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I see so many people shooting with these square oversize handles. What you shoud do:

They are usually made from some hard foam and designed to be customized. Remove the wrapping, then carve it with a knife to suit your hand size. It can also be sanded a bit to finish it(by hand, no power tools) but be careful not to touch the wrapping above and below the handle. Then do a test wrap, shoot a bit, and adjust as needed. When you're happy with it,  rewrap with the material of your choice: leather, tennis grips, stingray skin, rubber etc..

If you cut too much, you can glue some additional material. I used some automotive radiator rubber tube I had around the house. Any rubber or hard foam should work.

Never have your lower limb point forward. What you show in the picture is fine. Personally I push forward much more, so the bow ends up parallel to the ground.

Ask someone (or set up a camera) at full draw. If the lower limb is bent more than the upper limb then push more in the upper part of the grip. The limbs should be ballanced, but if out of ballance, it's better to have the top limb bent more. For me, the accuracy went up alot after I started to put more force in the upper llimb. It also straightens up the wrist, and makes the bow easier to draw. You have to find the ballance of your bow, so there is no universal rule.

Look at how the modern olympic and compund archers hold their wrist. Because of the grip design of olympic and compound bows, they can have the wrist at a 45 degree angle to the ground and still keep the bow vertical. They do this because that is the natural and strongest position of the wrist in relation to the forearm. With a korean bow, if you keep the wrist in the same position, the bow will be tilted. The amout of tilt depends on how much you can comfortably rotate your elbow, without loosing strength. You should try to find the most comfortable postion of your elbow, forearm and wrist.
I can personally draw stronger bows by using this tilt technique.

If when you shoot the arrow is on the right side of the bow (right handed, shooting thumb release), then there might be issues. If the arrow is on the left (right handed, shooting fingers), it should be OK as long as the offset does not get worse.

If there is no visible limb twist (look alongside the limb, the tip should not point left or right) serving the string on the entire loop may help making it follow the center wood "guide". If you are experienced with woodworking, you could add some extra wood on the right side of the guide, to force the string to the right.

If you see any limb twist, maybe this topic can help:
http://www.koreanarchery.org/punbb/view … 31&p=2

I have noticed in high speed videos that the top limb starts moving later. I will have to dig up the movies or even better, make new ones to show this.

Another thing I noticed on one bow, is that the lower half of the strings tends to oscillate. I do not if it happened because of the technique, the bow, or both. Again, I'll search the video in my archive.

Hmm..I haven't really wondered why it happens, but this makes perfect sense. The only way to find out is to make a dry shot and check . of course, that is not an option, but heavy and light arrows could be used....wait...this might explain the oscillations mentioned above. The bow I was mentioning is a 75# or so Hwarang shooting about 45g arrows, in winter. Maybe the inertia is really playing an important role.

In my opinion the high frequency oscillation shows the rotation of the arrow as it bends - it is a combined motion of the two. The amplitude shows how much the arrow bends. A lower spine arrow (or bad release) will create a larger amplitude.

: YES, YES, YES! The tricky part is applying the same torque every time.

The bow is like a horse: He is stronger but he must not know that. If you are weak and let him win (meaning just letting it rest it in the cup of the hand), then the shot will be weak...without spirit, as the japanese would say. You must be strong every step of the way, and try to push with the top of your palm and pull with the little finger, rotating the bow forward. In Arab archery it is said that the lower syiah should strike your shoulder after the arrow is released. Strangely enough, I improved my accuracy with Korean bows a graet deal just by doing this forward rotation or push. Push is actually not the right ord, because, as you noticed, you should not actively push, put put tension in the grip, both forward and lateral. Still, the forward tension is much more important I feel, but it cannot function without the lateral one. I still have not found the answer here. Maybe you have seen this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbraY11ZpmM
It is visible that with more forward tension, the bow also rotates more laterally. Unfortunately I did not had the time to investigate further...or to shoot as much as I would like.

Yes, but only a bit, and especially with low spine arrows. The amount is much less than they tend to go to the right. Thomas has a video on youtube where he shows how to grip the bow, away from the forearm - I think it is about Kaya ktb. Just squeeze the bow a bit more and torque is created as you draw. You don't need to actively rotate the wrist.

I made this movie last year ... maybe it helps to visualize the motion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pcei7cRcU

In order to accommodate the long draw, I needed to drop the right elbow and straighten the left elbow perfectly. I was putting a lot of stress on my left shoulder and sometimes I was pushing it up or towards the arrow because the left elbow was not strong enough in that straight position.
Also, the lowered right elbow was not allowing the right forearm and the arrow to be in the same plane, which affected the release and more importantly the instinctive shooting ability.

For target shooting at long range this method (very long draw) might work very well, but for fast shooting involving instinctive aiming, moving targets or horseback archery, I found that the shorter draw fits my needs better. The bow doesn't complain either.

Anyway, draw length should be chosen after all other variables are fixed: first choose your front end form, arrow level across the face, arrow to draw hand forearm angle, left wrist position (gripping style), right wrist position (I prefer and recommend a flat wrist), bow angle etc. Then, when all these are fixed, simply measure your draw length.

