Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Christian Soldier on March 11, 2013, 04:38:45 pm
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I've never bought a bow before. I've made more than a dozen self bows of various designs and I love the way a wood bow 'feels', the looks, and the satisfaction I get out of turning a tree into a powerfull weapon.
Recently I've been looking a lot into takedown bows, espcially the Vista/Samick Sage. Its very well priced and recieves great reviews. AFAIK, its probably a good bit faster than the bows I make too.
Biggest advantages are the speed and takedown element.
But...
I feel like I am almost betraying my primitive roots and cheating on my self bows when I consider buying a glass bow.
:-\
What are your views on buying glass bows?
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FG bows in general, or the specific bow(s) you mentioned? You might perhaps have better luck discussing specific FG bows on alternate forums, like trad gang. As far as FG bows go, I own several, and like them, but I don't discuss them here. We're all about 'au natural' here on PA!
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I wouldn't say you're betraying your roots, you just like archery and want more bows. Who doesn't? I'm with adb, I have some fb bows (even one of them fancy bows with the aluminum riser and carbon limbs) and they shoot great, i just don't shoot them much.
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FG bows don't have individual personalities like all natural material bow. There just another cookie cut from the same mold. Self bows and natural material backed bows, feel alive. The bond between an archer and a all natural material bow made by that archer is a marriage that was made thousands of years ago, and has some how been written into our genetic code. Have you ever met a person that said bows are dumb? I don't think so.
-Pinecone
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There's a reason you feel like you're betraying your primitive roots. Don't do it man! lol >:D
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I own a few glass bows but never shoot them. I prefer selfbows, even the slow ones. Speed doesn't matter if you know the trajectory of your arrow.
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Well the first bow I ever got was a takedown FG recurve the only reason I bought was to help me get into bow building because I was really interested in making my own bows but had never shot a bow before I still have the bow and still plink around with it some times I don't think your are betraying your selfbows just trying something new nothing wrong with that
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FG bows don't have individual personalities like all natural material bow. There just another cookie cut from the same mold. Self bows and natural material backed bows, feel alive. The bond between an archer and a all natural material bow made by that archer is a marriage that was made thousands of years ago, and has some how been written into our genetic code. Have you ever met a person that said bows are dumb? I don't think so.
-Pinecone
I have to disagree with this. Granted I love my self bows, but my high end custom glass bow feels just as natural in my hand. All depends on the bowyer though, just like with self bows. Just my opinion.
Jon
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i have several glass bows.my first was a bear recurve that i got when i was eight years old.i still bow fish with it.i also have a black widow longbow,but most of my bows are character selfbows.
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I love them. Very rarely shoot them though. Each time I grab my Widow or LB and shoot a few arrows I realize just how powerful they are. You forget what kind of punch they pack unitl you veer from it. Its not the speed as much as it is the instant, constant drive they produce. A 55# pound recurve with a 550-600 grain shaft is crazy powerful. I wont say any of my selfbows shoot near it, I would be lying.
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Got several and occasionally purchase one like an old Bear bow for my shooting arsenal. I have no problem with them, i just don't hunt much with them since making all one piece wood bows. i enjoy taking them out and shooting with friends and family.Hunted with one again a couple years ago when I broke my collar bone and had to lower my poundage. Hunt and shoot with whatever type of bow you want as long as you are ENJOYING it.
Tracy
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My standing comment on the two types of bows, primative or fiberglass (compounds don't bow) is that:
Fiberglass is fun but wood is wonderful.
That said I just glued up a fb recurve blank this morning. I am getting the ich to shave some osage soon, though.
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i have seen you fg bows Christopher.that bow your son had was awesome.i also want to say,now that i think of it i have quite a few fg bows.the last one i bought was a big jim thunderchild 54" 54@28.that guy makes an awesome bow.it is beautiful and shoots great.nothing wrong with a few fg bows.that first Bear bow is what sparked my interest in traditional bows and i have never looked back.i love my character bows more than anything,but it don't hurt to have fg bows too.
