HH bug got me ... Part One!

[Nate Steen .]

Rossco,  it's all good,  shelf depth has a little to do with draw length and the amount of wrist bend has alot to do with draw length.  

One thing I always wondered...why do we measure draw length to the back of the bow? different handle profiles and riser sizes can vary.  I always though draw length should be to the plane of the belly of the limbs if you continued them through the handle.

Gerald....I always tuned my arrows by getting the spine range that fit my bow, taking into account adding or subtracting 5# for my net arrow length including the head.  I put feathers on and shot the arrow. If the arrow was a little weak, I decrease tip weight.  A stiff arrow and I added tip weight.  Mostly with lead melted inside the head.  The melted lead is a good trick to fine tune a dozen arrows as well.    I've never bareshaft tuned, don't want to.  I shoot with feathers on my arrows and if I shoot with good form, the arrows will fly well.  I'm pretty sure Hill, Bear, Pearson, Swinehart, Wilhelm bros., and all the other old-time greats never bareshafted either.  Yet most of them knew exactly how many feet it took one of their arrows to make a full revolution in flight.  How many of our today's experts know their tackle that well?  hhhmmmm.....

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally posted by Rik:
Moderators, Rik needs help!

I jsut had an old floppy disk returned to me from an office that was cleaned out, and in addition to some really old work files, it had an old WordPerfect file with the text from an article Scott Toll submitted to me for Instinctive Archer Magazine. The article is about a visit to Howard Hill Archery and an interview with Craig, plus a lot of history about the company.

I would like to share the text with you, but am not sure how best to do that.

I have made an 85 kb PDF of the file. Is there a way that I can provide you all a link to it, similar to how we use Photobucket? I am guessing that pasting seven pages of text into a post here is a no-no?

send it off to me, rik, i'll fix it up proper for ya ... rob@tradgang.com

[mikebiz]

WordPerfect?  Didn't they come up with that to replace chiseling documents in a rock?    

I hope Rob can open this up.  I would love to read this article.  Thanks for sharing.

[Rob DiStefano]

i've been shooting mostly surewood doug fir, hildebrand sitka spruce and i just lucked out with getting a dozen really Really REALLY old acme poc's in superb condition.  

the surewoods are 60/65 and with 125 up front the 580gr bare shaft flies nicely for me outta 52# of 70" tembo.  the light mass weight hildebrand's are 65/70 and 125 is too light with bare shafts flying a tad left, but cures well with 190 points and the total weight is 550gr.  haven't worked up the 65/70 acme's yet.  i carefully spine all shafts on an ace/107 and mark each shaft.  nothing like good wood.  really.  

[Nate Steen .]

Rob,  I've had good luck with surewoods and Hild's sitka spruce.  In fact, for a light weight shaft allowing you to tip weight heavy, I think spruce are dynamite....really tough.  Makes it hard to use cedar...

[Ben Maher]

Originally posted by sunset hill:
Rob,  I've had good luck with surewoods and Hild's sitka spruce.  In fact, for a light weight shaft allowing you to tip weight heavy, I think spruce are dynamite....really tough.  Makes it hard to use cedar...    

 


My spruce , tapered , with 190gn Ribteks are sweet , accurate and plain tough !
My Douglas fir are bunny busting tough with 160gn blunts attached . I might lose them but rarely break them .

I just realized that I have given away three dozen Acme 50 -55s fletched with broadheads and two longbows to shoot them with this September.  What was I thinking? I should of had a wider variety of tapered cedars on hand. Now I have to order more shafts. They were all heavies for their spine as well.  I even had to load one set up with lead split shot to bring the spine down a smidgen. It was yew day, Nate, but the one game animal I saw, a turkey, spotted me changing arrows and gave me a loud turkey cuss word and left.  I did not want to risk losing a a microflite tipped with a Schulz broadhead on a grass shot. I wish I could go back to the day when I only had one kind of arrow in my back quiver, damn those big pretty turkey killin' Deadheads.

