[Homer]

in reply to: String Silencers what is the best for you ? #15314

I like natural wild fur too, and have it on my selfbow. But even beaver, when it gets wet in a downpour, soaks-up and holds water so that if you shoot at game (not very likely in a downpour, granted)it can make a loud noise and whack your face with water. “Cat whiskers” are basically waterproof but don’t last long in my experience — longer on slower-shooting all-wood bows with heavy arrows, but not long at all on a Fastflight string and fast recurve or r/d longbow. Right now for hunting I’m using some cheap “balls of wood thread” I got somewhere. They’re no better than beaver I guess, but a lot cheaper.

Really, and I guess this is another topic — but all the worry we put into string silencers that work when drenched with rain, and feather “water proofing,” etc., seems pointless in my own hunting experience since hunting in hard rain sucks at best so might as well go home and keep our feathers dry. 😆 If I’m wrong, I hope somebody will tell how they manage to find big game in hard rain.

What can and do you hunt over there? Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: wild hog's shield #11835

Can you provide a link?

[Homer]

in reply to: Tuning Grizzly stick arrows #10836

You are precisely right, Mike. Furthermore it’s common sensse that a shaft is single-tapered the back third or so to keep max strength and weight up front. I cut some GrizzlyStiks just yesterday, so am “fresh” on this point. I’m guessing that the comment you refer to was simply a typo. Yet, on a related topic, ABS is losing “market share” like crazy because we still have to deal with “turning the shaft just right” to fletch and tune, since they apparently are seamed up one side, when no other carbon shaft requires this extra and confusing effort. I personally believe the ABS GS’s are among best carbon shafts made so far as the taper (for excellent and easy EFOC), strength, consistency, and overall quality. But they sure ain’t among the cheapests and I just can’t tune them, and why should I work extra hard at it when I can buy, say, CE 250s for much less that shoot like darts bareshaft, no matter why way I orient the feathers? I wish ABS all the best, but they are really slow in understanding — and I know they’ve heard this before — that “traditional” archery has become way too technical and thus we “simple minded” trad folk who mostly aren’t techno-geeks and just want to hunt, will go for the products that work the best with the least effort and learning curve on the shooter’s part. IMHO. Just trying to help make a good thing better. Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Kinetic Pulse #63903

Steve — I totally respect whatever it is you’re saying. But as a math idiot, I haven’t a single clue.:shock: But so long as whatever knowledge there is to be learned here leads us toward deep penetration and fast clean kills with high recovery success, I’m all for it. All I know for sure in the energy vs. momentum argument is that when I shoot light arrows into elk, not matter how fast, they don’t penetrate worth poop even in soft flesh, and I once had once bounce out of a shoulder hit! But when I shoot really heavy arrows, no matter how slow, they go all the way through, and even through heavy bone. To me it has always seemed that the “energy” fans are trying to justify longer shots. So again, I know you’re a very good guy and thus must trust that this study or whatever you are recommending adds knowledge to those smart enought to understand it. But down here on my level, I’ll just keep shooting really heavy arrows with what Ashby calls “high mechanical efficiency” broadheads, and get as close as I can before doing the deer. In the end I don’t think it matters so much who or what is right or wrong, but only what works best for us on the animals we hunt. Kill ’em fast and kill ’em sure. That’s what anyone who even counts for anything really wants. I hope you know this is no “argument,” with you at all, but just trying to say that … well, we speak different languages and need them all. As someone said, sort of, would you rather be hit in the chest by a light weight dart traveling really fast, or a big heavy spear going much slower? I’ve tried both, many times over, and for my conscience will go with the spear. Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Degrees of Rotation of Single Bevel Heads #63896

IronCreek — while I applaud your desire to help sort out all this confusing tech stuff, at least to your own satisfaction, I keep thinking bout something Ashby said a way long time ago, about there not being any synthetic way of imitating with synthetic target materials the amazingly complex variety of what can happen when an arrow hits an animal that may be turned this way or that, shooting up for down angle, running or standing still, hitting no bone or small bones or broadhead-busting bones. And so on seemingly forever. That’s why he, Ashby, wound up shooting arrows into freshly dead animals at every possible angle and etc. While some archers I understand shy away from shooting a fresh-killed animal’s body full of arrows for “science,” I can’t see a better way to fiture it out. Other than keeping absolutely honest and detailed records on every aspect of every kill we make. But Ashby has already done that for us, over some 30 years! I too am a tinkerur and enjoy the experiments as fun, and thus have no patience with the “if it works, why try to make it better” caveman mentality. But when it gets down to shooting into expensive ballistic jello with no bones and all such … I think maybe we’re better off just experimenting with what among all of Ashby’s research findings say works best, to see what among it works best for us and our set-ups and game, etc. Our shared problem is that the off-season lasts way too long for those of us “only just want to hunt.” My own problem as I get older isn’t what gear to use — I have that figured out for myself — but making the shot under pressure. It’s one thing to yap about “pefect arrow placement’ as the answer to everything. But another thing entirely to make those perfect shots, every single time. To paraphrase what someone said here before — well, I forget what they said! All that matters is that we have fun with it and do everything we can to make clean kills even when things aren’t perfect. I once knew a girl named PollyAnna, but even she got old and wrinkled. Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Camp Fire Trick #61797

