I am honored to present to you, the infamous band of bow droolers and ridiculers, my Lucky Silvertip Burnout Gator Bag Bow. 60" NTN, 1 1/4" wide elm bow backed with a burlap bag. Pulls 47# at 26". A real 4-leaf clover is set into the arrow pass, and the grip, I was told by the lady at the fabric store, is alligator leather. Looks like cow to me, but I'm gullible as a baby in a cradle.
Performance wise, it's a real smooth shooter, slight stacking at the end of the draw due to its length, and because the string is offset from center, it's pretty accurate, but a bit of a wrist slapper. I increased the brace height to about 6 1/2 inches and now I can shoot it without a wrist guard. All 100 of the arrows I shot through it flew directly into the bulls-eye with no creeks, chrysals, cracks, checks or kablooeys, so I'm happy. I even took it out in the rain the other day and it did fine, the water beaded up on the burlap and the grip dampened slightly but didn't soak through.
Here are a few of the lessons this bow taught me:
1) Burlap is strong, heavy, and ugly.
2) Sharpie markers are great for decorations, but don't paint your whole bow with one.
3) Dried flower decorations are worthy of further exploration.
4) Go slow, no slower, no slower, no slower, no slower……
5) When that fails, save your weakling 20# bow with 4" of set by roasting it over a fire.
Further details on this bow can be found here:
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,70200.0.htmlAnd please excuse my camouflage in the full draw photo. Our balmy Northern Michigan summer was suddenly interrupted by an arctic blast and this is the only thing I had that was going to blend me in!
