76 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

Interesting link (to Nawalny bows), thank you. Think I heard this name already, and prices for real horn/sinew bows seem fair.
I had noticed that Eastern Europe (Slavian countries) have a fair share of Turkish style archery. Including Poland, and even Russia.
BTW I have seen a (pseudo ?) historian Russian movie recently, dealing with the Bathu Khan invasion. A Russian archer used a relatively short recurved bow (Scythian/Awar ?), and had an interesting way to hold arrows in his bow hand. He held them horizontally, clamped between the fingers.
Not sure if this is historically correct, but as a matter of fact, the Russian Empire had very good relations to the Ottomans for centuries. Russian museums display pieces of armour, ornated with islamic texts in kyrillic (Russian) letters.

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77 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

Whoa.  That got long and off topic.

Interesting anyway - thanks for the loooong explanation.
As said, I don't know much details about Turkey's last century. Except that the leadership orientated westwards after the WWI defeat, and dropped many traditions. Like China and Japan at that time, yet not as violent as China again half a century later.
I followed some threads on other fora, mentioning several arab/ottoman archery books, supposedly describing equipment and style in great detail. Thus, a revival is not problematic - if it's authentic is another question. In many cases, such revivals are spurred by by a kind of chauvinistic nationalism. No direct link to Turkey or other countries here ...
And thinking, I agree to the other fact you mentioned - in Turkey, Korea and China, archery was mainly an elitary preoccupation. Bowyers needed a proper compensation for months of work. The same applies for armour and damascene blades, for instance. And not to mention horses.
To extend you argument, I think the cavalry of medieval and antique kingdoms were exclusively an upper-class business. Nomadic people were probably an exception here.

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78 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

You are correct, Japan, Buthan and perhaps some other region have a living tradition. At least the Japanese variant is quite present in the West (bows and schools).
When speaking of broken traditions, I had especially the Chinese, Mongolian and Hungarian in mind. Mao's Great Leap ended up in a fiery pit, so to speak, destroying many people along with their traditions. I never heard of any traditional Chinese bowmaker having more than local reach.
I would consider a tradition broken with (at least) one generation lost. Which seems not the case with Turkey, there is a living community with traditional bowmakers. But I have to admit my knowledge in this regard is a bit shallow, not my style, nor my preferred type of bows. But Turkey, like China, is quite large, with rural areas far away from main cities and main events.

I know the Mongols have their tradition of archery quite modified actually.  ...  Funny story there actually.

I agree. Mongolia is Russian sphere of influence for at least two centuries, as I know. They even adopted the Russian alphabet.
Hungary's current tradition rests, AFAIK, solely on two bows, excavated and restored in the last century. Just the bows, nothing about the shooting style.

I think alot of the failure though is due to what you were alluding to earlier: certain manufacturers not enacting enough quality control because they want to rush their product out and make money.  Alibow comes to mind here.  And of course some designs plus material sourcing plus manufacturing were just bad.  Even some Korean bows apparently weren't immune to that.

Sure, the willingness to learn and improve must be stronger then the strive for money. As in many other businesses.
The more I read and here, the less I'm inclined to try new bows ...  roll  wink

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79 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

The Korean bow making tradition after all is essentially unbroken and of great cultural pride still.

Yes, I think Korea is one of the exceptions here. It began quite early to conserve its archery legacy (on recommendation of the German Emperor, if I remember correctly), including the craftmanship. And Korea was less affected by the great upheavals of the last century, like the "great leap" and the red menace - at least partially... The only other examples I can think of are the English longbow and the Turkish bows, and the culture surrounding them.
Not to mention that laminated bows as Armin presents use very recent technology and materials, which excludes longstanding family tradition. Very few are willing to pay for a "real" horn/sinew bow nowadays.

Hopefully the feedback given to the manufacturer will be taken into consideration and the bow design and manufacturing improved.

I hope so. The thumb archery community, the "target" group of said companies, is quite small in the Western world. Words of mouth spread quicky.

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80 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

That being said I am curious myself about the 'problem' rate that a certain manufacturer has.  I am most curious about this manufacturer's packaging, bow failure rate, but also after unboxing seeing if there are any fissures still in the glass layers of their bows.  So if I were conducting a poll, I'd include all those factors too in addition to whether or not the bow actually broke as some of what I mention are factors that could easily lead to breakage yet lead a purchaser to just push for a refund at the start.  Also important would be to mark the time period of purchase to see if there is an improving process vs. steady decline.

This is IMHO a problem with startups and very small (in business terms) bowmakers. They can hardly afford much experimentation, testing and statistical data collection. In former time of craftmanship, this knowledge collected over decades and centuries, passed from father to son.
This path seems mostly lost. Combine this with a lean towards sales numbers instead of quality ...

I think, for the time being I stay with my more industrial-style looking, series-produced White Feather bows. I expect a proper pre-production evaluation and development, and rigorous production testing. None of my 3 bows had let my down yet, and I was not always easy on them.

And as I said before, Armin's videos can be very influential.  They're well done overall, he's charming-likeable, but is the whole story really there?

What I find a bit strange: if he really wanted to test more bows, he could sell the tested one's for a discount, and invest that money in the next one.
Instead, he insists on giving it away. Extending the range of tested/presented bows seems not the main focus.

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81 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

However, I'll close on a positive by saying I applaud this level of transparency reached by the particular vendor and hope more really nice videos are made about bows.

Totally agree with you.

Those are the perils of practising a Far Eastern archery style.
Either accepting the (comprehensible) high costs of a western bowmaker, but being able to test it and have certain guaranteed warranty rights.
Or get a bow from the (supposed) source for far less money, but without a try-before-buy, communication difficulties, often extreme shipping costs, and a warranty depending on the mood of the bowmaker.
The decision has everyone to make for himself.

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82 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

If you look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahw2fys2hMQ, you can get the impression he reads this forum, too  roll

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83 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

And that's why its always best to do further research and get other opinions.

Exactly. Or "caveat emptor", as it's called in Latin.

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84 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

From my experience, I owned YMGs, HMG and an SMG and my feeling is the SMG was really the most boom for buck.  And all I had was the regular carbon laminate.

I have several "regular" carbon laminate bows, and actually quite happy with them (Windfighter, KTB and White Feather) ... thus searching for a reason to justify 500 bucks for this bow. I think it's off the table for me at the moment.

Also while that YT bow reviewer makes some pretty nice/cool videos, the guy almost always pushes everything as good/fine/great etc. 'you won't have problems'.
...
Alot of what he gets appears pretty cherry picked by the manufacturer for his video reviews as well.

AFAIK, that's called "advertisement". Not necessary his fault, I could imagine a manufacturers motive to deliver him cherry-picked bows, sometimes for free.
I own one of the bows he judged as "good value for the money", which actually has a pretty mediocre design, quality, and performance. If I had seen and tested it before, I would not have bought it. But it will look pretty cool on the wall ...

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85 Reply by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

As I understood it, it's this one:
http://www.koreanbow.com/shop/index.php … ;id_lang=1
The descritpion says:

The Taegeuk horn bow is made by Korean bowyer, Mr. Cho Yeong-seok, with water buffalo horn on its belly.

Which I understand as the "usual" wood-carbon laminate, except with a horn layer on the belly.
Not sure if this is correct, and if this bow is worth the money - compared to a KTB/Nomad, for instance.

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86 Topic by ragnar

(65 replies, posted in Bows)

Someone having an opinion about this bow reviews ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmCo5K7fFCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzDKu-2hsj8

Somehow a bit ... too cursory for me.
Didn't see the latter one yet, but going to do it tonight.

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87 Reply by ragnar

(115 replies, posted in Bows)

Not sure how to stabilize more the flight dynamics of these Eastons other then trimming down the fetching as you suggest but not entirely sure if that will do the trick.

Not sure either.
At least in my case, there was supposedly an over-compensation by the large fin area, in a control-theory-sense.

Addon:
Thy guy in the video states that 340 grain is the lowest you can get with carbon arrows.
Definitely not correct, with selected shafts (like the Maximal Carbon Edge or the Aurel Agil) and lightweight tips you can get to 250...300 grains, even for 33" length.

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88 Reply by ragnar

(115 replies, posted in Bows)

Never had such extreme fishtailing before but will cutting this type of fletching do the trick?  Was yours like that as well?

Mine were "standard" wooden shafts 50/55#, 32", 100gn tip, with triple 4" shield fletchings. They fishtailed terribly at slight release errors, which are still not so rare for me ...
So I clipped off everything above 8 millimeters (about 1/3") over the whole length, which improved the flight characteristics.
The fishtailing is quite rare since. But I am trying to build up "muscles" i.e. shooting higher draw weights than normal, thus my release gets worse after longer sessions.

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89 Reply by ragnar

(115 replies, posted in Bows)

Back then most of us started with Toth or Kassai and they were horribly designed and overpriced for what they were.  Plus, we  often times would buy too heavy because those typically were the base entries thinking we would grow into the bow but rather we'd usually end up selling it at a loss without gaining good form and or thumb technique.

Et tu ? yikes
It was a 60# Kassai Bear for me.

I'm not surprised the bow does the job. I have tested my kid's Rolan Snake Junior extensively, only without chrono. Designed as kids bow for 24", I drew it to about 30" without problems. It casts 1500 Tyro Avalon arrows (240gn) to about 150m. (Shooting for distance is my chrono-substitute).

Biggest problem is still with arrows, as the Easton Axis 700s tend to fish tale too easily as they do with every bow I shoot them with.  Think it has something to do with the fletching....

I had a similar issue with wood arrows.
Reducing the height of the fletching (with scissors) helped in my case. The arrows look now like the "streamlined fletching" manchus you get e.g. from Alibow.

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90 Reply by ragnar

(8 replies, posted in Bows)

I don't know the Elong bow, but it reminds me of the Rolan Snake. Also an all-plastic ambidextrous bow. On the upside, it is very robust and performs quite well (I have a 18# junior version for my kids). On the downside, it loses draw weight after about a year. At least according to Malta Archery's review. But for about 60 Euro/USD, this seems acceptible.

Almost forgot, maximum available draw weight for the snake is 24#. I suspect higher draw weights would compound the durability issues.

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91 Topic by ragnar

(2 replies, posted in Arrows)

I recently watched the DVD again, and noticed that in all cases, the Manchus used two-fletched arrows. At least, it looks like that.
Would that be historically correct ?
AFAIK, the Manchu knew such fletching, but I can't imagine they used it predominantly.
In the film the fletchings looks straight, and even with helical fletching, it is difficult to shoot and error-prone.

As an aside, the Manchu bows look a bit different than the late Qing dynasty bows I know.
But perhaps their earlier bows were like that.

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92 Reply by ragnar

(18 replies, posted in Bows)

FYI, there is a review of Alibow's Korean style Segye bow, on the Malta Archery YT channel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_gRgjKg9Y

The assessment is quite positive, but he shoots only on 10m (indoors), and not really Korean style.
Helpful anyway, but I'm content with my collection of White Feather bows ...

The comment section is also interesting.

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93 Reply by ragnar

(23 replies, posted in Bows)

Leather works for me, too.
But Alibow's "painless thumbring" just kicks the arrows off.

Does anybody know where nockpoints had been made historically (if at all) ? Above ? Below ?
I see some youtube guys shooting without one, usually on very short distances.
And I suppose a nocking point is really helpful when blindly nocking on at full gallop.

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94 Reply by ragnar

(23 replies, posted in Bows)

This also helps in blind nocking because I nock low, then lock the finger below the nock, then push the nock up until it reaches the nocking point.

Me too, but I use cotton thread instead of duct tape.
The disadvantage, as I realized - with bulkier thumb rings, the arrow often gets squeezed away from the bow during draw.

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95 Reply by ragnar

(1 replies, posted in Bows)

Perhaps try it ?
Albeit I doubt it's usefulness.
I am rather inclined to the Gao Ying or Manchu style lately, which has the index finger detached from the grip, pointing towards the target.

What if bows had a index ring on top of the grip like a rapier hilt?

Might it be that the main purpose of this ring is mainly changing/reversing the direction of the stabbing motion ?
Or avoiding dropping the weapon thereby ?

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96 Reply by ragnar

(23 replies, posted in Bows)

I have a similar nocking point, but above.
In other words, I nock the arrow below the nocking points.
That allows me to put the arrow somewhere at the string (close below, to be more precise), push it up against the nocking point, and only then pull it fully on the string.
Advantage is, you can do it blindly, i.e. looking at the target, not the bow.

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97 Reply by ragnar

(26 replies, posted in Arrows)

Wow !  30grains  is light.

I even got some 20gn tips, solely for flightshooting tests.
They are made of aluminium, and thus of limited usage for 3D shooters ...

Yes that video is not terribly scientific but it does show that an optimised arrow may be heavier than expected.

Which coincides with my flightshooting test results (as stated above, and earlier one's).
Slender, but not too lightweight shaft, low fletching profile, light tip.
I'm doing this just for fun (and bow/arrow comparisons), no competitive intentions ...

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98 Reply by ragnar

(26 replies, posted in Arrows)

One way around the wide inserts & lack of robustness would be to add a small aluminium footing behind them.  Are you familiar with the concept?

Yes, some of my archery club mates use such footings.
I was quite aware that these arrows are designed for target shooting, not for rough 3D tournaments.
If I was allowed to use carbon arrows in my bow class, I would choose something more robust, like e.g. the Easton Powerflight.
As mentioned somewhere before, I need to use wood/bamboo for tournaments for my class.
BTW, I have several different Easton arrow types, and the inserts (if not a glue-in tip) are always flush. You get what you pay for ...  wink

Of course this would add a little more FOC, maybe exacerbating the fishtailing.  Sounds like they may be a little soft in the spine.  Can you try a lighter point ? You can maybe stabilise the flight with taller/longer fletching but you will get more drag.

The points were quite light from the start (30 grain).
You should have heard the "bang" when shooting this arrows  yikes ...
With such a light tip weight, I suppose a 600 spine is on the "hard" side for 30#. But the 33" might fool me.
However, adding heavier tips (50 or 70 gn) reduces the fishtailing.
I made three arrows with larger fletching (3" shield, unclipped), which stabilize quicker.
I included these arrow in my speed and distance tests as well, but they scored significantly below the light version.

Old but fun video on FOC below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkLoD87wQiw

I think I will look closer at home, when I have more time.
But I believe that guy just ignored how the low-FOC straw slid back.
With a different weight/surface ratio, the result would look a bit different.

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99 Reply by ragnar

(26 replies, posted in Arrows)

After having done some shooting over the holidays, I'd like to give some short assessment.
Overall, not much difference to other carbon arrows, except for the length/weight combination.
The shaft is very lightweight, and thus behaves quite "nervous" in a light setup, i.e. sensitive to unclean release.
Such errors exhibit in a visible fish-tailing.

I didn't do an explicit robustness test, but IMHO this is a target arrow.
I don't expect it to survive hits on stone or metal surfaces.
Which means, this is not my first choice for 3D parcours.

What I didn't like: the diameter of the insert rim is more than 1mm larger than the shaft diameter.
This exacerbates pulling the shaft, and increases wear. I don't know if the insert comes from the manufacturer or the dealer.
I had ordered the shafts, with nocks and inserts included.

The initial idea was to use it for flight shooting, but that didn't play out so well.
On every try, the light 240gn arrow was outperformed by a "standard" Easton Inspire 560, (350 grain), with 2.5" parabolic fletching.
To give some results:

Alibow Qinghai, 25# @28":
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  187m
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  193m

White Feather Forever Carbon, 30# :
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  212m
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  122m

White Feather Forever Carbon, 35# :
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  225m
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  250m

The distances were measured with GPS, which showed an accuracy of +-3m.
All shots had been done in about 30 minutes, including measuring and arrow recollection.
Tried a Forever Carbon with 40# as well, but with results very similar to the 35# bow.
I think I don't manage a clean release with this draw weight yet.


And finally I did some speed tests with quite interesting results.
Using the Bowometry smartphone app, this proved to be a bit difficult.
Even under moderate outdoor wind conditions, the app immediately "detected" a shot, with ridiculous arrow speeds (200...400m/s).
Thus I tried indoors, kneeling to shoot between the roof slope and a smokestack, the only place wich allows for the minimal distance of 10 m ...
Even then, I got a >400 m/s result occasionally.

Alibow Qinghai, 25# @28":
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  180..185 fps average, 190 fps max
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  160..165 fps average, 175 fps max

White Feather Forever Carbon, 30# :
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  205..210 fps average, 225 fps max
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  175..180 fps average, 186 fps max

White Feather Forever Carbon, 35# :
  Maximal Carbon Edge 6.2 (240gn)  :  212..218 fps average, 241 fps max
  Easton Inspire 560 (350gn)  :  185..190 fps average


To be honest, I think one needs to take this numbers with a grain of salt.
If wealth befalls me anytime soon, I might get a real ballistic chronograph ...

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100 Reply by ragnar

(17 replies, posted in Arrows)

And I planned to order arrows from Alibow with the next order ...
I could get shafts (bamboo and carbon) for about the same price her as a complete arrow from Alibow, but your reports about the quality make make me think.
BTW, I know at least one source of >33" carbon shafts - look here : https://www.nijora.de/carbonschaefte/to … ng-36-inch
It seems there is no english version of the website, though.
The shafts have a fairly good reputation here (Europe), and the owner is a quite successful archer himself.
I have no personal experience with his shafts, but for 34+ inches, there are not many alternatives.

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