Tested a couple of Marks Bows.

[Badger]

  Tested a couple of Mark St Louis bows today. Shot out of a shooting machine at exactly 28" draw, bows had 10 strand fast flight strings, both bows shot at 10 grains per pound

Self bow recurve 52#@28"   179 fps   elm

Backed recurve bow, 46#@28"  188 fps, ( I believe this is ash backed hornbeam) Mark please edit this if I am wrong.

 I think these two bows are a good place to start keeping records as they will be hard to beat. , we are going to start keeping some records on this at a dedicated records sight. At present this puts mark in the lead for both self bow and backed bows. All challengers welcome ( myself included) Steve

[Marc St Louis]

Steve
The self bow is Elm.  Not the best example but good enough.  The backed bow is Ash backed HHB

[Badger]

Mark, you hear a lot of reports of self bows doing over 180 fps but once strictly tested I haven't seen any yet. The difference between these two bows backed and unbacked is pretty typical for otherwise identical style bows. I took them to full draw several times before testing and all 5 test shots were virtualy identical , no sign of dropping off at all. Steve

[Pat B]

Steve, this is gonna be interesting seeing how wood bows actually perform. Having a standard draw length from a static machine will  really level the playing field.
  Excellent numbers, Marc...but I'm not surprised.

[Marc St Louis]

These tests are not restricted to the higher performance designs like R/D bows and recurves but open to all bows.  This is to see what can be had from optimized bows of all types so people feel free to participate.  I may make another self recurve in the future and submit it for testing, I know the numbers for that class can be easily beaten.

[1/2primitive]

This could be fun.
I'll be following.
     Sean

[knightd]

Badger are we to send the test bows to you? If so send me your addy in a PM..

David

[John K]

Good question David.

[Marc St Louis]

Steve is the one doing the testing

[hedgeapple]

Badger, what a great idea.  I'm going to watch this post.  Thanks for your hard work.

[Timo]

So Steve...Just how big of a mail box do you have? Gonna keep the mail man busy I think.

Good on ya for doing this.

[ibex]

 I'm reluctant to pitch in here due to my past (and at times current) affiliation with the dark side of synthetic bow testing, but I'll do it anyway. I'm convinced that "Any" durable hunting bow (of any material) that will shoot a 28" long hunting arrow weighing 10 GPP, 180 or more FPS is a very fast bow indeed. Having the opportunity to hunt with Steve's and Marc's bows, I've all but put away my synthetic bows. Steve

[Badger]

Going to spend the next month doing a move and a bit of remodeling, about the 1 st of september should be able to start doing some testing again. Going to include all different classes seperately and have a misc section for any creative odd ball stuff. Steve

[JackCrafty]

Awesome....I likes data...