[Ray_G]

Like has been said, work out your arrow for the bow your shooting.  A year or two back in a different post, Ben Kleinig mentioned a formula that Danny Rowan told him about getting close to the spine your bow would like.  For me that was 60 / 65, like Rob.  I shoot 54# @ 26 but mine likes 145 - 160 gr. on the front.  The fun is in the learning what arrow that will be!

I am in between deer seasons right now, so the other day I did some foam filled, milk jug hunting in the back yard.  Arrows are Hex Shafts, 60 / 65 with 160 gr. points. from 19 paces, kneeling.  Guess they fly well!



I also shoot some Superceders with the same specs.  Two dozen Surewoods are waiting to be made for their maiden flights.

[Stone Knife]

My Big Five is 66" 48 @28 it seems to like 55/60 with 160 gr up front. I have shot wood alum. and carbon out of her, wood fly's the best and it is quiet. I love to tinker around with woodies in the off season.

[StanM]

At our monthy meeting last night of traditional archers Bob and Steve (owners of Surewood Shafts) mentioned that they have a number of arrow shafts that are perfectly good, but shy of the 32" standard length.  I looked at one and it was  perfect but only 30.5" long.  The grain was straight as, well, an arrow and the dang thing was as straight as you could get.  Anyway, I believe they are selling these shafts at a discount.  Might not hurt to give them a call if you are in the market for some Doug Fir shafts and can use a shorter arrow.

[Molson]

I had the opportunity to measure the weight on my Hill "Yellowstone" bow. The weight on the side is 67@26.5. I've weighed it on two different bow scales now and on both scales it measured 78@28 and 72@26.  I knew this bow was a beast!  At 67@26.5 I was taking a chance on it being 5# too heavy for me.  I would never have considered it at 72@26.  

Now for the insane part....  I didn't give up on it. I've been shooting this bow for near a month now and it's gone from an "I can barely get this back" bow to the only bow I want to shoot!  It's made my 60# bows feel like target bows. I took it on its first hunt last night and a fine doe was spared at 30 yds because Mother Nature decided to sprout up a sapling right in front of her vitals! An Ash tree made into an arrow was defelected by an Ash sapling...  Go figure!

There's just something quite addicting to shooting and hunting with Hill bows in heavier weights!  Can't wait for that Tembo...

[pdk25]

That is a fine bow that you have there, Tim. Gonna be great for taking out pigs.

[David Mitchell]

Molson, that is pretty standard for Hills that Craig builds.  I have three that he made me and all are 4# heavier than marked and than I ordered--I even had one that I bought on the Trad bow list on this site that was 6# heavy.  I don't have any idea why this is an on-going problem at HHA.

[sou-pawbowhunter]

Can any of you Gents with yew Hills tell me if the wood darkens over time like osage?

[Rossco7002]

I'm stuck at work but I can see Fedex delivered my Wesley Special this afternoon at 1613 hours. No angry calls from the wife yet.... can't wait to get home and run some arrows through it!!!!

[Ben Maher]

Sou Paw ... my Redmans have darkened a little , but nowhere near as much as Osage does .

[sou-pawbowhunter]

Thanks Ben, I have seen pics of some very nice dark red longbows, one in particular by Frank SanMarco that I can't get out of my head.  I just need to figure out how to recreate it.

[ChrisM]

I measured my hill weight the other day and it was only off by 1 lb go figure and I want a heavier weight.

[Benny Nganabbarru]

I haven't noticed my Redman bow(s) getting darker (I sold my first Redman - too short for me). But they might've without me paying attention.

One day I'll get one of those Crocodile bows.

[Ben Maher]

Sou Paw ...
Maybe just ask Craig ? I am sure he'd help as much as possible .

I have got great dark yew from Jim Belcher and maybe the best of all is in my Liberty "English " its is a dark figured yew that is just stunning .