Temperature and bows

[George Tsoukalas]

I've shot from -5 to 95 F and my bows seem do get stiffer in the cold. Cold or hot I let them acclimate for 5-10 minutes before shooting. I don't keep bows in a hot car either.

Of course humidity is to be avoided especially with hickory so my hickory bow to be is in AC where I should be now rather than on my porch drinking my morning coffee. Temps are expected to be close to 100 F today. I'll tell you this- I'm staying in my house which has central AC and I'm not going out to shoot. Jawge

[Joec123able]

Well thanks to those who answered the question I learned some from it. Those who said it was a negligent or common sense question well I have nothing to say

[PEARL DRUMS]

Nothing has been proven yet.

[lad]

After a morning elk bull hunt I laid my bow and wet coat down in the yard.  Bright sunny morning and really thought nothing of the damage that could be done.  After lunch I came out to put my gear away.  One of my limbs on my take down was delaminated. Beware the heat of the sun it will do your gear under.

[Slackbunny]

I'd do the test myself if I had a chronograph.   Gotta get me one of those!

[JW_Halverson]

My sinew backed osage bow was "theoretically" a slug in warm weather, so I ran a few tests years back when I first bought a chronograph. 

To test, I left the bow overnight in the vehicle when overnight lows were around 20 degreef F.  I shot a couple strings of arrows thru it and found that around the 10th arrow I was getting a slightly slower arrow, about 5 fps slower.  Several weeks later, I am shooting the same bow that has been kept warm in the house at 70 degrees.  Virtually the same speeds, with very minor variation that could easily enough be attributed to sloppy releases.  But the bow began to lose those few fps sooner...like the 5th shot!

I repeated the experiment several times at different temps but dropped the whole thing and threw out the records when I realized I was not getting any significant variation.  YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.

Take all this with a grain of salt because it was late winter and humidity levels were almost zero here in the west during the whole time I was running the tests.  If I pull out that bow today after a month of heat and humidity, I gar-ann-tee it will be like shooting pool with a well worn old rope.

And then there was the guy that told me that I needed to shoot only left feather fletching in the Northern Hemisphere because of the Coriolis Effect, right fletches in the Southern Hemi.  Hehe, yeah, and I always remember to correct for the rotation of the Earth and lead my targets!

[SLIMBOB]

So that's been my problem with accuracy.  I didn't account for the Coriolis Effect.  Shoulda known.

[twisted hickory]

In February I had my snake skin backed hickory bow weigh in at 55.46 @ 27 inches. As of yesterday it is 49 lbs @ 27 inches. In February it sat in my mud room where there is a wood stove so MC content was low now the bow is sluggish. It will still kill a deer no doubt but it has slowed some. In April the bow had 1/2 inch of string follow. The bow has 1.50 of string follow now. In april the bow would cast a 540 grain arrow 189 yards. Last month I used the same arrow and could only get 168 yards. So temperature I don't think would affect cast but temp and humidity affects quite a bit.
Greg.

[JW_Halverson]

See what they been saying for years is true...it ain't the heat it's the HUMIDITY!

[Thesquirrelslinger]

wouldn't heat help force moisture into the wood?

[TacticalFate]

Nothing "forces" anything, its just that warm air can hold more moisture that your bow can suck up. Heat by itself would dry the bow out, as we see with heat-treating/bending

[Joec123able]

So then what effect does moisture have on a bow that's well sealed up ?

[JW_Halverson]

So then what effect does moisture have on a bow that's well sealed up ?

Unless hermetically sealed in glass, a wood bow will find a way to absorb moisture from the air (or from direct contact.  The better your finish, the longer it will take for the bow to take up that moisture.  BUT once the moisture is in, the finish will trap the moisture and make it difficult for the bow to lose the moisture. 

Some woods are less prone to be bothered with moisture, osage being one.  But hickory LOOOOVES moisture and is loathe to give it back once absorbed.  Some say that is why early 20th century bowyers considered hickory to be one of the poorest bow woods, an opinion that has changed now that people know how to keep a bow in a dry situation. 

[SLIMBOB]

For the purposes of this discussion, you can't seal out moisture, you can only slow the uptake.  The wood is going to seek an equilibrium with it's environment over time.  A good sealer will slow the uptake, but over time the wood will take on moisture in a humid environment.  Conversely, a sealer will slow the woods ability to dry out once it has taken on moisture.