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in reply to: carbon vs aluminum #9812
What Patrick says! Except no way is carbon “traditional.” If you go by how long a technology has been around, alums have carbs beat to pieces. But otherwise I see aluminum shafts as obsolete. They are too fat, too hard to get good FoC and bend/break easily. In my opinion (humble or otherwise), it’s woodies for traditiona and carbons for all-around best performance and I can’t even understand why alums haven’t gone the way of solid fiberglass bows and arrows of my youth. But in the end — aside from making absolutely certain that if we shoot an arrow at an animal and it hits, it what’s needed to kill fast and humanely — other than that very critical issue, we’re in this for fun and personal challenge and satisfaction so what others do and say don’t mean beans if it doesn’t sing to us. Now, time to walk the dogs in a cold rain.:roll:
in reply to: No Gloves and hunting #9271Patrick — sorry, sloppy wording when I said “clean string guy.” Of course I use string silencers, but minimal even there. Cat whiskers work great but don’t last long enough. Big wads of fur or wool bother me visually whether they actually slow a bow or not, and get ’em wet and they’re worse than nothing. Currently I have a single 3″ strip of rawhide, like bootlace size, on each limb. Not perfect but trouble-free. What I mean to say by “clean string” is no brush buttons and no finger pads. Maybe once every few hunts I get a limb hung up in brush and think with a chuckle “brush buttons,” but would never consider it.
in reply to: Screw-in Abowyer Brown Bear #8495Patrick, I think Steve’s advice is solid. To add one more element for consideration — relative hardness. Generally stailness is harder than carbon. The hardest heads today are up around 57 and thus very difficult to sharpen. Anything below 50 is too soft according to Ashby’s tests — tips bend and break, which I have repeatedly experienced. I personally look at just about everything except stainless vs carbon when choosing a head: MA, weight, and hardness. For my own sharpening skills(?) and hunting needs, I find 52-54 to be a great “compromise.” That said, the new El Grande, which I’m assuming is still around 57 Rockwell, isn’t so difficult to sharpen at all since it comes much sharper than the old model and with the KME knife sharpener it took me less than 5 minutes each to get new heads where I want them, with a loss of less than 5 grains perhead (and they came average 204), and future touch-up should be cake. dave
in reply to: Screw-in Abowyer Brown Bear #62780Sapcut — yah, geeze, those things look like they’d cut a small deer plumb in half! Make it easier to pack out and save field dressing! :shock::D8)
in reply to: Screw-in Abowyer Brown Bear #61367I hunted last year with Brown Bears and 120-grain glue-in adapters, plus 100-grain brass carbon inserts. My other heads of choice — Concord and ABS Ashby — were equally heavy. I forget now what was what but one of those three killed a 5×5 bull for me, and the other two, shot into the carcass (one through the shoulder blade at an angle and the other through the chest) also gave superb penetration. At this point I stick with my opinion that for the money, the Brown Bear is the best head on the market FOR THE MONEY for really heavy game like elk. However I just got a pack of the new improved Grizzly El Grandes in 200 grains glue-on and have high hopes for them. While they are HUGE, looking almost like spear points, they have all the right stuff for max penetration. My only concern is how they’ll fly. Experiments will have to wait until turkey season is done. 😀
in reply to: Taking Down Takedowns #60327I not only don’t take down my Shrew Classic Hunter unless I’m going on an airplane, but either it or it’s twin one-piece is always braced while hanging on the rack. Shrew uses a BowBolt system so it’s just a twist and pull. However, I’ve made several take-down two-piece wood bows using a rectangular sleeve, brass into steel. Those suckers can really lock up on you after being assembled for a while, making taking them down a challenge for one guy. Much easier if you put the bow behind lets just above the knees, grasp it with one hand on each side of the handle and spread your knees so that your legs rather than your arms do the work. I personally don’t care for 3-piece bows, having owned a few over the years. The advantages of course are that you can buy different limbs for the same handle section, and they are shorter than a 2-piece when taken down. The disadvantage is that rather huge handle riser section, adding buld and weight I don’t need. With a 54″ Shrew, that’s two 27″ sections that fit in almost any suitcase or bag. Off topic a bit, sorry.
