Trad Gang
Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: Chad Orde on February 26, 2018, 10:10:00 AM
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Guys,
I wanted to poll you all on your experience going from Glass bows to self bows and your success. How many have you stayed with self bows from that point forward? And how many had success with self bows but still went back to glass bows? And why?
I have made only 2 osage self bows both came out beautiful but broke after 2-3 months of shooting I blame this on my novice skills and a pin knot LOL. I am working on a third bow right now and hoping it last for years! I may back it with sinew as an insurance policy.
I think they are the warmest feeling bows out there but see allot of guys start shooting them with success but then go back to glass bows.
Mostly curious and just don't have enough local friends with any self bow experience to talk to about it.
Birds are chirping in Northern Michigan today spring is about here boys! God Bless
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(https://i.imgur.com/HsN91AG.jpg)
This was my last one never hit final finish stage and broke my heart when she blew.
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If someone could build me one cut to center or past center so I could shoot stiff carbons I would probably stick with one longer than I have. I have owned some pretty ones but the way I shoot I never get on too long too well with a bow cut before center.
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I built and shot and hunted with some success with selfbows for 18 to 20 years. Still love them. Issues with a sick relative that lived with for the past 2 years took much of my time. I just couldn't build them anymore. So I went to ASL's the last two years. Also I was looking to work on my shooting and I seemed to draw an ASL better. I got to snap shooting selfbows mostly I think because shots were close and I just didn't need to hit full draw. Well you know the next thing you do it all the time.
Anyway I have been doing much better on reaching full draw and I now have time to work on bows again and will be working selfbow and building back into rotation. I have 4 that have been setting at short sting tiller for 2 years now. Time to finish them up. Also looking at building some ASL naturals.
Nothing like building it yourself and taking game.
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I've come full circle a couple of times over the years -- glass laminated longbows and recurves and selfbows, etc. I've made as well as purchased a few selfbows and have killed critters with them. Still have a couple, but mostly hunt with glass laminated bows.
I think selfbows are more difficult to shoot accurately than glass laminated bows. Or to put it another way, I need to be practicing more when I decide to hunt with a selfbow. A glass laminated bow, I can just pick up and go with little practice. Now keep this in context. I've been shooting sticks for more than 60 years.
Though the best may equal the performance of glass laminated bows, most do not. Too, they're not as durable as glass laminated bows. I like shooting them and still do, but they're just not as trouble free as glass laminated bows so I can't ever see myself committing to them exclusively.
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i love hunting and shooting selfbows...only thing keeping me from going full time with them is I want to be able to build my own well enough to replace all the carnage initially.... LOL I have a couple great ones from John Strunk and one gifted to me from Joe Mattingly before he passed...and dont want to risk that one breaking. I am very close to just hanging up the glass backed...the allure of going selfbow and eventually cane arrow with obsidian points as well....is my goal for retirement or before.
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I hunt with them about 90% of the time since I started building them, some seasons 100%. I have a '59 Grizz that likes to hunt, so he goes with me here and there. Once you get your hands on a quality self bow with a hunter friendly grip and rest you will love it. Trust me :)
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I actually started on selfbows, buying a couple cheap fiberglass longbows and recurves. Never really got into laminated bows until I started building them.
Never killed anything with a selfbow, but did start having luck after going to the laminated bows. I still want to complete the journey and take a whitetail with a selfbow, but the challenge of using modern composites is still enough to keep me humble.
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Nice hunting thread. I purchased my first self bow last summer with the intentions of hunting with it. I mostly liked how quiet that bow is. She's a straight limb unbacked Osage. I'm certain I'll eventually hunt with it but the reason I chose my glass bows over it is that it's not strap-on quiver friendly and I dont really care to tote my arras any other way. I can surely appreciate a well crafted bow and the effort involved and it sickens me to see a pic of a break.
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I have been making selfbows and shooting both since 1991(I did build a selfbow in 69-70 from a lilac limb). I go back and forth all year in practice, but as time goes on I hunt with selfbows more and more. I also have trialed many backed and recurves. As I exceeded 25 years of selfbow making I go more and more with long osage selfbows than anything else. I prefer them for most of my hunting to include whitetails and elk. I have gone back to glass bows in the last three years only for Texas hogs. Reason is the place we go has big russians that are hard to kill, get chased year around with helicopters and machine guns, and it gets very windy often. I also hunt movement to contact and "jump shoot" them. Running/alert hogs at longer range in high winds gives advantage to s a center cut riser bow with high FOC carbons pushing big snuffers. Last trip I only got one shot, and a selfbow would have worked better as it was a very short range ambush of a pig that did not know I was there. Not that a selfbow could not work fine for such. My first several years I went back and forth when I had issues with MC in my selfbows. Super wet / humid late summer early fall followed by super dry house heated with electic heat would change my bow performance over time, change the draw weight , and bows would get brittle and break during winter. BBOs are high performance, but bamboo always seems to lift a splinter at the worst time. Toasting the belly on an osage selfbow makes them identical in performance, durability, and handling, both long and short term, as Abbott Mild R/D longbows (and other bows with similar profile and not cut close to center shot shelves). I prefer to carry selfbows as they are much more pleasant to carry and shoot, and are much quieter and stable in the current form under hunting conditions. I do not believe in high wrist grips or cutout shelves on selfbows. To be as successful with a homemade selfbow as a custom longbow and carbon arrows one must advance in his bowyer skills to the point his bows never change under hunting conditions, be able to tune/attain a consistant setup that gives true knock travel under all conditions, and be able to practice year around on a regular basis. Last 4 years I have gone out with glass lam longbows, hybrids, recurves, and my prefered design osage selfbows and shot arrow for arrow, changing bows/setups with every arrow, with the intent to hunt for the season with the bow I can consistantly shoot best. The past four years that has been an osage selfbow. Honestly, I could sell my glass lam bows today and never miss them at this point. I also have attempted to make the perfect glass lam bow the last 8 years. I can repeatedly make an osage selfbow exactly how I want every time, I cannot do that with a glass lam bow. If I order a custom glass lam bow I need to modify it significantly to get it to where I want it. In the end I have found the biggest obstacle to a complete and permamant shift is confidence in your own mind, that the selfbow is not only just as lethal, it is truly superior as a hunting bow. Took me 25 years to come to that reality.
