Harry's Quest For The Ultimate Longbow /It's a Hummingbird

[2fletch]

One of the regular bow shooting Tuesday night guys and a friend, Harry Angel, came over earlier today and he was all excited about a bow. He has been working with David Knight for awhile and they have created some really nice, fast and quiet primitive longbows of bamboo backed Ipe. He's been looking for a modern longbow that will match these bows in speed, accuracy, smoothness, and quietness. Now he thinks that he has it.

To quote him "I have been shooting primitive bows for 2 years bcause I could not find a modern longbow that was as smooth and quite until now".
He had just returned from spending the second of two days with Ben Graham of Hummingbird Bows and was quite pleased with the 62" 3 piece takedown longbow which was 41# @ 28" that Ben had made for him. Harry said that "this bow is extremely smooth and quiet and has the best cast with heavy arrows of any bow that I have ever shot."
Ben had made a few changes in the bow and they were obviously to Harry's satisfaction. He said "I am convinced it is a winner".

Of course I shot the bow and had to agree with Harry, Ben had it right. The bow was smooth, quiet, fast, and it was forgiving. I shot three different groups of arrows through it (GT  15-35, 35-55, and 55-75s. The range was from 380 gr. to 506 gr.) All three groups flew well and impacted close to the target centers.
 
Harry had earlier compared the three arrow groups and determined that there was no noticable drop in the heavier arrows until about 27 yards. My experience at about 24 yards showed no noticable drop off with the heavier arrows at that yardage. Looks to me like they have both found a winner.

Here are a couple of photos of Harry and his new Hummingbird longbow. In one of them he's standing between one of my osage trees and a patch of Japanese arrow bamboo.

   

 

[tackhammer]

You can not go wrong with a Hummingbird!!!!IMO I have three of Bens bows longbow and two recurves, Smooooooth is the word, and Ben and Linda are top notch people to deal with.

[2fletch]

Tackhammer, you're right about that. Out of the 10 best shooting bows that I've shot, at least 6-7 of them were Hummingbirds.

Harry usual shoots well but tonight he was on fire with his new bow.

[WRV]

Congrats on Harry's new Hummingbird! He did shoot well with it last night. We had a good time shooting and a little bit of BS'ing too. Now we need to work on Harry's white legs. The glare from them was throwing my aim off a bit....