Well, come September, i'll be chasing the ever elusive bull elk in the Colorado rockies. I have been shooting a glass longbow I built a couple years ago but man, something in me just really wants to take a self bow in a bad way. I've just been concerned that in order to get the performance that I'll be confident will take down an elk, I would have to build a #70 plus bow lol...but I've decided to give the bow a go and we shall she how she shoots and maybe some on here that have shot elk with selfbows will let me know if it will get the job done. So...here goes:
I traded a pair of osage slats for this osage stave. It's pretty clean..just a couple pin knot clusters but the grain is pretty straight. The stave itself is twisted some so I'll have to straighten but that's ok as I will be putting some curve out at the tips anyway to get the performance up. I've drawn it 66" T2T...1.25" wide at the flares to midlimb and then straight taper to 1/2" nocks. Standard 4" handle section with 2" flares. I'm shooting for somewhere around #60@28. I would rather be a little north of that than south but I could live with #55 if I had to. I'm really excited about working this bow. I haven't built a self bow in probably 5+ years as I"ve been doing glass stuff. Let me know what you think with the layout.
