Hand shock longbow?

[PlanB]

Nance, just curious what the actual weight of the arrow was, since you said it was light?

Also whether it seemed to you the bow felt like it stacked or not?

[Dances with squirrels]

And you need to know the archer to make a GREAT one... or you and he needs to be really lucky.

[Marc St Louis]

ELB's can have a bit of hand shock with light arrows but it must have been improperly made for it to have that much.  I would suspect the outer limbs were way to stiff.  Lower draw weight longbows should have the outer limbs working more and this can sometime be a challenge with laminated bows of this draw weight

[crooketarrow]

  One limbs either not made the same (limb taper mainly) or one limb finish's before the other. Bad tillering. only other thing is to big, heavy tips or tips not made the same (string angle).

[Nance]

Nance, just curious what the actual weight of the arrow was, since you said it was light?

Also whether it seemed to you the bow felt like it stacked or not?

The arrows were full carbon gold tips with 60 grains arrow heads. I use them for my flatbow and brought them to try the longbow instead of risking damage to the stores arrows.
No, I didn't feel stacking. Drawing it felt smooth. Heavier than I'm used to but I shoot a 30# bow and this was 43#.

I know I'm not a great archer as I have been shooting for less than a year. I have been mucking about with anchor points so I lost some in performance. My target scores are back to 3 and up. Before lengthening draw length (and anchor ) it was 5 and up at 18m

[Del the cat]

The arrows are probably one of the factors. Modern carbons are stupidly light and made for modern target bows which are chasing ever flatter trajectories and higher arrow speeds.
If you had bolted a load of rods and weights onto the longbow it probably would have felt fine!
Most of an arrows weight is in the shaft, not the point. A 400gn arrow may well have been fine, a modern carbon arrow is almost a dry fire!
Del
(I'll sit here and wait to be contradicted )

[mikekeswick]

Gold tip shafts so probably about 300 grains plus point weight?
'Full compass' tiller is a bit of marketing tool - as already said a light weight elb has to have an elliptical tiller. Full compass tiller plus the limb timing being off would be the cause of the handshock - if the maker didn't know that forget any 'reputation' that they have.....its misplaced!
If you still want an elb that shoots nicely (at any draw weight!) with zero handshock and good arrowspeed I can make you one, just send me a PM.

[Nance]

The archery shop has three longbows in stock. The shop is more geared towards recurve and compound bows. The trad ones are extra. The lb's are built by a Dutch bowyer and sold via this store. They have their own store too. Maybe these bows were not as good and they try to sell them via someone else.

Thank you for your generous offer Mike. I've sent you a pm.

[Del the cat]

Out of interest was the core lamination tapered? I see some laminated bows that don't have tapered cores and are left too thick at the tips to avoid removing all the belly lamination at the tips.
Del

[Nance]

I did not really notice any significant taper. But I haven't looked for it either.

[PlanB]

Nance, just curious what the actual weight of the arrow was, since you said it was light?

Also whether it seemed to you the bow felt like it stacked or not?

The arrows were full carbon gold tips with 60 grains arrow heads. I use them for my flatbow and brought them to try the longbow instead of risking damage to the stores arrows.
No, I didn't feel stacking. Drawing it felt smooth. Heavier than I'm used to but I shoot a 30# bow and this was 43#.

I know I'm not a great archer as I have been shooting for less than a year. I have been mucking about with anchor points so I lost some in performance. My target scores are back to 3 and up. Before lengthening draw length (and anchor ) it was 5 and up at 18m

I don't know what length and specific model those gold tip arrows are, but just as a guess I think with the tips they may have been 300-350 grains. total. Not saying the bow wasn't faulty, I bet it was. But using a little heavier arrow might be helpful if you try another bow of heavier weight.

re. accuracy, has anyone checked out your arrows' spine and tip weight for your bow? 60 grains seems quite light unless the arrow is really soft spined for your light weight bow. Also, a real feather fletched traditional arrow of matched spine and weight will probably increase your score -- the lower inside plastic vane tends to kick the arrow on a traditional bow, especially in cold weather when it gets stiff. A plain hard arrow shelf can exaggerate that. This can be demonstrated by shooting off the hand.... or removing that single lower vane for a short distance target.

[bradsmith2010]

a 500 grain arrow will calm the bow down a bit,, 300 is a bit light for a 45# bow,,

[Pat B]

Have you contacted the bowyer about this to see what his take on it is?

[Badger]

If you look at the old pics of elbs from the 1930's you can see that the lighter they are the more whip tillered they appear. Some of the womens bows in the 30# range start to look very whip tillered, as they get heavier the tiller starts moving inward toward the handle. This is how they compensate for needing a minimum width for a comfortable grip. If you made them all full compass tillers and still kept the grip comfortable and the outer limbs from twisting you would wind up with an overbuilt flatbow.

[Nance]

I shoot a 30 pound glass laminate  flatbow. The arrows are warrior gold tips. Spine 700 with feathers and a 60 grains point. My groups are much tighter with these arrows than with my woodies.

The bowyer blames the arrows so next try I will use heavier ones.
In a few weeks there will be a fair so I'm going to use that day for shooting different bows. I did not buy this longbow. I'm glad that an elb is still a viable option for me.