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For me it is simple - I like to hunt with both, so I do. I usually set "goals" for the season. I pick a bow (I make my own) and hunt with it until I reach my goal. Then I pick a new bow and a new goal and then hunt with it. The last several years, once I hunt and reach a goal with a particular bow - I pass them on and make a new one. I like making bows too!
So my advice - do what you enjoy. Best of luck.
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I'm a selfbow lover. I make all my own bows... selfbows, bows backed with bamboo, hardwood, sinew, rawhide, etc and yep, fiberglass. But selfbows are special, truly unique, what I love, make the most, and are all I've hunted with for 20 years come this fall. I don't feel slighted at all by them, or feel any draw whatsoever to take another type of bow to the woods.
Not durable? The selfbow I've shot and hunted with the most is a 14 year old osage selfbow, 63 lbs and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
I like making them as much, maybe more, than using them.
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I shoot a selfbow exclusively at the range or 3D and especially hunting WT.I have had quite a few break and a few {blow up}. I do take a spare bow when I go on a week long trip just in case. My goto bow is a 45# yew backed with Moose sinew. Works great. Just have to keep your shots (at game) close.
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I hung up my Bighorn in 96 and went exclusively to shooting a selfbow. The first ones I made were inconsistent shooters but I stuck with it and ended up with bows that shoot as good as most straight limb glass laminated longbows.
I have made over 150 of them but only have a three favorites that I shoot now.
As I passed 70 I found the selfbow building process is rough on my joints and back, I have slowed down a good bit. I have also become allergic to osage dust and have to wear a cartridge respirator when I work with the stuff. This which detracts from the joy of smelling the curls come off the wood and the overall craftsman like feeling.
Lately the thought has crossed my mind of leaving my selfbows and going back to a laminated glass recurve to simplify things. Just a thought right now, just a thought........
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"...going back to a laminated glass recurve to simplify things..." Eric, somehow this seem backwards to me. :D
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Think of it Pat, carbon arrows that all match, limbs that never get weak on one end, tune it once and forget it, center shot etc.
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I honestly think I would of got bored with stickbows years ago if it wasn't for selfbows.. they are what I always reach for first when I haven't shot in while. I'm not as successful with them but if you took all my bows away and left me with the selfbows I wouldn't care but if you took my selfbows away and left me with the other stickbows I think I would eventually get bored and move onto something else maybe use my flintlocks full time..
modern stickbows just don't have that essence to me they used to have but the selfbow nothing at all compares to the feeling I get when I hunt with a selfbow,, other than atlatl I don't think you can get much deeper into the past,,,but once you figure out what a selfbow likes and it starts really hitting those spots you almost become a part of it.
I luv osage and prefer snaky stuff because every other wood except osage eventually blew up,, except Yew but when I shot welchman yew bows they were impossible to get good arrow flight at close range maybe because the risers were like baseball bat handles and too wide for my short arrows.
get me an osage character bow with a "straight string" and I'm in heaven.
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As your bowyer skills develop, your bows will shoot better and faster with each one you make. No amount of money will EVER make your glass lam bows as quiet and elegant as a self bow.
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I like pig nut hickory, shag bark may be close, but if dry enough pig nut I believe is superior. I have a chunk of yew up stairs. I am waiting for a spell when I think i will have the patience to do a proper job on it. I will need to cut the billet by hand, I no longer have my band saw or table saw. I tried to do osage twice, the pieces that I got were more challenging than my skills could cope with, many knots and twists.
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I own a selfbow, and really enjoy shooting it at 3D shoots, but just can't shoot it as well as my glass bows. As such, I just can't make myself take it to the woods. I have kiled 2 critters with a selfbow in my life. One was a wathog in S Africa, and the other, a pig here in Texas.
Good luck with it Chad!
Bisch
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Never looked back. I still make and shoot glass bows, but seldom, if ever hunt with them. In reality, there isn't much difference in hunting with a selfbow and a glass bow.
Guess what, if you build your selfbow right, you can shoot it with good form, hit full draw, hold, then expand to conclusion. Simply put, you can hold it at full draw for more then a nano second, enabling you actually hit something over twenty yards (I have shot at two critters beyond 20 yards in the past twenty years, both were fatal shoots). It's really that simple. It's more of a matter of personal ability and ethics than the bows ability to perform.
Ultimately, it is simple, you can either put your arrow, into the critter (where it should be) with your bow at the "moment of truth", or you don't. It don't make much difference if the bow is wood, glass, or or some new age carbon. Can you put the arrow where it needs to be.
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I've built both and killed deer with both. I hunt glass bows 90+% of the time now.