"Horn Bow Performance....."...

[Lukasz Nawalny]

I start to prepare to next year flight tournament and last time I chrono my turkish flightbow, 70 lb at 28" , I used arrow only 26" - 225 grain , chrono show around 260 fps - 26 inch 62 lb. And this bow it is realy nothing extreme , is well overbuild. I suppose that very hard tuned bow can shoot arround 300 fps in 70 lb class. hornbows is realy something else then selfbows or wooden laminate, I made work time calculation - I have some experience in hornbows but I need 15 X more time to make hornbow compare to compilcate selfbow. And not always hornbows works

[PatM]

I still don't understand why none of the horn bow guys don't just refine one of their bows. We endlessly hear "Well the bow wasn't optimised for flight and the shooter wasn't experienced with a sipur and the bow got too heavy overnight blah blah blah."

 I understand if you are still in the developmental stages on your first few bows but this line has been thrown out for the last 10 years or so by experts on these bows.

[Lukasz Nawalny]

When hornbow is ready is very hard upgrade it. Problem is in hornbow makers mind - hornbow need a lot of work and each bowyer fear to fail - when you make bow overbuild is much more chance to work in future. There is only one bowyer in this moment who made perfect hornbows, just like in old times - Adam Karpowicz. Traditional flight is very new sport in Europe and we are just not good enough But I dont cry when my flight is not very good, I still work on it and be better in future Im sure

[Badger]

  Patm, I don't think it is excuses you are hearing. To get clean flight from light arrows requires a lot of practice and skill that really has not been developed yet amoung the current crop of flight shooters. Most of us only launch a few arrows per year. If you had someone out there launching a few thousand arrows per year he would certainly report back with some great shots. The bows have the speed to do it, everything just has to be right.

[Badger]

I start to prepare to next year flight tournament and last time I chrono my turkish flightbow, 70 lb at 28" , I used arrow only 26" - 225 grain , chrono show around 260 fps - 26 inch 62 lb. And this bow it is realy nothing extreme , is well overbuild. I suppose that very hard tuned bow can shoot arround 300 fps in 70 lb class. hornbows is realy something else then selfbows or wooden laminate, I made work time calculation - I have some experience in hornbows but I need 15 X more time to make hornbow compare to compilcate selfbow. And not always hornbows works

   At 260 fps with a very clean shot you might see 500 yards, the slightest deviations in flight comming out of the bow could easily leave you short of 300 yards.

[PatM]

When hornbow is ready is very hard upgrade it. Problem is in hornbow makers mind - hornbow need a lot of work and each bowyer fear to fail - when you make bow overbuild is much more chance to work in future. There is only one bowyer in this moment who made perfect hornbows, just like in old times - Adam Karpowicz. Traditional flight is very new sport in Europe and we are just not good enough But I dont cry when my flight is not very good, I still work on it and be better in future Im sure

   None of Adam's  flight specific bows seem to show up there though or some problem pops up that we're not told  about in any detail.

 Or if a flight bow isn't going to make it there then send a "warbow" and take down a broadhead record. That should be doable.
 

[loefflerchuck]

I think Lukasz is right on stating that after so much time spent in the construction and materials of a hornbow, most of us are not willing to test our bows to the point of destruction. 

[Lukasz Nawalny]

Badger, in next tournament I try to go arround 450 yards. I think it is possible go to 500 but I dont shoot thumbring and dont use siper. Now I make new turkish and I take risk go to extreme - I plane draw 60 - 70 lb and mass of bow arround 260 gram , my actual bow mass - 365 gram. New bow is allready glued, now I must wait to dry enough. If this bow not beat some records I will be suprised
Blackhawk - made selfbows 10 years before I start make hornbows and I know that make realy good selfbow is so hard like make good hornbow. Difference is in numbers of effort - I think I start make good selfbows after 100 bows , For this time after 8 years hornbowyery I made maybe 30 bows , maybe Im not very tallented but I feel that I have some way to go. Thats why we have a lot of good selfbow makers and so few good hornbowyer - time is the factor .

[redhawk55]

Good luck, Lukasz, in contrary to most of the hornbowyers you are a man of word and deed: "If this bow not beat some records I will be suprised". 260gram vs. 365gram is a lot!

I don't think a wooden flightbow is less work than a hornbow, I would state a wooden flightbow is much more delicious in tillering than a hornbow. Drying time could not be counted in.
Michael

[sumpitan]

Steve has it right.

Flight world records shot in the U.S. in the 1930's reached just shy of 490 yards, with wood bows shot without overdraws, releases or synthetics anywhere in the setup. Linen strings, full-length douglas fir shafts etc. Recent primitive flight shooters and bowyers have advanced various explanations for the reason they can't get there, ranging from "they made bows that didn't last" or "they changed the rules", but these don't hold water.

Top flight shooters of the pre-WWII era built flight arrows by the hundreds and shot and tuned them constantly. Shooting technique was also worked on, incessantly. Having built and tested 100 top-notch flight arrows, there always was the one arrow that shot farther than any other. This was the arrow to go for a record with. Plenty of evidence with our present efforts on how changing just the arrow for a better one can instantly give 50 yards or more of range, and make an old workhorse bow shoot 300 yards.

One factor in favor of the old times was that wooden bows and arrows were all there was, then. Every champion archer and crafty wannabe used wood. Nowadays wood-based archery is a quaint niche compared to the fiberglass and compound dominant archery culture and the talent pool is similarly divided.

Tuukka

[PatM]

Didn't they even go beyond that? Not even counting the half mile footbow shots.

[Badger]

  Tukka, a good examle of this is Allen Cases daughter, she shot a 35# self bow this year and reached 328 yards. She probably was shooting it at around 32#. She has good form and shot a good arrow. Her other arrows were about 40 yards behind the winning arrow, this is what I was talking about. 50# bows have more than enough speed to hit the 400 plus mark.

[sumpitan]

Starting by the late '30's, overdraws and releases, and the first bits of plastic, found their way into flight gear. By 1945, 541 yards was shot with a hand-held wood bow and around 800 yards with a wooden footbow. The present-day primitive self rules would rule these out, so I left them out. Personally, I find both foot-bows and flight releases a little too gimmicky to pay too much attention to. But reaching close to 500 with finger-drawn wood is still way out there, from our perspective.

Tuukka

[Badger]

        From what I understand they were also using forgewood with some of those record breaking shots, much stiffer and denser arrows.

[sumpitan]

Forgewood was developed by Sweetland not until 1947, so it post-dates the use of wood-only bows in flight competition.

Tuukka