Are silencers really necesary?

[Gottabow]

I got a new to me Longbow and it is whisper quiet without Silencers..I really don't feel it needs them.  I was wondering if there are other reasons to put them on..if not I don't think I will use them on this bow..looking for opinions..

[lpcjon2]

If your bow is noisy they are

[Jim Wright]

"Whisper Quiet" ain't bad.

[Chuck Hoopes]

My feeling is that alot of people use more silencer than is necessary to adequately quiet their bow.  I know I have in the past, until I started experimenting by cutting back on the length and amt. of cat wisker I used.  I found that all by bows were just fine with LESS than 1/2 the amt. normally used. I use less wisker, and cut to a Total length of about an inch.  Silencers effect the cast, speed, of a bow alot more than is generally suspected.

[Pinelander]

Even bows that are very quiet, will usually benefit by using wool puffs to take that final little bit of hum out of the strng vibration.

Just curious, what GPP arrow are you shooting?

[PAPA BEAR]

use them and see if it gets even more silent.if not take em back off.i would leave them on for vibration purposes though.

[Gottabow]

Pine..I'm just alittle over 10 grains per pound

[Sean B]

I don't need them on my HH longbow, but I need them for my recurves. The HH long bow has a brace height of about 6 3/4.  It seems to be the sweet spot for that bow.

[Jerry Wald]

probably if you are shooting heavier arrows then it will be silent.

jer bear

[Ben Maher]

i tend not to use them on my longbows but will use small ones [ cat whiskers or beaver balls ] on my 'curves .

[Bjorn]

It depends on your bow-arrow-string combo, if you don't need silencing, great!
I have made selfbows that are dead silent without any help.

[mcgroundstalker]

You must be shooting a nice and heavy arrow. That's good. It's what I need to do to quiet my bows down. Still need silencers though.  :(

... mike ...

[SL]

He's just getting old and his hearing isnt what it use to be! Ha another month and you'll be even older bro! Im holding at 45 for a while.
SL

[Earthdog]

When I first started hunting in the early 70's,,nobody in my area used silencers,,,and nobody seemed to be worried about bow noise that much.
I guess one of the reasons is that "everybody" shot well tuned bows and heavy wood arrows so it really wasn't an issue.
Silencers didn't really become popular here until more an more people started hunting with alloy shafts.
If I have a bow today that is quiter than my go to recurve,,,I personaly won't bother with silencers.

[wildgame]

if they dont help they look cool!!  

[Rob DiStefano]

imo, there's no such thing as a 'quiet bow'.  ask any whitetail.

i'll take any added insurance i can get, and that means putting on string silencers.

ymmv, but it shouldn't!

[NDTerminator]

My recurves never seem to whisper.  I use Sims leeches & limb savers above/below the fades...

[frank bullitt]

NO!.....Quiet, is in the ear of the bowholder!

Enjoy  

[joevan125]

I like the Bow Hush silencers and i have them on all my bows.

It really makes my bows quite and doesnt seem to affect arrow flight and to me they just look cool.

[joe skipp]

Mikey...PM me your address and I'll send you some heavy duty Catwhiskers. Also, if your bows are FF compatible, a TS-1 string is super.

My buddy Vinny shoots a Hill longbow, whisper quiet without silencers. No need to add anything to the string.