That set up would be fine for deer and bear.  Are you saying you will be drawing 50-54 lbs at your draw length? If so the 340 shaft would work with some tinkering.  Are you going to bare shaft tune to your bow ?  If so i would probably buy a test kit with the different spine arrows that you could play with.  Don't try to compare to your compound experience.  There are some really good arrow experts on here that will hopefully jump on shortly.  Ken Beck (long time owner of Black Widow bows before he retired?) has an excellent you tube video on bare shaft tuning.  Chris Spikes also has a really good you tube video on bare shaft tuning.  Good luck in your quest!

Years ago I worked for a tree service down on Hilton Head Island, SC. I was part of the ground crew. One day I tried on a pair of spurs got up the tree about 2 steps and missed the next one. That was the end of my tree climbing with spurs. 

I haven't seen a difference in blood trails with single bevels but we are only talking a hanful of single bevel kills.For me,neither is more difficult to sharpen.All the single bevel kills were complete pass throughs with short recoveries.Other contributing factors,meticulous tuning,heavy arrows and improved sharpening.One wound track that I paid attention to,had typical "S" shaped entry and exit holes.Where the arrow passed through soft,lung and liver tissue,the wound was a clear,measured,2" wide.This,from a 1 3/16" wide,Grizzly head.I have never witnessed that with 2 blade,double bevels.I only hit heavy bone once and that one hit the heavy end of the humerous on a running antelope.The bone was destroyed,with full penetration and recovery was 40 yds,after a hard run. The wound looked like it was hit by a high velocity,expanding bullet.I had never seen that much damage from and arrow.A lot of that had to been caused by a piece of the arrow remain in in the chest.Both shoulders were involved but the only heavy bone hit was the entrance side humerus.Bows used on my single bevel kills were 50-53 lbs,arrow weights app. 14 grs per pound of draw weight.

Man you are a lucky guy.....They call those widow makers for good reason. Falling dead trees is seriously dangerous. I've had a few that the top portion snapped off and came very close to getting me before. I hate messing with dead trees.

This pile of logs I'm working on now were brought down piece at a time by a tree removal company the electric company uses. Didn't cost me a dime either. Being right along side the road, and power lines across the street, the electric company footed the bill.

A few years ago we had a heat wave here that killed quite a few of our big fir trees. We had a week of weather hitting 115-118 degrees. It took a year or 2 for them to die completely, and I contemplated taking them down myself a few times. But... due to the location between the house and the power lines, it would require climbing them and bringing them down piece at a time, or rigging some cables to pull them down into the road. Either way was just too much for this old man. My tree topping days are long gone and my climbing harness is collecting dust.   In my younger years I topped trees over 80' in the air before. That is a hell of a rush.... 

Kirk

Quote from: Kirkll on November 18, 2025, 09:05:04 PMSo how did you get that knot on your gourd?

You guys have short memories, go back to post #140.

Good to see you're healing up, Pat.


Mark

You wrap it with dental floss or dental tape both are quick fix,

Dave, dip your nocks in warm water for a bit then pinch both ears closer until you get the fit you like.
 You may need to re-serve the string if the other serving is worn.

Hey all! I have a two-part question. I'm putting a hunting bow and arrows together for the WV & VA mountains.   

1) Tradtech limb length. I'm 5'6" with a 26-inch recurve draw length. I had planned on getting the 19-inch Titan 3 riser and pairing it with medium limbs for a 62-inch bow. Given I'm vertically challenged, would it make sense to go with short limbs for a 60-inch bow? I get that speed comes from shorter limbs with stability and forgiveness coming from longer limbs - but with such a short draw, would the shorter limbs serve me better?   

2) Arrows. I've been eyeing Gold Tip Traditional XT hunting arrows. At 50-54 lbs. of draw weight at a 29-inch arrow with a 150-grain broadhead, it's calling for a 400 spine. However, I think I plan on using a 3-blade VPA 175-grain broadhead (and this isn't an option on the chart). Because of this, I'll likely opt for the 340 spine.  If need be, I can either shorten my arrows a bit or add a screw-in weight at the front to weaken/stiffen the spine.

My question is, this would put me at 511.8 grains of total finished arrow weight at 15% FOC. Sounds great - but that equates to (given the several calculators and AI models I've used) to around 168 FPS - which is around 32.02 ft lbs. of kinetic energy and around 0.381 slugs of momentum. Which is draw dropping to me coming from a 75lb compound where I would shoot close to 300 ft per second with around 90 ft lbs. of kinetic energy and 0.60 slugs of momentum.

Are these recurve arrow specs enough for VA & WV whitetail deer and perhaps the occasional medium-sized eastern black bear? I'll never be chasing elk or moose out west, but I want to be sure these numbers seem accurate and reasonable to those of you who have been successful in hunting with traditional archery.

Thanks,
Travis

We are happy to announce that we are caught up with orders, and have a few bows in stock. I can ship these bows TODAY.

We have:

LEFT HAND

Ebony Deluxe, 64 inch, 45#
Ebony Deluxe, 64 inch, 42#


RIGHT HAND

Shedua, 64 inch 42#
Shedua, 64 inch 52#
Shedua, 64 inch 42#

You can contact me here, or email me at roger@automation-llc.com

THANKS!!

All, thanks very much for your replies. I think I learned my lesson. I'll try some higher quality staves.