There have been a few threads lately regarding Bear weather rests and recurves. I'm wondering if anyone has played with weather rests (or other elevated rests) on longbows.
Part of me feels it's wrong to even consider not shooting off a longbow shelf, but I'm also curious to hear others experiences and possibly give it a try. Also, do you modify the elevated rest to get it as close to the shelf and sidewall as possible?
Right now I use only calfhair on sidewall and shelf. I don't take the time to place a piece of toothpick or leather behind both pieces of calfhair to create a repeatable contact point, and maybe I should.
I'd appreciate any and all input. Thanks!
A good read to explain all this is "Instnctive Shooting" By G.Fred Asbell.Will work ok if your bow is held completely vertical,but as soon as you cant the bow your sight picture and piont of impact changes drastically.Try it you'll see.Years ago I put the arrow right on my hand and for true instinctive shooting theres nothing better.Note how Asbell,Fred Bear and Howard shoot.If there was a better way they would have found it.It does work.
I shoot an elevated rest on my Black Widow longbow. It has given me drastically-improved accuracy and arrow flight.
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc248/romangrayjr/PLXArrowRest.jpg)
The whole hand-needs-to-be-as-close-to-the-arrow-as-possible thing did not make any difference whatsoever with my shooting.
I modified an old rest myself, slimming it down so that it didn't build out the strike plate much, and then running it through a calf-hair cover. I actually cut a lot of the rest off with a razor blade, and then put it on a sanding block and slowly thinned it out so that the backing (the part that sticks to the bow) would be as thin as possible.
I've been using the same rest for 18+ months, and seeing the results, will never shoot off the shelf again. I shoot a rest on my recurve, as well.
Very interesting, I have been thinking about trying an elevated rest as well.
I just recently needed to replace both my strike plate and shelf rug on my A&H. I threw on a weather rest just to try it out figuring I would remove it. Well one month later it is still on there. The arrow flight is awesome and I won't be removing it until it wears out. I did cut off the extra rubber strip that runs vertically in front of the finger to move it closer to center. I didn't have to make any changes to my arrow set-up. The only change I had to make was to move my nock point from 1/2" to 5/8". I do shoot a canted bow and haven't noticed any difference.
I put one on my selfbow made from toothbrush brissles, bow shoots great with it, very easy to make!