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I am a competitive person, and I am most competitive with myself. My homemade wooden bows are the pinnacle of difficulty for me. I need to build them well, and then I need to shoot them well.
I have nothing against fiberglass bows, I just feel like I would be taking a step backwards by focusing my attention on them, because I would be lowering the level of difficulty for myself.
I would definitely never hunt with one just because if I got an animal with it, there's a good chance that I could have got it with one of my bows, and that would irk me. Taking a big game animal with one of my bows is the ultimate goal for me, and to think that I may have missed a chance to do that because I chose to lower the difficulty for myself.... it would bother me. That might sound silly, but I just know that's how I'd feel.
I bet there is quite a few guys here who feel the same. To quote the great and wise Red Green: "Its not smart, or correct, but its one of the things that makes us who we are."
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FG bows don't have individual personalities like all natural material bow. There just another cookie cut from the same mold. Self bows and natural material backed bows, feel alive. The bond between an archer and a all natural material bow made by that archer is a marriage that was made thousands of years ago, and has some how been written into our genetic code. Have you ever met a person that said bows are dumb? I don't think so.
-Pinecone
I have to disagree with this. Granted I love my self bows, but my high end custom glass bow feels just as natural in my hand. All depends on the bowyer though, just like with self bows. Just my opinion.
Jon
Not my point at all. If you grabbed another persons fg bow that was the same model. It would be the same. Unlike natural bows where every single one is different.
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Wrong. That's what I'm saying. Depending on who you go through or even make your own, each custom fiberglass bow will be different from the one sitting next to it even if they are the same base model. Custom fibelglass bows are made one by one, just like wooden bows. Granted some models may be made on the same form, but you probably have one main caul where you heat treat your wood bows on. I know I do. But its your opinion so to each his own. ;D
Jon
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For what it's worth if you don't enjoy taking game and target shooting with a bow you made out of tree off of your property or just found in the woods were you hunt have fun. I have a glass bow and actually got it out to shoot it and can't hit a dang thing with it....I have had compounds, glass, and just lately self bows... The reason I started poking around on sites like this is I wanted to buy myself a present for getting through Nursing School but I cannot justify paying money for a bow that only shoots a little faster than my self bows....Plus it is rewarding to shoot a bow you made yourself. ;)
If a simple piece of hickory fed and defended Indians for generations then why would it not be adequate for me? ??? I find the older I get the more I appreciate simple things that come from my hands.
I will be SO happy if I shoot a little Jake this spring with a bow and arrows that I made from materials that are the same as the native Americans. Every part of that turkey will be used to feed, and make more bows and arrows for myself and others I know.
For me it doesn't get better than the attached pict. The tips are a little heavy and it has some jump in the hand but it hits where I point out to 45 yards if I do my job.
Greg
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Anybody that has a Glass bow, preferbrally Bear Kodiaks, and feels like they won't be admitted into the "Happy Hunting Grounds", get in touch with me.
I love huntng with my wood bows but also like my old, glass bows, too, along with the fine, glass bows James Parker makes.
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I love my fg bows! They are smooth and quiet and fast. I love to shoot them. That being said, I love the self bows I have made myself. There is a great deal of satisfaction shooting/hunting with a self bow you make with wood from your hunting grounds. I have made a couple that are smooth - most are quiet - but none are as fast as fg. I will continue to shoot/hunt with both.
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I own a couple of nice fg bows that I use as backup when I am hunting.
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I have 8 or 10 glass recurves,3 widows and 2 BigHorns and at least 3 glass long bow,rarely shoot any of them but sure don't have a problem with anyone that does. :)
Pappy
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I shot and hunted with FG bows for 30 years and really liked them. I still have one that I shoot on a regular basis and have a nice bond with that bow. In my view they are more durable than wood bows and a bit easier to master. That said, I've been seduced by primitive bows and that is where I will stay . . . just something special about a bow you make yourself bridging the distance of time with other bowyers . . .
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I have bought 2 bows for myself in my life time !
