Fast bow

[DC]

What do you think would be the recipe for the fastest bow for a given draw weight? I'm thinking light wood, maybe R/D pyramid, narrow tips. What have I missed or gotten wrong? I guess this is kind of the Holy Grail of bow making.

[bubby]

I would think something along the lines of Mark st Louis's hi performance bows would give you a good idea

[Badger]

  Seriously not joking. Just copy one of Mark St Louis bows if you can. Not an easy task!

  Plenty of ways to make a fast bow, the weight of the wood you use will have little influence. Design is everything. For all practical purposes and barring the occassional bow that is a standout, the bows you see posted here everyday with a couple inches reflex and some gentle curves are about as good as it gets.

[Badger]

I would think something along the lines of Mark st Louis's hi performance bows would give you a good idea

  We were posting at the same time.

[bubby]

I would think something along the lines of Mark st Louis's hi performance bows would give you a good idea

  We were posting at the same time.


Great minds man 

[Badger]

  I think the first question you want to ask yourself when creating a fast bow is what you want to shoot out of it. Hunting weight arrows or light flight arrows.
Almost anything you do to a wood bow has some kind of trade off involved. Most of the tradeofffs involve overstressing the wood or using too much mass. You have to identify the sources of energy loss as well as identify designs that give maximum energy storage.

  Almost all of your energy losses are due to vibration or hysterisis. Vibration is just another word for limb distortion and is affected by limb timing as well as limb mass and the geometry of the bow. The less working limb you have the less room you have for distorsion but you will also be adding stress to the short working limb area ans proably adding some extra mass in the static areas of the limb. So you look for the happy medium, a little more working limb and less mass. Same with reflex, the more reflex you have the more energy you will store. But with too much reflex the limbs will be overstressed or require an excessive amount of working limb and open the bow up for more distorsion or hysterisis do to damaged wood cells.

   I would say stick with the a medium lentgth about 65" plus or minus a couple inches, go with about 2" reflex heat treated in and keep the outer limbs stiff and narrow keep it slightly stiffer just past the fades if you can for about 3" or 4 ". This decsribes a lot of bows you see on here and they won't get much better than that.

[DC]

I'm going to using it for target shooting. I'm not a hunter so I don't need heavy arrows. I need a lighter bow until I get my muscles up to par. I'm thinking in the 30-35# range. I see the kids at the range lobbing arrows with their light bows and I don't want to get used to aiming at the ceiling to hit the target. I thought that if I could get a light fast bow the trajectory would stay flat. The arrows I'm shooting are in the 390-450gr range. That's with 125gr tips. Would it better to use a combo of a light bow and light arrows. Maybe 80-90 gr tips.

[LittleBen]

Personally, if I were after a lot of speed with a 30-35# bow, I'd be shooting super light arrows with 2" feathers and 75gr points. As light as I could possibly get it .... 200gr or w/e I could afford to get down to.
I'd also be shooting a stupidly skinny string of BCY 8125 or 8190 or w/e dyneema material you like. With 8125, I'd be at maybe 6 strands or something like that with the minimum loop padding I could get away with and the shortest section of center serving you can deal with.

If you're down in the 6gpp, 7gpp even 8gpp range, you will pickup a lot of speed as long as you keep the tips very very light. It'll be loud, and your bow won't last as long, but honestly ... Many of us probably make bows faster than we wear them out ....

As for the bow, I think everyone has already hit the critical factors so I won't reiterate.

[wizardgoat]

It's a challenge Im currently facing. Most people who ask me for bows are noobs or people who just want to stump shoot. I aim for around 35#, but the bows turn out to be dogs if I design them for 45-50# (obviously). I've recently made 2 killer shooting bows in the 35# range, one of yew and one of ocean spray, and they are both quite narrow. The ocean spray is less than inch wide, the yew is a bit over an inch wide.
Design is everything, but also, how well you execute the design.

[Blaflair2]

I think an r/d Mollie or holemguard would be fast

[mullet]

Highly R/D, ipe or osage, bamboo backed, light, narrow tips with FastFlight string. I've done it but couldn't get it to quiet down with FF string. Oh, and whip tillered. Fast but might not last long .

[huisme]

This one did pretty well. Not my fastest ever, and I'm sure I'll make faster, but drawn to 30" this thing shot heavy or light arrows alike clear out of sight in the Nevada desert. I blame my nock width, tempered belly, and long draw for overall length.

[crooketarrow]

  There was a time not so long ago that speed matter to me not so nuch now. Here's what I came up with.,
 
 I start out with a green ruffed out (osage) bow put in a caul. The caul has 2 inchs of reflex added. I've left the stave in anywhere from 3 to 5 years. So no heats involed.


  Osage 58 to 60 inchs long. Those lenths with osage leaves your limbs a little under mass. Thin tips the last 6 inchs. Tillered as far back into the fades as possable. Simi recurve handle. FF string, my own bow design.

 I built at least 10 like this. They shot (FPS) with a 600 grain arrow anywhere from 168 fps to 179  fps. With a good release, release makes a big difference.
 With 550 grain arrow I was 183 fps. Not bad for a all wood bow pulling 60#s. I shot 60#s for 15 years.

  I've also built HICKORY bows. That did almost as good as osage.

 Then I came to the realization That a 20 yard shot was long for me since I set up for 10,12 yards for shots mosty. I don't worry about how fast my bow is anymore.