bighorn sheep horn bow

[loefflerchuck]

An artist in South Dakota named Chris Ravenshead had enough faith in me to send a $600 set of horns for me to try to make my first horn bow with. Thanks to everyone who has made and written about there experiences with these bows I was able to pull it off. The horns were 29 and 32" along the curve but had a bit of bug damage inside and some weathering outside. I played around with a few ideas before I flipped one horn upside down to join with the other horn with a 3.5" lap splice held together with 3 horn pegs. I added 9 layers of sinew, let it season for only about a month before I started to bend the bow. Over many sessions and a couple months of tillering and tweaking with mostly heat I got this bow. Having to remove so much damaged horn to get clean strips, the bow pulls 44# at 23". I would have liked to get a higher draw but it is still a good shooter. I made a set of dogwood arrows from the narrowest shafts I thought I could use. They all weighed within 3/10 of a gram before adding the points. They shoot extremely strait and accurate from this bow. I was only able to get the arrow speed between 138 and 144 fps. The weight of these bows are quite heavy as to slow the arrow speed a bit. I have 4 more in the works that will be finished in the next 12 months or so. You really do need to take your time with these bows. Also messing up on horns over $500 is not an option.
Just under 38" ntn. 44# @ 23". I am making 23" full draw even though I think it has more bend in it. I'm not willing to test it more.
Thanks for looking
Chuck

[loefflerchuck]

pics. String by the way is 3 ply sinew

[tattoo dave]

That's awesome Chuck!! Nice work! I've been wanting to make a horn bow some time now. Maybe one of these days I'll get the guts to give it a go.

Tattoo Dave

[Arrowind]

AWESOME!!!

[Badly Bent]

Very nice indeed. Must have a high level of skill and a great deal of patience to pull that off I would think. That is a build to be proud of for sure. Love the arrows also, they fit the bow perfectly. Very impressive work.
Greg

[Weylin]

Wow! Nice work, Chuck! That's really cool. I would have been paralyzed with fear to cut those beauties up. That is some serious bend, for sure.

[KellyG]

Now that is just cool! I have would love to try a horn bow someday myself. Great job.

[TRACY]

Heck of a challenge! Congratulations on your success with the bow and the beautiful dogwoods to match!

Tracy

[raghorns]

That is very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[mullet]

That is really cool, Chuck. I've got one horn that is 28' long that keeps shouting at me when I go in the shop. What is the string made from?

[loefflerchuck]

Thanks everybody. Mullet, there are 2 strings in these pictures. The nylon tillering string and the 3 ply elk leg sinew string in the finished pictures

[coaster500]

Great work all around !!

[mullet]

 I thought that might be sinew when I saw the fibres sticking out. Makes it double sweet!

[Carson (CMB)]

That is awesome.  Looking at that unbraced pic, I have to think that was a tough one to tiller, but it looks like you nailed it.  I hope you hit your heavier target draw weights on the next attempts.  It will be interesting to see how those perform.  BTW, hat do you use for glue between the horn and the initial layer of sinew?

[Jodocus]

Watch it, that arrowhead's gonna cut your finger

That is one awsome little piece of horn, crazy. But in the first pic that looks like way more than 23" of draw, no?

They shoot extremely strait and accurate from this bow.

That is really what it is all about and not what I would have expected from a bow like this one. Anyway, very nice work, must have been a real challenge.