One glass recurve and one compound .
I am a hands on ,do it myself person so don't buy much from others !
Any bow you put the time into building for yourself brings a lot of joy and greater heightened sense of oneness !
If you put the time into designing and building your own fiberglass or your own compound and not just copy what has been done before you will have a totally different view of your bow ! And a whole lot of time spent !
Believe Me I have been there done that and don't want the Tshirt !
When we speak of building selfbows we are not really building the bow we are just finding it in the piece of wood ! We remove the rest of the wood to get to it ! More of a treasure hunt than a build !
I am a simple person that likes simple things and when I look around me and see all the bows the good Lord has already grown for us to enjoy ,I see no need to go any farther ,so just enjoy the treasure hunt !
Have fun !!
Guy
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I never intended to build bows when I started on this site but just to learn about
things primitive. Now I have built 24 living bows and have two nearing completion.
Also have 7 built by other PA folks and each of my self/backed bows are special to
me and I can shoot away an afternoon with any of them.
But....as persnickety as most folks are about what constitutes a "primitive" bow their
building process usually includes electricity. Bandsaws, heat guns, table saws etc. For
that matter the internet, shipped staves, store bought string material and so on. The
point is, while I don't think glass bows belong here I feel personally that a bunch of
other stuff that is common and readily accepted here is a long way from primitive in
it's own right.
Check your PM's.
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Hello Christian Soldier. I dont mind talking about fg bows at all, this is the everything else area after all. I started out on fg bows and still shoot a Bear Montana longbow during the hunting season. I know my primitive gear is definitly up to the job but with fg I dont have to worry about humidity, cold etc. Also if buy some stroke of bad luck something happened to it ie falling out of the stand and hitting rocks and it gets damaged it's no big deal. They work just fine and are tough.
As far as not being primitive, consider this, At no time in our histroy has mankind been primitive. We have always strived to use the highest technology of our time.
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But....as persnickety as most folks are about what constitutes a "primitive" bow their
building process usually includes electricity. Bandsaws, heat guns, table saws etc. For
that matter the internet, shipped staves, store bought string material and so on. The
point is, while I don't think glass bows belong here I feel personally that a bunch of
other stuff that is common and readily accepted here is a long way from primitive in
it's own right.
Check your PM's.
I agree with you completely on that Lane. I personally think that we are making our primitive bows with to much of a modern aspect. Some of the works of art on this forum are no longer primitive, but are a modern bow design built from natural materials. Are they works of art? Yes. Are they primitive? No.
Jon
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Thank God for the internet so we can seperate primitive from modern.....whew....
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Thank God for the internet so we can seperate primitive from modern.....whew....
;D ;D
I have only had one FG bow in my life. I got it in the bow swap on TG. I can tell there was a lot of work and craftsmanship that went into making it. I don't shoot it very often but I don't shoot any of my bows very often :-[
I say shoot what you want and who cares what other people think. My selfbow hunting skills are lacking so I have ended up using a compound every season to put meat in my freezer. I sold it this winter and bought a modern crossbow to hunt with. I'm still going to hunt with my selfbows, but if I don't kill anything during the first few weeks of the season, its crossbow time. If anyone wants to look down at me (no short joke intended), go ahead. I'll be in the corner eating a plate of deer roast.
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I like glass, and wood , and horn, etc. Here is the profile I'm building with glass bows. Smooth, fast, and quiet. Thinking of trying all organic material in the form.
Jeff
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. . . just something special about a bow you make yourself bridging the distance of time with other bowyers . . .
Seventeen words in one post to say what I have been trying to communicate in every post I have made since I signed on here. Thanks, Smoke.
Now I have built 24 living bows and have two nearing completion.
That's another excellent quote, it brings up another way of how I demark the difference between primitive archery and other forms. To my mind, these bows are more like a living thing in my hand than they are a tool. I do not want to push MY definitions off on others, because I am just happy fg bow shooters are shooting. For that matter, despite how I rail on training wheelie bows, it's still much fairer chase than multi-thousand dollar optics and high powered mechanisms throwing a projectile 500+ meters at an animal that hasn't been hunted, merely shot.