I see that the link is not pointing to the right page. Click on Standards to go to the page that indicates bow and arrow lenghts.

Well, it’s a long story and I will go off topic even more… maybe the moderator could move this into a more appropriate topic. So, here is my take at it:

I must say first that I can only speak for SMG bows, carbon laminated, artificial horn version. I only shoot two YMG and two Kaya bows, and found them to be about the same, but I did not shoot them for a long time in order to get a better comparison between the makers. Also, the force-draw curve looks almost the same.

In 2009 I bought my jung-gung, 49# at the same time with a friend who got a 50# jang-gung. At the time I didn’t notice the change, but after shooting side by side it was clear that his trajectories were lower. When I measured the bows draw-weight curve, it became clear why. Then I tested both bows with a chronograph and found out that the jang-gung was about 10fps faster.
First, compare the measurements in this thread paying attention at the 49# jung-gung and 50# jang-gung: http://www.koreanarchery.org/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=232

The curve of the jang-gung is better up until 28 inches, and from that point on the bows have almost the same curve. Actually, the shorter bow stacks a tiny bit more. Also, I calculated the total energy and the jang-gung had between 5 and 10% more energy stored. Efficiency came somewhere between 65 and 80% for both bows, depending on the type of release: snap or holding for 2-3 seconds. The jang-gung had of course better efficiency by about 4% to 7%.

In terms of feel, I could say that the longer bow feels indeed stronger in the first 10 inches or so, but after that I could not really make a difference. Overall, I find the longer version nicer to draw, because you need to apply more force all the way, while still being smooth. It is actually smoother after you pass the first 7 or 8 inches.

As for reliability, I can only speak from experience on my 49# SMG jung-gung. In 3 years it shows no sign of defects. I shoot for about a year at 33”-34”, then dropped to 32.5”, used it in rain, shoot 6 gpp, I applied excessive torsion in the handle, I’ve hit once an object with the lower siyah…the bow is still shooting great. With the jang-gung I shoot regularly with 6-7gpp and this bow is a “wonder” to me, especially after the accident it had. I would really like to know what kind of glue they are using.

The tricky question is about higher vs lower weights. After doing all those measurements (see the thread mentioned above), I brought the curves of a stronger and lighter bow on the same scale and it became obvious that as the draw weight increases, the bow stacks less and preloads better, having a more level curve, which of course, is better.

For lower poundage (50# @ 29”), I would say not to worry about bow lifetime, except if the bow has some manufacturing or material issue. Most problems I have heard of are breaking of the carbon fiber on the back of the bow. The artificial horn versions are the most reliable though. Still, I have heard of higher poundage bows having a bit more frequent issues. I’ve not measured exactly but I have the impression that the carbon fiber on the back is the same thickness for all bows, and just the core differs in thickness. If this is true, maybe the stronger bows are reaching closer to the carbon fiber tensing limit, causing a break there. From this point of view, it would be better to have a longer bow with a shorter brace height if one wants to stress the limbs less.  So from a technical point of view, the longer bow should be more reliable at long draws. Personally I would like to see a bit more width in the limbs in the high pound bows, maybe just 3mm or so, as this would make them a bit more stable and reliable, but a bit slower too. Anyway, this is speculation as I have not measured the carbon fiber thickness in stronger bows. I would be curious to see one of the stronger bows that were recently ordered on this forum.

In stringing I have not found any differences. After all, there is just one inch difference between the two. As for stability, I think it depends a bit more on luck. They are pretty flexible though and can be corrected with a bit of heat. More width would help improve stability, but sacrifice speed.

I recently tried to acquire another jang-gung, but since it was not available at the time I received another jung-gung, “korean tiller” SMG. This 2012 version is different from the 2009 version. The top limb is more curved and a bit stronger and the difference between the top and bottom limb is higher. Although I have not measured it yet, I can feel the first inches stronger, but still not as good as in my jang gung (2011 version).

The good news is that the bowyers are constantly improving the bows so I guess it’s becoming easier to get high poundage bows these days.

Gabriel wrote in another thread:

I have seen similar questions for some time now and decided to add this information here. Be very careful though, as it could damage the bow if not done properly and with great care!!!

This is how I correct limb twist (see pictures below). Only use softwoods and make sure you don't twist more than the bow wants to twist. Do not force the bow. Apply just a light twist at the beginning, see how and it goes, then restart from there.

I place the assembly near a heat source. The one I use never goes higher than about 50 degrees. I let the bow in this position for 2-3 days and check the results.

This bow was damaged by me. The bamboo core was split exactly along the center, in the top limb. All initial glue lines were intact so I was lucky (I was really impressed with the glue that the bowyer used). I re-glued it but then the limb showed a twist to the left which caused the string to jump off the bridge after 2 or three shots (it stayed on the bow though). Now, after this treatment it has a slight twist to the right - Korean tiller. I also added a bit of wood on the right side of the string guide, to help the string stay on the right side. Now the bow is 100% shootable and still my best bow so far: SMG, jang-gung, 60#. It is really a joy to pull compared to "normal" jung-gung bows.