Hi! I am a 34 year old guy working in healthcare and interested in any thing capable of launching a projectile. Cut my teeth on powder burners and of late have devoped a hankering for a trad bow.
I have read enough on this and other fora that my head hurts. I have to cater for everything needed by
Way of supplies and accessories my self. The options I like are the RTH packages at hunters friends.I can swing for up to 500 $ easily but more would be pushing my luck. The following fit perfectly in my budget
1) bear grizzly recurve
2) bear montana
3) pse mustang and ragim models
I am looking to get a 45lbs bow and as I am 6ft 3inches I estimate a 30 Inch draw.
Is the grizzly likely to stack when drawn to 30? And are the ragims/pse good enough to plonk down the cash? Spoke to mad dog archery also for a td recurve and while he can hook up the recurve he can't help me with the paraphernalia. That is where hunters friend scores in that it gives a complete RTH package for what that is worth.
Would appreciate any help the members over here with their collective experience can give me.
Regards
First of all, welcome!
I draw 30 inches on my recurve and a little less on my longbows. I have found that I like bows that are at least 62" long. Some bows shorter than that can start to stack and finger pinch.
Maddog makes some great shooting bows. I know the RTH packages are attractive, but putting the parts together is not too tough. There are usually a lot of good bows available second hand too. Good luck!
I don't particularly care for the Montana, heard nothing but good things about Maddog, don't know what a package is ? I can tell you don't start off with too heavy of a bow.
If you need instruction for shooting, form etc, look up moebow's posts in the shooting section and on youtube, then practice, practice, practice.
Good luck
I am 28.5" draw and have no issue with the Grizzly. All my customs are 60" and have some draw to spare. The Grizzly is a fantastic bow. I would see if you can try one and see if it works for you. If not I would consider a 60" or longer AMO Super K or Martin Hunter.
The issue is me being in India, there are very few afficionados of archery left.. Sad as we had a long association with the bow.
The package I am referring to includes all
Gloves, guard, arrows, quiver and such.
Trying out sadly is not an option due to the cost of shipping being 50% or so of bow price.
Warbird- do you feel the grizzly has another 1.5 inches dl to spare?
I think more so finger pinch would be an issue. 60" is probably your best starting point. Ragim Bobcat looks like a nice bow.
Welcome to trad gang. I have a 30in draw and shoot 62in to 64in longbows. My current longbow is a Heart Land built by Cory Engert. Great bow, smooth, fast, quiet and pretty. And price was great, under $500.00.
A 30" draw is going to max out a Grizzly (the new ones aren't that nice anyway), both with stacking and finger pinch. 60" is going to be your minimum length with longer being better. If you can find a used 40 lb Martin/Damon Howatt Hunter you will have found a great bow for your needs and it will probably save you a bunch of money as well. A Bateman tab will last you forever and most any armguard of you choice will function just fine. I'll let some of the carbon/aluminum arrow guys on here help with that. Enjoy and welcome to the Gang!
O.k. now that I know what a package is, I wouldn't like them. As stated above arm guard is a minor detail, a bateman tab with the finger separator is the way to go ! There must be someone in your area that shoots archery, are there any sporting goods shops nearby ?, try asking them if there are any.
One other thing, are you going to shoot split or, three under ? This will also effect how much finger pinch you get, if any.
Samick Journey is very reasonably priced at around $130, and a great shooter. The "catch" is the string that comes with it is pretty lousy, but a good string really wakes it up.
It's a 64" take-down, and handles a 30" draw just fine.
No real archery pro shops around.. I would lean towards split finger shooting as that's what my friend (who owns a samick sage btw- only adult bow I shot) professed.
I am looking at the samick journey line and like the reviews and price. I could get the bow, bunch of arrows and other stuff under 400$ even if I get a pair of spare limbs. I could order the bowstrings off tradgang I presume?
Welcome!
LBR makes great strings and can fix you up.
Like suggested don't go to short of a bow at 30" draw. It will hurt your fingers and more difficult to be accurate. Again LBR gives sound advice.
Thanks for the input everyone. I have decided to pick up the samick journey for my first bow. The option to get heavier limbs and take down appeal to me.contacting Lbr for the ff strings.
Thanks
Welcome, Let us know how you like your new bow. As far as arrows go, there are a lot of great sponsors here that can help you out. I would suggest becoming a contributor on this site and then you would have access to the classifieds.
I think your largest challenge would be your location and shipping but there are a bunch of guys on here who do it all the time. (no one from India that I remember though)
Welcome again. Get shooting, all the other little stuff will come. Plus there is a great "how to" resource on here that will help you build your own stuff if you wish. For me, that's half the fun.
Almost got a samick but have booked a trinity hybrid bow.
Thanks to all for the help.
Thats great! Let us know how it shoots and post some pics of it.
update- got my Trinity falcon 3 pc takedown bow in the mail. Edward turned out to be a gem of a person to talk to and also was patient with my load of queries and quirks.
got an entire setup done with arrows,extra string,and all essentials like glove, guard, quiver and case.
set me back by a good bit of moolah but should be worth it.
hope to be :archer2: soon
Welcome! I also bought a Samick Journey to reintroduce myself to trad after a 40+ year absence. The bow is a great starter even for my long draw (32.5") on that bow. I have multiple limbs that I can feel no stacking on. Puzzled me enough that I took in in to a archery shop a friend owns and we rechecked my draw and poundage on his scale. We came out with 1.1 lbs. per inch of over-draw. I confirmed the 1.1 lbs per inch with the company that imports them. I now have a custom longbow I shoot mostly, but that Journey is easier to tune and travels with me out-of-town>
I guess I type too slow with my nose :biglaugh:
Can't really say anything about the bows in question, since I shoot a Bodnik Cayuga mye self, but just wanna wish you a big welcome to the campfire!
Welcome!! My first "real" trad bow was a samick and its still in the pile. This forum and sub-forums are a great resource. Building/fashioning your own kit is the real gem of traidtional archery. Theres really nothing that some time and practice cant produce, thats how the old timers did most all of their stuff. Supplies and their substitutes are able to be found almost anywhere too. Good luck and enjoy!