in reply to: Ok Guys & Gals Fess Up! Let's hear them! #60317My strangest hunting encounter ever (not counting BigButt, which wasn’t really an encounter but only a close sighting of … something): About 20 years ago I was sitting on elk ambush near a spring in an aspen grove a mile from the nearest road or house, and a steep climb to reach. About half an hour before dark, prime-time for elk to drink, a lovely young blonde lady about half my age appeared out of the shadows and I could tell she was lost and on the edge of panic. Being a gentleman of course I made my camouflaged presence known to her. Turns out she was looking for a dog she’d been walking down below which had disappeared. I escorted her back to civilization and for a while had free drinks anytime I visited the saloon where she was a cocktail waitress. I know this is a common hunter’s fantasy, like falling asleep and waking to have game all around you. I’m still waiting on that one! 8)
in reply to: No Gloves and hunting #59332Gee, I haven’t seen those things on a bow since the ’70s, about the time lots of “trad” shooters were going with sights (just before compound arrow-launching devices took over). Used to see lots of brush buttons back then too. I’m a clean string guy myself and prefer a thin glove. But with my current thin-string Shrews on a really cold morning, it’s about as comfy as shooting bare-handed. More than one way to skin a cat! If it’s your cat, the method is nobody’s choice but your own. 😈
in reply to: Getting started again #58236Hey, come on in! It’s a warm and friendly place! dave 😀
in reply to: Ethics and hunting public land #55684Good points all around. I’m basically with Bloodless, who must also be a westerner who hunts public lands. Regarding Ray’s comment that mountain bikes disturb and move elk … you bet they do! There is scientific evidence to prove it. At the Starkey Elk Research Center in OR, elk were satellite collared and monitored over a long period under controlled circumstances for reactions to approaching ATVs, bicycles, hikers and horse riders. Not surprisingly elk consistently fled sooner, faster and farther from ATVs, and took longer to settle back down. Second in level of disturbance were mountain bikes. While horses and hikers were very close in lowest disturbance levels, surprisingly elk consistently were more disturbed by hikers than horseback riders. This research is ongoing and increasingly verifies what many of us see for ourselves in how public land hunting has changed over the past several years: elk hate ATVs and go somewhere else when the ATVs arrive in numbers. Dirt bikes, motorcycles are even worse. It comes down to a simple choice: we can have better hunting across more areas and walk in to get there, or we can have more easy motorized access all over the place at the cost of quantity and quality of hunting. I agree with a senior award-winning CO game warden who says in public that “If we don’t control the ATV invasion soon, it will be the end of hunting as we know it.” Visible changes started long ago, leaving me and countless others in the awkward situation of having to walk in farther every year, even as I get older and it becomes harder. One hunter’s right to swing his fist ends just short of the next hunter’s nose. Certainly, like most problems with hunting and hunters today, motors are not nearly so big a thing among trad bowhunters. My 2 cents, dave
in reply to: internal footing ? #54586Tom — I assume you’re talking about wood shafts, since carbon internal footing is readily available? Rick Stillman, of The Feathered Shaft, who posts here as Fletcher, is actively researching to develop affordable lead-footed wood shafts. I have some prototypes on order now. There may be others but I know Fletcher does high-grade work. dave
in reply to: Points vs. random drawing hunts #53859Bill, this is one of the most difficult aspects of wildlife management and hunting even to think about. The easy answer is that CO uses points, and when they get too high with too many hunters holding points in the teens for a species, they add “weighted points.” I don’t like it. Rather than all point draws or all random draw, I think a combo would be best, as I believe AZ uses, where, say for example, 75% of annual tags go to the highest point holders, but the other quarter go to a random draw, so that everyone has a chance every year. Otherwise it becomes age related and younger hunters don’t have a prayer for many years. And here’s a closely related issue that almost no hunter ever considers: the more huntable habitat a state has and thus the more healthy the population, the more tags and longer seasons they can allow. It’s all gradually funneling down to easy (motorized and lots roads) access with low op (fewer tags and shorter seasons), vs. “restricted” access (good old-fashioned muscle-power) with far better ops and odds. It’s clear how modern hunting has been going … steep downhill at terminal velocity. As a group, we tend to be reactive rather than proactive, aka slow stubborn learners. Archery elk has gotten so crowded here in CO with a growing muzzleloader season smack in the middle of bow season, that most hunters I know join me in calling for more and more limited-draw areas (as opposed to over-counter unlimited tags). If we could miraculously totally eliminate all ORVs/ATVs beyond classified forest roads on public lands, we’d be amazed how quickly the odds to draw and success rates would rise. Sorry if that got off-topic, but your question is sort of an iceberg tip. I’ll be interested in hearing other’s experiences with and opinions on points vs. potluck draws. Dave
in reply to: help on bow id.? #53454Newguy — don’t know that bow specifically, but most strings are sold by bow length, poundage, and whether recurve or longbow. Maybe someone here can suggest a stringmaker you can contact. A good place to start is with Fletcher, aka Rick from The Feathered Shaft. Check one of his posts in the bow and arrow forum for website link. You might also post this question in the campfire forum, which gets the most visits daily. Unless you can determine this bow is built for fast flight string, I’d stick with B50 or somesuch to be safe. Good luck. dave
in reply to: Finished Wood Arrow Storage #52294Off-season I store my hunting arrows in the cardboard boxes that finished arrows come in, with plastic dividers for a dozen. Practice and roaming arrows are stashed in a back quiver hanging from my bow rack. dave
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