Joe — it must be happy hour up there in WA! 😛 Or maybe some of those pretty red mushrooms that grow wild there? 😯 My counsel is for you to voluntarily enter yourself into a pointless-math-addiction rehab center! 😀 –Sober Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Just like a bad penny… #61673

Which leaves me to wonder just how the term “bad penny” originated? I am old enough to remenmber WWII-era pennies that were not copper, butsomething sort of dull silver that weighed less than copper. Maybe those were the “bad” ones that didn’t weigh enough to work in the penny gum-ball machines? Today, pennies are neither bad nor good, but mostly just pointless, sorta like me. And now, after your absence (in rehab maybe, like all them other celebs?), your autograph should be worth even more than before! Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Idaho Feral Pigs #59374

Interesting! I’d guess they’d be in the southern, more deserty and warmer part of the state? Don’t usually have wild pigs in the mountains, though sometimes I wish we did. What does it take to make a feral pig? Well, just one “domestic” pig escaped from his cage? So,when do we get an open season on “feral sheep?” 😈 Seriously, feral pigs are a blight on every place they turn up, eating all the chow that should go to natural native species. But then they are so much fun to hunt and good to eat that we who don’t have them feel jealous. Nothing is easy any more! Homer (aka “the Ham”)

[Homer]

in reply to: short longbow recommendation #57140

Duncan — ah, you eastern guys with all those great tradbow events are so darned lucky! To walk in and see Shrews on a rack and get to shoot one and buy it on the spot … In all, I’ve waited almost 2 years for 3 Shrews, and started years ago. You da lucky guy! Coffey’s own Java Man bows are equal great shooters but a bit heavier in handle wood and a whole ‘nuther different look. But he builds them down to 58″. Ah, but being maybe too fair a guy, he doesn’t shoot his own brand bows in front of the Shrews he builds, so there we still have to wait.

And I third or whatever the vote for strap-on bow quivers for these small light bows. For me the extra weight really steadys thing out good.. Hey, let’s have Kalamazoo next year somewhere out west! Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Whooops #2!!! #57130

For what? If hunting, today’s informed consensus is that 125 maybe remains “standard,” it’s barely enough if you hit bone, etc. For target shooting only it don’t much seem to matter except that the more weight up front the better a arrow shoots (up to a point of course). I don’t mean to pry, but this morning you said you’d return the arrows for the correct spine. Now it seems you’re reluctant to do that? One thing about traditional, in my experience, is even that the “big guys” like 3Rivers are extra friendly with customers. Just send ’em back, admit your mistake, and both they and you will be happy. Don’t mean to be over forward about this, but you asked and in my onw clumsy way I’m jsut trying to help. 😛 This would be a good time for someone from 3Rivers to chirp in.

[Homer]

in reply to: WindBender Bow? #54960

Hiya Jesse! I’m not so new here myself, but I’ve been sneaking around long enough to have picked up the trend that really specific questions like yours get far fewer responses, if any, than more general questions. Which is just to advise that you shouldn’t make the mistake (as I did once) that if you don’t get flooded with responses, “we” don’t give a poop about you. I think in fact that here “we” “give more of a poop” (I hope that P-word doesn’t get me cut off :shock:)more than most any other such site, but don’t just try to answer questions we don’t really know an answer to.

What I think is general good advice for unknown bows is that if you have doubts, don’t buy it until you shoot it. Good luck on this and I’m happy to have a newer new guy here than me! Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Oh Yeah #53783

Fubar and Tom — Brita also has a pour-through filter for like a tea pitcher or such. It’s big and bulky and for that reason I don’t think it’s suitable for backpacking, where we mostly need water filters, but might work OK for car camping if you start with. You’d have to start with clear water, I think. I have a Brita on my sink to filter stinky well water and they don’t seem to last too long and cost too much. Somebody else here before suggested the water bottles with filter built in, and I’ve used them for years, about $10 and come with a replacement filter. Just can’t see how to beat that deal as we need to carry a water bottle anyhow. Also good for airports and other public germ factorys. just my thoughts. Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: Leon Stewart Longbow LSS #53780

From out here looking in I can only guess that if you never could get the Wasp to stay tuned, and the Slammer “won’t go out of tune,” maybe the Wasp has a slightly twisted limb or such, and your arrows, good luck, are right in the middle of acceptable spine range for the longbow. Most shooters say that recurves are “more forgiving” than longbows, but doesn’t seem the case here. If your Slammer a deflex-reflex? That design, as I understand it, sort of “spreads out” the bennies of a recurve and is in the process of utterly changing the old views on longbows being harder to shoot. Mebe another poster here can do more than educated guess. Homer

[Homer]

in reply to: small saplings as bow staves? #52743

Howard (I rather like that name since reading “Mr. Nice”) — I don’t pretend to be an expert, but in general saplings are not considered as prime meat for good bows. What we need for that is mature trees with heartwood, sapwood, etc., so we can separate out the best bow parts depending on the species. I meself have tried saplings of Gambel oak, service berry, chokecherry, mountain juniper and more, and had no luck with any. Let’s hope that if you have access to all those young trees, you also have access to their grandpa’s. Where I live we have no great bow woods. You be a lucky man! Good to see you posting here. H

[Homer]

in reply to: 3D deer recommendations #48332

Well folks I really like the piktures! Stumpster — yes, it’s a mess! 😛 Looks like my wife’s kitchen, but she does good work too! 😀 Love your target art–is it a giant rabbit, or a pig with big ears? 😛

[Author]

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