Or, more to the point, why didn't folks like Fred Bear silence theirs?
I was thumbing through a book about Fred Bear and I noticed that his bow just had a bare string. In all the pictures of him, old or young, posing with deer or tigers ... bare string.
Then I looked at the Schafer Silvertip website. Looks like the same thing in the pictures of Paul Schafer. Bare string.
So I took my most quiet recurve, put a bare string on it and ... it sounded like crap. Heavy arrow, lighter arrows, lower brace, higher brace it didn't matter. Much, much louder with the bare string; almost a bang.
I can't imagine it never occurred to Fred or Paul to twist some yarn on their strings. I can only assume they didn't want or need it. Were their bows that much better tuned?
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n217/dave27615/32bighorn_resize.jpg)
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n217/dave27615/fredbear1.jpg)
That's an excellent observation! I never thought of it. I'm anxious for the Pros to chime in on this, should be very educational.
Good question. Now that I think about it, I don't remember my grandfather or any of his buddies having silencers on their strings either.
I shot b50 with just the brush buttons on the string for along time. FF is a diffrent animal.
SL
I have always wondered why you guys put anything on your stings. I shoot R/D longbows, which naturally are a bit quieter than recurves.
However my bows are whisper quiet without anything on them. I would not have anything on my strings on priciple - robbing valuable fps from my arrows.
If you have the brace-height right, a good release and a quality bow (high percentage dynamics) - then you don't need it.
So there you have it - the old boys had it all along!!
Sutto
but...fur silencers are just too cool.. LOL
John III
There was an article I read a while back, I think in TBM, about silencers. THey tried all types of them, and found any myth of losing arrow speed to be unfounded. They have no effect on speed.
I've seen at least one picture of Fred with string silencers.. He's standing in front of a cabin holding a Take Down.. There are what appear to be small chunks of felt weather stripping threaded into the string.. One top one bottom
Sutto, if you get fur silencers big enough, it helps with stalking as you can simply hide behind them and move right up to the unsuspecting animal who thinks you're just another furry friend!
:bigsmyl:
Ha Ha Ben!! Now know why you are so successful!
Sutto
If they shot 10 gr/# then with the strings we use today-B50 or D97-it would be noisy.
I did a study of a number of actual strings from late 50's and early 60's bows, and found mainly 18-20 strands of B50, contiuous loop,teamed with those rubber balls, and sometimes propellers-that's what they used; and surprisingly quiet!
Noise is relative, and many have never heard a quite bow! Some of the old timers were spraying and praying arrows at long range as well. Most of the self bow shooters have a bench mark to strive for in their fiberglass bows. I want mine whisper quiet, and can get close on my glass bows. I don't shoot recurves any more, and the noise is one of the reasons. My recurves were very quiet, for recurves. I like to shoot them inside 20 yards, and they never hear the shot.
Fred used brush buttons quite a bit. Which did a good job of silencing a bow. Also dacron strings were the norm(much quieter). Also, they knew how to tune their equipment.
Probably cause they shot at animals 100 yards away. A bow can be quiet without string silencers but why not make it quieter? Quiet before speed anyday.
If you have ever read the book "I remember papa bear" it talks about how fred bear always used heavier bow strings than what came on his bow for two reasons one was to help silence the bow and the other reason was in case you cut a couple of strands on a sharp rock or broadhead so he could finish the hunt without safety issues.
In the stories I've read about Paul S., he seemed to be always just finishing a bow before he headed out for a hunt. Maybe he was just happy to have it finished and dry.
Wow. Great observation. I just went through Bows on the Little Delta and your right, not a single bit of anything on any of the strings. Interesting...
The animals they hunted back then did not have the hunting pressure on them like the animals most hunt today.Like someone said they never worried too much about getting close before they let the arrows fly either.Thay would make a big difference.jmo
Because we can! And mainly because many are anal retentive about the details. Sometimes it's the details that make the difference.
I would think no matter how quiet your bow is (unless of course it is just super quitet), if an animal is 40yds. or closer it is going to hear it anyhow. I would say it's just personal preference.
Another thing to consider is there weren't many silencers available. Most were rubber, three armed critters or plain brush buttons. They did not have the plethora of accessories that we do today.
Just in case anyone is interested, it just occurred to me to take my father's 1950's Bear Grizzly out and shoot it. Bare B50 string. The only sound was a slight low pitched "bong". Those narrow, thick static limbs are quiet.
I've found TS-1+ and 450+ strings to be very quiet on my bows without silencers. I still have a pair of spider legs installed on each of my strings, however.
Bill
Yup! Check out all the photos of Fred Bear. Brush buttons were and are the way to go. I've been shooting since the 50's.
No doubt a lot has changed since back in the days of Fred. I'm sure most of us have played around with tuning, arrow weight, types of silencers, location of silencers, etc. enough to know what makes our bows quiet.
