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in reply to: Patience – A key ingredient #59497

“A young man fears that by going too slow he may miss something. An older man knows that by going too fast, he may miss everything.”

Our own “Elkheart” said that, and it’s sure been the way for me. s 8)

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in reply to: Kodiak Blacktails #59492

Wiley — You wonder why nobody has responded to your question? It’s because no do-it-yourself Kodiak bowhunters are ever seen again, even as the bears get fatter! :wink::roll::D

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in reply to: To burn or cut is the question? #59488

Alex — You’re up early for a guy who played a New Year’s Eve concert last night! No wonder you look so sleepy in your photo! :lol::lol:

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in reply to: For those of you that hunt with wood arrows #58348

Desert Dude — please tell us more about your Great Basin Footed Shafts. For now, although they can’t approach the mid-20s FOC of carbon set-ups, footed shafts with heavy heads seems the best compromise between the “good feel” and fun of making and shooting wood arrows, and Ashby’s research re FOC. Trouble is, footed’s are expensive and I’ve had reports from friends of being dissatisfied with the product from other well-known footed shaft makers — extreme differences in weight and spine in a dozen shafts. Tell us more, thanks, including a website address, as I can’t find one with google.

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in reply to: what bow for long draw length #37797

Steve — I don’t see that you’re disagreeing with Dave, respectfully or otherwise. You’re merely emphasizing a different point of view. While he emphasized the greater hunting convenience of shorter (that is not real long) bows, you emphasize your experiences with improved accuracy with longer bows. Both are valid considerations and not really disagreement since both seem true enough to me. 2 cents from a below-average archer. snuffy 😆

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in reply to: New Bow…but not THE bow… #30999

Steve — by your standards I guess I’m a “medium experienced” bowyer, having built maybe 40 bows — the final two with glass backs and all others just wood/boo, mostly board bows. Got some good ones but never “THE bow” as you say. And frankly, ain’t that what keeps us amateur bowyers working at it? We get better. We learn from our stupid mistakes. But THE bow just never quite happens. So, pray for rain and another day for another try! That’s a lovely bow, by the way. Carry on! 😀 snuffy

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in reply to: PAYING FOR PERFORMANCE OR NAME? #30991

Patrick, increasingly you’re a hoot! So good to have you here — without humor, we are sunk for sure. 😆

Limblover — Boy is this good news! Those Maddog bows are really priced right and I love the idea — admitting openly –of making a commercial custom bow “from scraps of other bows.” Way cool! 8) It seems almost weekly someone comes on here and says he’d like to take up traditional but doesn’t have $1200 for a bow and what’s the most he can get for the least money? I’ve always pointed to the excellent and reliable Great Northern Field Bow, dirt cheap for the quality but tops out at 45#. Now here’s one in that price range that goes to #55! All we need now to become Maddog fans is a couple of honest bow-performance and customer-service reports from experienced shooters — folks like you who have shot lots of bows and thus know good from bad from mediocre. Having built a bunch of bows myself I don’t understand how anyone can build and sell a bow that cheap and still make a profit. Must be love,not money! 😀 More power! snuffs

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in reply to: Help with Tip of the Week #30982

Good one, Patrick! I mean,if we could only dispense with the stinking and unreasonable “usable” part, we could have some real FUN here, like … “Sring Saving Tip” — “Be sure to put your arrow on the string with the broadhead facing forward. I have found this tip to cut way down on the number of string I go through.” Or … “Beginner’s tip” — “I have found that by making sure my bow is turned right-side up before every practice session, I have far fewer arrows fall off the shelf.” Now, let’s hear it from you, P, and our fellow “Useless Tipsters.” 8):lol::P:twisted::roll::wink: etc. Snuffynotsnuffornot

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in reply to: ABS Maasai single bevel broadhead give away Winner #13231

Halfahun — I just have to ask: Which half? :lol::D:lol::P:lol: Sorry, but it’s that “silly” time of evening. Safe to assume it’s the upper half what pulled those amazing 100-pound short horn recurve bows. The bottom half of a Hun, of course, was a horse! The Comanche’s of Asia: the two greatest “tribes” of horseback archer warriors who ever lived. Snuffy

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in reply to: For those of you that hunt with wood arrows #13223

Don T. — With due respect for your vastly great experience in hunting and killing lots of really big animals — you misinterpreted what I said (which maybe means I didn’t say it very well). I did NOT mean to suggest that only carbon shafts will work to kill critters bigger than pigs and deer, but rather that right now, so far as I’ve been able to figure, only by using carbon can you attain the extremely high FoC that I have found to allow a mid- to light bow shooter to get reliable lethal penetration with bad bone hits on big heavy boned animals. It’s the ability to hang lots of front weight on a fairly light carbon shaft so that the overall weight is pretty heavy but most of it is up front, and you still get great flight. Maybe that’s no more clear than my first try, so once again: Right now, only with carbon shafts can you get EFoC, and my own experience, no BS, convinces me that EFoC is the single most important penetration factor especially if you can’t shoot 70 pounds. So far as “Simplify,” while you suggest it means doing what we’ve always done so long as it works (and I don’t disagree), in this case, for me, “simplify” means doing and using what provides me with the most consistently clean kills and best odds of recovery. Unlike you, what I did for years didn’t always work, maybe because I’ve never been able to shoot more than mid-60s bows and that’s going down fast with age. Go chase moose, grizzly, etc. with a 55 pound bow and your old setup and see how your odds hold up!