I'd revel in a yearling whitetail doe shot with a bow made by myself or one of many friends in here over a new world record bull elk tapped out with a .50 cal Barrett at 1200 meters.
And Gun Doc, before you start feeling like I rained on your parade, I really really think it would be fun to play with a Barrett! Just don't be surprised when it is gathering dust while I'm blowing stalks with a stickbow. >:D
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I don't have anything against FG. I just prefer my sticks. There are some beautifully made FG laminates out there to be sure, but I don't know how to make one. I'm also a bit frugal(alright, Mrs. Doc is frugal but I have to answer to her) so I can't bring myself to buy materials to make a fancy bow when I can harvest wood for free to make my simple sticks and miss the target just as much. Although, if any of you folks have any fiberglass tree seeds for trade, I might give it a try if they grow in KS.
JW-at ten to fifteen bucks a shot, shooting a Barrett isn't a very prolonged fun experience. At least its not on my ammo budget. And just for the record, I have never shot at any four-legged critters with a Barrett. Josh
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i shot fg for several years because i just could not stand the sight of those wheels on the end of my brothers bow thing.Then one day i spied the first issue of primitive archer.something about that snake skin backed bow and stone pointed arrow really hit home, and i have been home ever since
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I like glass, and wood , and horn, etc. Here is the profile I'm building with glass bows. Smooth, fast, and quiet. Thinking of trying all organic material in the form.
Jeff
I love that profile, looks very stable. If you ever find yourself in need of a sharp object and an extra lefty laying around let me know. ;)
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My Opinion: My first bow was a brown mat fg bow I got from Herter's when I was 15 years old. That was many many years ago and since that time I have been thru all the stages of bow hunting. While teaching and coaching in Reedsport Oregon, several of my wrestlers and students made fg bows on a form the school had stored in the wood shop. The materials came form Bingham Archery. I susposed in a three year period we made around fifty of these recurve bows not all of which were successful. I hunted with that bow for many years in Oregon and back home on the ranch in Wyoming. I loved that bow. I won a check pool and with that money I bought a Martin Cougar wheel bow. Was surprised at how quickly I became a much better archer, but not a better hunter. Trying to pack that thing on a back country horse back hunt was a real pain. I had one of our PA advertisers build me a "Prong Horn fg" bow. It is my back up bow and carp fishing rig. When I met Mike Hawk Huston and watched him harvest elk with his stick bow my bows became wood and bamboo. I really don't need to kill another elk or deer so hunting has became one of just spending time in the hills buguling elk and hunting sheds. We still eat the meat, so harvesting is necessary. I appreciate everyone's feelings towards the bows they hunt with and realize that we cannot completely be free of some modern tools we use to make these wonderful bows. Pappy says you should "never fall in love with a piece of wood," but I have never been able to do that. Thanks for reading! Joe
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Interesting thread here. Ive always wandered how many of the guys on here still shoot or build fg bows. Like many others over the years I worked my way backwards through the bow lineup from compound to recurve to fg longbow and finally to selfbows. I still have a couple of fg bows hangin on the rack but they rarely ever get shot. If putting meat on the table were number one priority then I would hunt with the most technologically advanced weapon I could, but Im not that concerned with just simply killing deer anymore. I would rather kill a doe with a selfbow than a 140 class buck with a rifle. Not many others in the mainstream, commercialized hunting world share these same views but I guess thats what makes the folks on sites like this a little different and why I enjoy PA so much.
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Pappy says you should "never fall in love with a piece of wood," but I have never been able to do that. Thanks for reading! Joe ] Thats before it's a bow Joe. ;) I am in love with all my selfbows, like a lot would be a better term for my Glass bows. :)
Pappy
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Thanks Guys!
I think I'll go through with it. When I hunt, I'll probably hunt with self bows for the satisfaction/challenge.
But I'll probably by the Sage soon just for target practice and to round out my bow collection a bit.
