One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was "Once upon a tine" by Barry Wensel; it is a phenomenal book if anyone is interested. But anyway i was reading a chapter where Barry talked about hunting in temps way below zero, he even stated that on one hunt he decided to call it quits because he was afraid that his recurve's fiberglass might crack due to the extreme cold if he were to attempt a shot. With the temps being the way they are the past couple days here I dono if I am tough enough to attempt a hunt out there but this got me thinking is it actually possible for the fiberglass to fail from the extreme cold? I was also wondering if storing your bows in cold places can harm them? For example I live in an older home which a portion of the house is un-insulated. The room in which I store my bows and other hunting/fishing equipment is un-insulated and sometimes feels as though it's just as cold as outside. Could this potentially harm them? Anyway I was just curious to see what anyone might have to say about the subject. Stay warm!!
The wood in the bow would fail long before the fiberglass would.
i have hunted lots in -20 celcius temps in alberta-with self bows. no problems
Ive shot ny bow at 0 with no problem but it is to cold and windy for me this yr
I have shot recurves and longbows at 25 below zero growing up in Alaska. Never had a failure. Maybe I was lucky?
Killed a deer once when it was -20, using a recurve.
I shot a lion in 1998 in -20 temps. We had been walking in those temps for 8 hours. No issues there. I often practice in the cold as well.
Fred Bear was doing it in the 50s and 60s.
I guess this "polar vortex" had more than one of us thinking about this same subject...I was just wondering the other day if there is a such thing as too cold to shoot / store. We all (for the most part) know the dangers of heat and any kind of bow, but you rarely, if ever hear anything about cold or it's potential for adverse effects. I just kinda figured / hoped it was one of those "no news is good news" situations.
I had a 20 minute shooting session on monday outside and it was -16. The only problem I had was my bag target was frozen...
i dunno about the cold but i shot my bow for hours in 110+ heat while i was in arizona and didnt seem to have any affects but i think with the more modern materials we should be ok...but its still good to know that our bows can handle just about anything we throw at them..lol :D