We silence our bow strings so that we can hear the musical "Thunk!" of arrow striking ribcage! :notworthy: Dave
I really cant think of a good reason to silence my string other than to sweeten the experience. I love the feel of a lively bow in my hand. Thats why I hunt with a back quiver most of the time and build em light-weight.
A "twang" or "thong" just takes something away from it. Mentally it feels less smooth or something. Hard to explain. I just know that the spiders are a part of my set-up and my string feels neked without em.
Here in N Alabama deer jump the string the same if you use silencers or shoot a bare string. I quit using silencers about ten yers ago.
I think early on they used linen strings and heavy arrows this made for a quiet set-up. Also in the pic. you show Fred is carrying a static tip bow and they seem quiter as well. Shawn
In the early 80's when video taping hunts started catching on commercially. Some of the best bowhunters on planet earth (Gene&Barry)added some really cool footage of misses because of deer "jumping the string". Realizing how seldom that perfect shot presents its self, everyone learned the quieter your bow the better chance you give your self in less than ideal conditions to bag that trophy/ or the last meat doe for the freezer. Also if your bow is loud you might not get that second shot.
I've been looking for one of those old videos to show one of the guys at work. He doesn't believe just how quickly a deer can react to the sound of a bow.
I used to have one with Gene and Too Short. It was back from around the time when Paul first started making Screaming Eagle tree stands. I think I loaned it to a buddy and never got it back.
I stopped putting large fur type silencers on my bows two years ago and now have very minimal cat whiskers which are well trimmed or no silencers at all. on goats and pigs i have noticed no difference. deer may be another story. as for rabbits...do they jump the string? or do i just miss 'em?.....
cheers
ben
Tune your brace ht., it goes along way, and takes a noise down, to almost nothing to you right, on a good bow.
Carl
Interesting thread. I can not remember any of the archers/bowhunters I hung out with in the 50's and 60's ever expressing any concern about noisey bows... I think for the most part we just accepted the twang as part of shooting and never gave it another thought. But as the years ticked by and began experimenting with new stuff like aluminum arrows, brush buttons, and the revolutionaly introduction of the portable tree stand, we simply paid a lot more attention to details. Brings back many memories....
To those of you who have never watched any of Fred Bear's videos, when you do you will be surprised to hear how much noise Fred's bow made. It's a real THUNK. Yes, he used brush buttons, but from the videos I've viewed, they didn't seem to do much to quieten his bow. However that being said, he still took a lot of animals notwithstanding. Perhaps the animals were not as skittish as many of those today being shot at. JMHO Rich
I use silencers because I like my bow to be as quiet at possible. Might not make a difference to the animals, but it does to me.
They also reduce vibration in the bow--something else I don't like.
Chad
Has anyone mentioned that fur silencers look exceptionally cool on a longbow 8^).
Good thread guys and lots of good thoughts both ways. I too used to use strings with extra strands with the same logic that Fred used in that if I cut a couple strands it would still be "safe"...In 40 or so years I've cut/broke strands on my string exactly ONCE. So I put up with lower performance to offset a mistake that might happen once in a blue moon.
From the performance side, even the strings we use that we think are light, in reality are still WAY over built. So all the "tests" on strings we've read about are comparing over built strings to over built strings and they still quote differences in the 5-7fps range. That is the same as short drawing your bow 1-2". We all know that's insignificant and not noticeable! :) Might as well drop 5 pounds of draw weight while we're at it.
Once upon a time I ran the numbers on how far a deer would move at walking speed at 20 yards with a 5-10fps difference in arrow speed, I don't remember the exact numbers but it was in the neighborhood of 4-5". 1" could be the difference between a short track and a lost critter. Since we can't make any bow totally quiet, a critter wired to jump (duck in reality) is going to do so no matter what we do.
No one has ever run an objective test comparing typical B-50 and "adaquate" modern strings but that typically quoted 5-7fps would jump to 10-12 or more in a hurry if they did. As best I can find the recommendation is a 5:1 safety margin. 50# bow needs a 500# test string. That's 10 strands of Dacron. Seems many use 14+. I know from my flight shooting bs that 4 strands of DF-97 is more then adaquate for a 40# bow or less. I use 6 for a 50ish pound bow and both are still overkill. I think we used 10 strands on a bow that was 140+ pounds without failure. Over building the string for durability or lowering noise is false economy just like over muffeling your car and wondering where your power and gas mileage went.
