I see questions asked a lot about what type of bow has the best performance. Having been asked that myself, I can't honestly answer and here's why. While I've made lots of bows of all kinds, they all vary in wood species, draw weight, draw length, and dimensions. Because of this, there are too many variables for me to judge on design alone. What I propose is some self experimentation to anyone who's interested, including me. Get a tree that can easily yield (at least) 4 identical staves, and make four bows of different designs at the same draw weight, draw length, and overall length and compare them. I think the three given designs would be a D bow, a pyramid bow, and a bow with a parallel limb width for an elliptically tillered bow. The fourth could be a molly, holmegaard, or some other type of straight stave design. What is most important for this will be keeping the variables to a minimum. The given standards would be length, draw weight, and draw length, but I think handle length and tip width should be included as well. Also building techniques such as heat treating would mean adding the same amount of reflex to each bow. My understanding of bow design and performance leads me to believe that any well designed bow will have similar performance although advanced designs like the andamann/holmegaard design will edge out others in efficiency. I think it would be interesting to see how this would turn out for me as well as anyone else who would try. Food for thought and a good excuse to make 4 bows!