That said, we really appreciate having you on here with us regular guys, Dr. Don. Makes it truly feel like a brotherhood. 🙂 Snuffs

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in reply to: Backpacks #62948

Michael — seems like it would be fairly easy to add a “hinged” fold-down shelf to any metal frame pack. The factory unit I have just has a hole through the bottom of the frame tube on either side, about an inch from the bottom, with a sleeve to keep the bolt from expanding the hole in the soft aluminum frame, and a bolt with washers on either side through the sleeve. Sleeve can be an inch or so of discarded aluminum arrow shaft. Shelf can be wood, anything. In my experience it’s the hip belt first and shoulder straps second that make for comfort or lack of. What the frame is made of doesn’t much matter except for strength and weight. snuffs

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in reply to: For those of you that hunt with wood arrows #60817

But shooting what weight bow, Larry? I’m stuck somewhere between Don Thomas and Elvis(I mean King)Wannabee — I’ve shot woodies most of my long archery career but recently sent to carbons for, in my experience, their undeniably superiority re standardization of weight and spine, plus and mostly their ability to provide far higher FoC with minimal effort and cost. Yet I long for woodies and want to return … pending someone figuring a way to get EFoC with them without having to be a darned machinist with a shop. In recent years I found it increasingly difficult to buy a dozen shafts that were within even 20g the same weight or 10# for spine, no matter what I paid. Certainly, a really heavy wood shaft is strong and really helps penetration, but not nearly so much as a really light shaft with a ton of weight up front so that your total weight is trajectory-manageable with mid and lighter weight bows like most older shooters today must use, yet offer superior penetration. In my tests, 650 grain arrows with 26 percent FoC consistently outpenetrated 750 grain arrows with 20 percent FoC. I think right now the best the average woody shooter can do for really big game arrows is to use a shaft heavier than PO cedar and the heaviest head you can hang on it and still get good flight. Happily, Grizzly and STOS at least both are planning to release (“soon”?) glue-on heads in excess of 200 grains, which will really help. I know one trusted friend who has never had a problem with WoodyWeights, but I myself got consistent breakage behind the double-head on angled test shots in hard targets.

Bottom line for me is that if you hunt nothing but deer and pigs, you can shoot darn near anything. If you can pull a really heavy bow that shoots really heavy arrows really fast, and use the right broadhead (like Larry, probably?), you can kill anything. But I am an average older shooter stuck with 55# max and I hunt elk and moose and don’t want to have to worry about not having enough penetration power should I hit a heavy bone. I’ll take the safe route, for the animal’s sake, and sadly right now that’s carbon. But for a race of animals that can put folks on the moon, 30 years and more ago, and bring ’em all back home alive, I’d think it won’t be long before we will have EFoC woodies without massive tree-trunk weight. The market is waiting for the fellow who can pull that one off, and sell his product at a sane price. My thots, snuffy

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in reply to: Bow Refinish #53900

Canyon — Since nobody else has responded, I’ll offer what little experience I have. For all-wood bows I’ve built, I finished with Minwax spray spar-urethane, 3 to 5 coats. For both wood and glass-backed bows, to repair small scratches and chips I use fingernail polish. To refinish the entire bow I use fine steelwool and 3 coats of Minwax. I know there are professional bow finishers out there. Maybe someone here can suggest one? I am about to attempt staining a bleached diamondback skin on one of my bows. It has 3 coats of professional finish over the skin, yet it somehow bleached too light to be good camo. I plan to sand it lightly to hold the oil stain, then use Minwax. I’ll let you know if it turns out OK, or is a disaster. Snuffy

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in reply to: short bows #53895

SB — (guess that could also be Sitting Bear, or Sleeping Bear, or … 😆 ) Thanks for the pics. Gorgeous bow. Pretty unusual to see such a deep centercut handle on a flatbow. Must bring you a lot of joy. snuffy (no relation to Snuffornot, as I wouldn’t want to embarrass him).

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in reply to: Hickory Self Bows #45863

Fellers, for what it’s worth my experience is that boo makes a great backing that’s extremely resistant to break, as opposed to wood backings like hicory or osage lams. However, boo tends to take a set and makes for a slower bow. But they last! Snuffy

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