Smaller/lighter strings are noisy???...That's what you hear but no they are not. Take any bow with any string at 10 or so gr/lb and shoot it....Now take some arrows at 8gr/lb and shoot it. Did it get noisier? You bet it did and nothing changed except it's shooting faster because of less gr/lb, not the string. Go from an over built Dacron to an adaquate modern string...Did it get noisier? You bet it did for the SAME reasons shooting less gr/lb made it noisier. That's not the strings fault any more then a spoon makes Rosie fat. Going to a lighter string is exactly the same thing as going to a lighter arrow. Go up in arrow weight so it's shooting the same speed as before and it'll be as quiet or quiter then before with the equivalent of 1-2" draw length more power, better trajectory (with extrenal dimensions the same), and less wind drift. All good things with zero negatives.
I like a quiet bow but using a heavier/fatter string to do it makes no sense. A little something to take the twang out, proper brace height, and more arrow weight will go a lot further toward a quiet bow then over built strings will. Just my take on it....O.L.
I never saw a string silencer (except brush buttons on hunting recurves) until trad archery started making its comeback in mid 80's. I see guys now with big old silencers on HH style longbows bows. That's funny. I think it's just a fashion statement :goldtooth: ...Van
I can't speak to the days before 1969 but by then string silencing attachments were consindered "must-haves" in the circles I hunted among. The whisker and 3-pronged grey over string rubber spiders were most common (and brush buttons were standard). About then I remember seeing yard balls on the strings. Some folks, a neighborhood friend went (I thought) way overboard with large string balls.
Last night, before I saw this thread I shot two different of my recurves -- both set up with the same string and string silencers (trimmed whisker and string leach combination about 1/3 down the limb on each end). I was shocked how much difference there was from one bow to the other. Frankly, I was disappointed. The noisy bow had a very high pitched "bang" more than "twang" compared to the other. The banger is a very popular and expensive bow these days and the most beautiful one (recurve) I own. I'm not intending to hunt with it this year but I'll definitely have to experiment with brace heights, brush buttons, and moving the silencers around to see if this bow can get quieter. If this bow wasn't a 1-piece I would have sworn there were loose parts causing the high-pitched bang sound.
"yarn balls" rather than "yard balls". sorry
I can't remember whose it was, but I shot a longbow with no silencers on it a year ago. It was dead quiet. I didn't like the handshock of the bow, but it was quieter than anything else I have ever heard shot. I was impressed to its silence and its accuracy, but not the handshock.
Heavy arrows will silence a bow too. I don't have any string silencers on my 42# bow. It's shooting a 657 grain arrow.
I didn't see another bowhunter in the woods till about 1970 or so. The ones I started to see at that time were using those propeller looking silencers. If I hear more than a whoosh of the string slicing air its too much noise for me so I use catwhiskers made from lure skirting. Its alot cheaper. I can buy a foot of it for less than a set of commercial catwhiskers. My D longbows I've had didn't need anything to quiet them so I didn't use anything on them.
And, why didn't they wear camo, or use climbing tree stands or any of the thousand other things we do today?
They killed more than their share of animals without all this crap. In my view, it demonstrates how little of the paraphernalia we use today is of any significant value.
Swamp Donkey,
It might have been from you but I picked up the lure skirt idea on TradGang. I bought a bunch at Bass Pro and they work great!
I certainly think there are many unnecessary gadgets available these days but I sure like several that I've acquired over time. I can think back to some of the stuff we used back in the 60's and today's gear is better.
Remember the Kwikee Kuiver that had no hood? A friend introducted a Super Hibre broadhead to his knee using one of those. The Baker Climbing stand -- I killed deer from it but I'm surprised it didn't kill me.
Back when I started deer hunting here in the Midwest (Indiana but my current state of KY was no better) deer herds were 20% or less than today. Success rates in those days for bowhunters were in the 2-3% range. The increase in success rates these days to 10-30% (depending upon your state) are mostly to do with higher deer populations and longer seasons. However, some of the improvements in gear surely have a small role.
I'm a sucker for the new high tech camo clothing. I just spent enough money to buy new limbs for a custom bow on Sitka Gear clothing. I know it won't make me less visible but I hope it will increase my comfort level a tad.
Wow!! Someone dug deep for this one. Here's a pic of Fred Bear's personal bow. I suspect between brush buttons and whatever, Fred was always tinkering with string silencers.
(http://www.tradgang.com/upload/charlie/Fbearbow.jpg)
I'm not a pro but I don't use silencers myself. To my ear, a twang and a thump are equally audible. Either way, stickbows sound quieter than compounds to me. Clint
We get are bows real quiet and our arrows are telling the animal here I come. I use fur balls but like what was said the animals are going to here it any way but they just might not get spoked by a woosh thang a BOING.
Because our bows don't shoot at 300+ fps! :)
QuoteOriginally posted by Bowwild:
The Baker Climbing stand -- I killed deer from it but I'm surprised it didn't kill me.
Now that really was a killer product. I never needed a safety belt with a Baker stand, though... I knew better than to let go of the tree!
Back then you used to see guys with climbing stand rash on their chest and arms from bear hugging the tree all the way down when that thing decided to let go.