self,backed bows,wich is fastest?

[bushboy]

I have a number of each,but I would give the edge to my bamboo back ones ,for speed and flat flight! I don't own a crony but the mother nature f/g seems faster.having never made a sinew backed bow I can't comment on that.

[coaster500]

Probably a whole lot of factors involved here.... bow design, tiller, ect but my fastest wood so far has been Hackberry. Stuff is super light and fast.

[mikekeswick]

The only way to tell would be to have a super optimised bow from each catagory made to exactly the same percentage of maximum stress. Shot with strings and arrows matched to the same degree...................
The best bow is the one you have the most fun with.

[Pat B]

a .243!  ...but who cares.     If you know your arrow's trajectory even an arrow traveling at 130fps will penetrate the chest of a deer if it is properly tuned to the bow and the shooter and has a good physical weight and a scary sharp broadhead. The deer is faster than the few FPS difference between 130 and 170fps at 20 to 30 yards.

[bushboy]

Yeah pat,I'm mainly a target shooter due to the fact that finding time to hunt is difficult!I shoot out to 4o yards sometimes so flat arrow flight is importantin regards to FPS.but I am guilty of being a little over scientfic!

[Rufledt]

Fastest bow (not chrono tested but clearly shot fastest) I've made was backed, but i bet it's because of shape, not the backing.  Comparing to a similar backed bow I made some years ago (both 55#, both 72" bows, 2" wide at handle to mid limb, 6" stiff skinny tips, 6" stiff handle, hickory backed, trapped) the new one shoots noticeably faster.  The new one holds a little over 1" just unstrung reflex, the other about 1 1/4" just unbraced set. 

I'll agree with mikekeswick, the best bow is the one you have the most fun with. 

[seabass]

i am with Mike,it is the one you have fun with.

[Weylin]

Clearly, if there was a clear difference then we'd have a clear answer.  In the end one might be a hair faster than the other if they could even come up with a way to determine that objectively but since they're all in the same ballpark and probably identical to the naked eye (or the dead deer) I'm not going to worry too much about it.

[bushboy]

Ok my bad,my thinking was for example is a perry reflex bow equalled to a self bow.

[Buckeye Guy]

The one you do the best job on !!
Have fun !
Guy

[Pat B]

I don't think you can compare a selfbow to a bamboo backed Perry reflex bow. The Perry reflex was popularized by Dan Perry, a flight shooter so he could get every bit of energy out of a backed bow. Distance is Dan's game. Some of his bows were so tweeked they might only shoot a few arrows before failing...but those few arrows went a very long distance. 
 In theory I'd say the Perry reflex would be faster than the selfbow but a Perry reflexed bow I built still wouldn't stand a chance against one of Marc St Louis' heat treated whitewood selfbow static recurves. There are too many variables to make an educated guess.

[ionicmuffin]

if you were to craft a bow with bamboo and then osage, you would be maximizing the performance from the compression and the tension. I would imagine this kind of bow, if tillered perfectly, having "perfect" dimensions, would wind up faster than say an osage self bow. however, i do think that theres something to having a self bow.

[Marc St Louis]

All things being equal the backed bow will be faster, most of the time

[Pappy]

Bad as I would like to think other wise, I would have agree with Marc, at least from what I have seen,may be a few exceptions [sure we will hear about them] but in most cases the back bows are quicker.
   Pappy

[George Tsoukalas]

Depends on the backing. Some backings are to keep the back intact (silk, linen, rawhide, burlap) while some are for speed and to keep the back intact (sinew, bamboo, wood). Jawge