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Hmmm, how can I hold it in place with one hand while stringing it? I'm used to keeping the string tensed with the loop hooked around the lower nock as I did with my hungarian and while it works okay it's not nearly as carefree as it is with the hungarian.
I do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYuadxL04Ms
Pretty much to the letter, it's how I thought myself to string my bow

And it's your enthousiasm and praise which drew me to these bows ^.^
I've been out of the country for an internship for a month now and still got about 3 weeks left before I go home. The only thing I really miss is my bow XD

I contacted them previously. Their laminated bow is carbonbacked and not SMG but rather from another bowyer. I could look up the message if you want

They´re not actually made by hand though, at least not entirely. The instruction booklet shows a few pictures of the construction process. And when the bowyer finally obtained the necessary horn it only took 5 days before it was finished and shipped.

His Hwarang´s area carbonbacked though and the reason I went through all this trouble is because I wanted a horn-backed bow. It´s also cheaper to buy from SMG. Horn Bow with sock, 2 strings, 2 sets of reserve rubbers and a very sturdy and handy case cost me 420 dollars, compared to the 450 Bluelake asks (No offense to his products or his quality, they are very good as well and he does offer good customer service from what I hear.)

Www.koreanbows.com can sell them to you. They have a markup though (430 with shipping vs 395 with shipping)

I suppose you are right. I´m just kind of pissed it took 3 months to order a bow and especially because I heard nothing for a month after paying them and because I received a bow 5 lbs above draw weight.

40 inches unstrung, 48 inches when strung. By far the smallest bow I´ve ever seen. It´s the second larges size (advertised as 127 cm, forgot the name)

Do keep in mind that their bows are measured at 31.8 inches, so you´ll want to order one about 10 lbs above your regular draw weight (a bow gains about 2,5 lbs per inch)

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On to the bow itself!

I´ve been shooting it for a week now, shooting a few arrows every day. I still suck due to the effort required to draw it, I regularly fuck up the gripping but still, I can see and feel that this is a very, VERY good bow. It has some shock (Using the lightest weight arrows allowed with the bow) but I don´t actually feel it because the grip absorbs the shock. It´s also very quiet. It´s also blisteringly fast. I don´t have access to a chronograph but just by eyeballing I´d say it´s probably the fastest traditional bow on the club, possibly tied with a hunting recurve from a friend. My previous 35 lbs fibreglass hungarian had trouble hitting the 25 meter and I´d see longbow shooters with 40 lbs longbows arcing at the 25 meters as well. This bow just flatlines at that range. I´ve shot a few arrows at 30, 40 and 50 meters just to see how it performs and it´s only at 50 meters that I really have to start aiming quite a bit higher.

I also can´t express just how wonderful the bow feels. It´s light and small and weighs pretty much nothing. The limbs are also slightly bent, so the bowstring rests just to the right of the centre of the bow which is a far more elegant solution than cutting a shelf. The limbs themselves are also wonderfully thin, about the thickness of my thumb.

I do have some gripes though: The grip is a bit small. I can fit my hand on but I have rather small hands (latex gloves size S, size 7 for surgery gloves should anyone be familiar with those sizes) and I do sort of wish it was a bit bigger. I also REALLY hate the nocks.

It´s part of the Korean bow design but MAN, do I hate them. The loops on the bowstring are so large they can twist and slip over the nocks on to the limbs so you´ve got to be really careful when stringing it. You also can´t twist them or make the loops smaller because the loops themselves fall in two grooves to ensure they are in the right place. Stringing it is a bit harder than my hungarian bow. It´s also a bit of a shame that there´s brightly colored markings and stickers on the nocks.
Like I said, I recieved a bow 5 lbs heavier than ordered and it´s thus a good 10 lbs above my previous bow. I can´t really draw it back to my full 32 inches but I have not noticed any stacking so far.

Bottom line: I really like this bow. I bought it as my competition bow (it being horn backed, completely traditional, small, light and having top-notch performance) and it certainly delivers. I´m sure I will feel comfortable doing field shooting or 3d shooting with this bow. I´ll certainly be able to giggle at folks carring a 70 inch longbow around and snagging it on branches It´s a great bow in many regards even though I do have some issues with it. I would heartily recommend it to anyone, although perhaps obtained through other channels.

Finally, a question from me: What´s a good way to maintain the birch bark cover?

Also, what arrow spines for what bow weight do you guys use? It looks like I might have to get 11/32 shafts which feels kind of thick. But I´m getting a required spine of 65-70 with my 55lbs SMG bow.

So four weeks after paying them SMG finally responded. A week later the bow was sent my way and another week later it arrived at my home. It´s a beautiful thing, a work of art. When strung it´s barely larger than the arrows I use with it. It´s light and well balanced, the grip is sturdy. It´s got a very subtle twist in the limbs meaning that rather than being centre-cut with a shelf it´s off-side limbed, making it a non-ambidextrous bow with less trouble from the archer´s paradox but more visually appearling than a centre-cut bow.
The limbs are the width of my thumb. It´s amazingly thin. The buffalo horn is awesome.

Unfortunately it´s also 5lbs heavier than what I ordered (Ordered 50 got one marked as 55) and it might be measured at a different distance (they say 31.8 inch) or heavier than that because it´s bloody heavy. I can barely draw it the 28 inches to my mouth, nevermind my usual 32 behind the ear. I actually can´t even shoot it. I can draw it back three times before my arms just blood fail me. It´s about 45+ lbs at 28 inches. I´m naturally quite slender and I´ve been going to the gym and I´m just going to draw and hold the bow for 10 times a day for a week so I´ll manage but this isn´t what I´d expect from such a company.
Album here

In short, I´m rather torn on this thing. On the one hand it´s the most beautiful bow I´ve ever seen by quite some distance (TBF most people at my range shoot compounds, olympic recurves or english longbows) On the other hand the service from SMG has been dogshit. I also can´t actually say anything about the bow´s performance as I don´t think it´s wise for me to shoot it anytime soon. I do expect it to be very fast though with the thin limbs. It will also be very silent with the rubber string stops.

I´m afraid I can´t recommend anyone to buy the bow from SMG. I´d recommend throwing some extra money towards Freddy Wong and getting replied to within a day and hopefully a better attention to bow weight.

Hope so. Sent a third email because the third week since payment is Wednesday and still have no reply. Winter competition has started and I'm still stuck with my slow fibreglass bow D: I did finally manage to hit the target at 25 meters though so there is that. Gotta aim at least 30 degrees above the target 

And it has free shipping!
It´s still a bit expensive tho (SMG sells that bow for 250)

Odd, because he´s still active on FB. Speaking of which, have you seen the white horn bow he posted?

Hnnnngg, do want

And finally, the order form. These are the three files which I got

Here´s some of the files

Yesss, me too!

Now to decide what size of a bow to choose. And to ensure I get the right draw weight. The site doesn't specify at what length they measure it. I'm very excited already though ^.^

Still waiting for this

Oh wow, serious difference!