Reply To: short longbow recommendation

[David Petersen]

#47797

Well it’s good to finally have some discussion of Shrews here. If you read down through these posts it’s clear that the Shrew is widely accepted as the standard for great short longbows. I have two Classic Hunters, both at 54″ and plan to be buried with them. I also had a Li’l Favorite recurve and it too was superb, but at this point in my archery career, after owning countless excellent bows, I’m a Shrew CH guy forever. To each his own. And I share the growing frustration with the long wait, as I’ve suffered through it twice myself. The reason is that one man builds every Shrew from start to finish. IMHO Gregg Coffey is the finest bowyer working today, and that says a lot since we have so many art-level bowyers out there today, a blessing. Thus, Shrew is a two-man operation: Gregg builds the bows and Ron, the founder and owner, handles the business end. Their fix is whether to stay in an elite “ma and pa” status with a waiting list growing ever longer, or hire some bowyer helpers and grow it into a production-oriented business. That’s not likely, as Ron is semi-retired and likes it that way, and Gregg has a full-time job on top of building 80 or so bows a year. So it’s good that other makers are following the Shrew lead and producing good short bows you don’t have to wait more than a year to get into your hands. Yet Shrew is the original and will remain the standard. If you can work it, I suggest getting on the Shrew list (at under $700 for a standard bow, last I checked, they remain a major bargain), and go ahead and get one of the other short bows for the meanwhile. Once you get used to a really good short bow for hunting, shooting anything longer just no longer makes sense. I am a serious Shrew-head, but didn’t become one without good reason! I personally hope Shrew never gets any bigger, as the limited number of bows they are making today will only go up in value in future. If you buy a used Shrew, look for the GC on the limb indicating it was made by Gregg Coffey. I don’t pretend to be objective here, as I am happily spoiled. dave p