... and who really cares?
Historically, both self and horn bows have made their name, we should wonder at that, it is far less stressful.

Michael,
The fact still remains, hornbow armies from various cultures certainly left their mark. Was it the bow? It was either that ... or witchcraft ... or some other excuse to explain crushing defeats.

Crushing defeats are usually the result of tactical skill and strategy and I'd argue it was this rather than any super weapon that accounts for successes like Agincourt, Crecy, Kalka River and Leignitz.

Redhorse · Post by **Redhorse** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:16 pm

What draw weights are you talking about?

Patrick Menzies · Post by **Patrick Menzies** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:47 pm

I care. I like competition. The more lopsideed it is perceived to be, the more I like it.
Keep in mind the legendary records were supposedly set before the advent of the sipur so I wouldn't think mastery of the sipur is going to work too much magic.
If we are going to use sipur aided composites for a benchmark, then the overdraw will have to go on the selfbows or all wood composites.