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i have heard that the sage is a good bow at a good price.
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i have heard that the sage is a good bow at a good price.
Yeah, the reviews are Great. I haven't shot it yet, but from what I've read/heard and seen, the Sage is good bow at an unbeatable/fantastic price.
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I can't help but like fg bows. I've only had the all wood selfbow bug for a little over 10 years but my first bow was an old Pearson wood longbow and that's all I had to shoot until around 1966 when a friend and I used his fg bows to shoot carp along the tail race and canal diverting into the Platte River.
Back in the late 80's and early 90's I stored away a couple old wood riser Bear and Browning compounds and started trying every old recurve that I could lay my hands on.
Beginning around 2000 I had a booth rented in a large antique center and I was buying and selling bows as fast as I could get my hands on them. I started a collection keeping the ones I was partial to and cleaning up or refinishing the others to sell.
Around the time Cabela's was expanding they would come around and purchase everything I had on hand to use on displays in some of the new stores.
Looking back I realize that I sold some of the old Bears and Brownings way cheap. Those were the good old days when you could pick up what are now considered relics for 20 to 30 bucks a pop. Back then the most I ever sold one for was probably 100 bucks and that was high. Most went for around $50-$75.
The past 6-10 years have had me trading and selling everything and trying to learn to make my own and I've still got only a few under my belt but I will admit it's addictive and self fulfilling.
I still have a couple old fg bows hanging on the wall. And I do shoot them occasionally. But a 63 Red Wing Hunter and recent 60 Kodiak were not meant to hang on walls to be ignored
That being said I really do enjoy shooting the ones I've made more. They are more personal to me.
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To me making FG bows is taking the easy route[a recipe involved]even though I don't know how to make them but do have friends who make them for themselves.Love my natural material bows even though they are harder to make without a recipe.More hands on type of work makes it more fulfilling for me.
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Competing in school, everything was about precision. I will always drool over the top-of-the-line carbon limbs for olympic recurve. Modern materials make it so that the only variable is me. If my grouping is larger than a quarter, the only thing to blame is me. This helps me to truly perfect my technique, to become a machine. With the right equipment on an olympic recurve (good sight, v-stabiliser, Soma tab), I can take out poker chips at 18 and even 30m.
But at that point, I'm a robot. Everything is sterile, and it doesn't translate to any real world application.
I shoot a wood/FG lam. recurve, I would like to shoot an old FG longbow my grandad owned, pending repair, and I will soon be buying a Kaya KTB to practice my Gung-do. But beyond that, I won't be buying anything glass until I've gotten bored with the local bow wood choices.
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I've been building BBO bows for 10 years and a few self bows. But I love my old Bear takedown I bought new in 1971.
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At sixty, if it shoots I've shot it.... never really cared what anyone else shot as long as it was legal. Started shooting a glass bow in my childhood and have come full circle back to one as a hunting tool. I'm new to bow building but and have not taken an animal with one but will soon, this I know. I am scheduled for an MRI on both shoulders next month so I may be out of business for good and I will not have a problem using a tool that will keep me in the hunt whatever that might but I'll probably opt out on the Barrett ;) .... I will try to get in one more season before surgery next winter. It would be nice to hunt a bow I built even if only once.......... it will sadden me but what ya gonna do when age comes for you .....
I am a carnivore, and a hunter, by what ever legal means that gets me out in the woods ..............
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To me making FG bows is taking the easy route[a recipe involved]even though I don't know how to make them but do have friends who make them for themselves.Love my natural material bows even though they are harder to make without a recipe.More hands on type of work makes it more fulfilling for me.
easier to repeat, not easier to develop. red oak boards are bent into bows by nearly everyone. not everyone doing fg.
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LOL, this thread reminds me of the Cross Bow and Compound versus Stick Bow threads I used to argue in:) I have mellowed out since those wars. Now I make and shoot what makes me happy and I'm happy for others who make and shoot what makes them happy. I think that's called Democracy, in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives?