SMG laminated horn bow (Page 3 of 3)

(speaking from just my own experience with SMG)
I think they just lack resources to communicate with non-korean speaking customers. I speak korean and I gave them a call and texted the lady what I wanted, wired the money a few minutes later, and I saw my bow about 5 days later in Texas. Not to dig into their personal life, but the person that helped me seemed like a mother figure (kids, dogs, etc over the phone) and didn't seem like they have the resource for foreign inquiries.

Again, these are all just guesses from my perspective. I was extremely happy with the service... nothing bad to say. Coming from a Korean culture, its understandable that it is frightening to try to communicate in english when english is so heavily pushed to everyone...

Never had any experience with other distributors but i think it might be easier to obtain it from other sources if possible.

@geoarcher: What do you think I can do to buy a laminated horn bow like yours?

I actually don't have the laminated horn bow.  Rather that's greyhamster's.  I do have a suggestion though: contact Korean Gungsulwon over at this ebay address: http://www.ebay.com/usr/luke1731.  They sell the SMG bows and just about every other Korean archery product you'd ever need.  I asked them about the one by SMG bow made out of all bamboo and they were even willing to sell that one to me.  Their mark up isn't too bad either.  Other than that you could always deal with Koreanbows.com and see what they'd do for you.

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.

That's interesting.  They certainly made it out to look like an SMG that they sell and when I asked them about the bamboo SMG they made it sound like it was basically SMG but they stamp it or something with their own brand name.  I was a bit hesitant though to buy as their message to me was in rather confusing English and if this is true then I'm glad I did. Yeah I'm definitely interested in who they use for their laminate/synthetic bows.

Ah, yeah that is tiny.  I had a YMG at that size though I prefer sizes more in line with 'janggung' so I eventually sold it. 

Anyway glad to hear you're enjoying the bow a bit more now.

@greyhamster: I looked at koreanbow.com. The SMG is a carbon, not horn http://www.koreanbow.com/shop/index.php … er=product
Your bow looks great, man I wish I could buy one. Sigh...

On request they will buy an SMG bow and ship it to you. It´s not offered on their site though. I mailed them about it:

`Dear Alwin,

Thank you for your inquiry.
We are planning to deal with Song mu gung soon.
And if you want it now, I will supply it for you.

Artificial horn bow : $300 (include shipping)
Laminated horn bow : $460 (include shipping)

Thanks,

Silvia

This is what they told me:
`Thank you for your question. Materials are the very same ones with other laminated bows, Layers of Bamboo & Carbonic materials. But our best good point is ours have more bamboo layers in it and have advanced processing technique for carbonic material. And the maker's name is the best brand in Korea under our judgement. Thank you. H. J. Lee KOREA GUNGSULWON`

And I bought the Jung-Gung bow which is an inch shorter and it´s fine for me.

No, no heatbox. Muleo has had one for two years and hasn´t kept it in a heatbox so I assume it´s not wholly necessary. It´s also made with modern glue and glue is and was the greatest weakness of ancient composite bows.
That said I do try to keep it dry and carry a soft cloth with me to dry it when I´m done shooting. I also warm it up a bit when shooting (draw 26, 28, 30 inches with the first 3 shots) Not sure if it´s even necesarry but can´t hurt to be safe

Yes clear shoe wax gives the birch bark enough protection.  Beeswax may get a bit sticky when warmed by the Sun.

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