In flight shooting we have an English longbow class. Regardless of weight they have to conform to the 5/8 rule as well as the rounded belly and d cross section. One year mark St Louis had built a 140# yew bow for Heavybows and they disqualified it saying the belly was too flat or not rounded enough. I would like to see a cut off point on when English longbows become war bows and no longer need to conform to the same rules. How do you guys feel about this? I would think about 75# would be a maximum for an English long bow and past that point use a war bow class with its own set of rules.
He must have shown great self restraint in not punching someone.... I daresay the idiots making the judgement weren't bowyers of his stature.
The 5/8 rule is fine, as you would have to go out of your way to breach it.
It is just meaningless to have rules like 'D section' with no clearly defined limits or measurement method. Especially for self bows.
It's exactly this sort of stuff that makes me shun joining more societies and shooting in more competitions.
Warbows
should have different rules.
I daresay you can't make a warbow with a D belly from many woods, and doubtless the 100# Elm and 13# Yew I've just made and half the Mary Rose bows would get disqualified!
A simple test like "A straight edge must not be able to sit flat across the belly of the bow at any point" would probably suffice, maybe adding that the edges of the belly must be no sharper than a 3mm radius... or some such. That could be easilly checked by running a gauge along the edges.
That way you can have a square section as long as you round the corners and then slightly curve the belly, which is pretty much like some of the MR bows.
Oh! they should have fancy horn nocks with couloured ribbons and braided handles too (joke)
Del
