Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting new traditional shooter needs help

I know I'm firing a bunch of questions at once but any help would be great. I've been shooting a bow for about 2 yrs. Started with a compound and kinda got bored. bought a use recuve and can't put it down. I'm a long time reloader and love to tinker with ammo so it seemed natural to starting tinkering with arrows. Started with carbons and now I'm learning about wood. So I got some questions.

2 blade or 3? I bought some Magnus Snuffers 3 blade but not sure what is all aroung best for whitetail.

What is "footing" or "footed arrow"?

What is "reflex/deflex"

What is the difference between a "long bow","stick bow","flat bow"??

and last for this post:
I am thinking about buying a Martin Savahna long bow. I have shot this bow and think it is great. Good idea or no?

Thanks
Mark H

2 blade promotes penetration, 3 blade is more blades to sharpen and with greater difficulty.
Afooted shaft is a wooden shaft with a section of denser wood spliced in at the front. Supposed to make a tougher arrow and better forward balance. Pretty looking and spendy.
r/d is the direction the bow limbs take. All recurves are r/d, even when strung. The Savannah is an example of a r/d long bow: looks like a recurve unstrung, long bow when strung.
A true longbow is a D shape with a straight handle 62-72", stick bows are also called self bows, big hunk of wood cut to a sort of long bow but usually no fiberglass backing. Flat bows are short with wide limbs and abbreviated draw lengths, Indian style.

I have several Martin bows, including a Savannah, I think they are about as good as it gets for a non custom bow.

wiley explained everything better than I could.But I like 3 blades for deer.Snuffers are awesome, and aren't any harder to sharpen than two blade heads.They will penetrate plenty on deer, and will almost always leave a better blood trail than a 2 blade.Not arguin' with wiley, just offering my opinion, not that its worth nuch.I will second that Martins are as good as it gets these days for a production bow.

I shoot all the styled bows you mentioned. Two that I've probably hunted w/ the most are a jacknife "critter gitter" made for me by Great Northern and an osage orange self bow made from a stave. All the bow styles have individual pluses and minuses with some being more forgiving than others, but all are a joy.

In my youth I was more attached to Fred Bear than the many other bowhunters of that time. I spent many a day roaming the woods with his recurve in my hand. As a result, I have a tendancy to fall back on such bows now and then. I recently discovered a Martin-Howatt signature Super Diabo I packed away over a decade ago and forgot. Though I've exclusively hunted with longbows and turkey feather fletched cedars for years I decided to string up the Martin and make up a batch of 2216s for Fred Bears sake. She's mighty sweet to shoot and has brought back some fond recurve memories. I will attempt to take some small game, a deer, and a bear with her this year.

As to your questions, I think most have been answered. I will add to the two blade vs three blade thing. As far back as I can remember, the design of the head and how it is sharpened makes all the difference in the world. Most every head to head test I've seen gives an advantage to a 3:1 design. Most every test I've seen also gives an advantage to a file sharpened blade over a razor sharpened blade. With all else equal, a two blade will go through bone better than a three blade as it only needs to split it once. Bastard file sharpened two blade heads have proven themselves repeatedly over the years when shot at the speeds we're talking about. The Woodsman is a three blade head that does use the 3:1 design, the Snuffer is not. There was a rule of thumb as to a minimum bow speed at which a bow was considered too slow for the three blade. I do not recall but it may have been in the 180fps range. The Woodsman may be the easiest design to sharpen. It only requires a single large bastard file layed flat so you can draw two blades along the file at the same time. You cannot do this with the others. A razor edge dulls quick when going through hair of a hide, a filed edge does not.

I'd suggest you pick a bow you can grow with. Use finished arrows that weigh in the 9 to 10 grain range for every pound of draw. Be forgiving on your knock height and keep the brace set near maximum. Forget about any super speed and just spend time working on form. It takes time but you will eventually grow into the bow and it will begin to feel comfortable like a great pair of boots. Strive to make your practice quality not quantity. Ensure you focus on the mark, in fact you need to burn a hole through that spot with your eyes. If you have difficulty maintaining that burning focus then take a break. Avoid snap-shooting as a way to overcome a lack of focus. It will haunt you like it did Fred Bear and it is hard to break.

Good Luck,
GVA

Welcome to the world of traditional archery. All of your questions have been answered.

Footing wood arrow shafts is a fairly easy procedure. It is not a good idea for a hunting arrow, as it's not needed and was originally used for target arrows to keep them from breaking at the ends. They're pretty when footed with purpleheart, but not really worth the effort, IMO, unless you've nothing better to do.

I like two-blade heads for deer, but a whole lot of people like Snuffers. For hogs, where there's a lot of gristle, I especially like a two-blade head.

Other terms regarding wooden arrows you will hear are tapered shafts and barrel tapered shafts. Tapered shafts are less in diameter at the nock than the point. Barrel-tapered shafts are thickest in the middle and taper towrads both ends.

Again, they're spendy. And people who swear by them don't know why tapered shafts were invented in the first place. Here's the story: in target archerey in England, which we essentially adopted as our tradition, target arrows were the thing, and bows pulled pretty much the same weight. Before they had spine testers, arrowmakers would weigh arrows to get the same weight, and pretty much knew from experience how thick they should be.

To even up the weight (which was given in the weight of English coins; shillings, pence) they removed wood where it was least needed, at the nock end. So, they tapered them down to the same weight.

Barrel tapered shafts are a way of using not-so-good wood for arrow wood. Or, for heavy bows. Their advantage is the strength is left in the middle, where an arrow bends when shot, but by tapering them at both ends, you reduce the overall weight.

Also, for a straight-limbed longbow, you can expect an arrow speed of the weight of the bow plus 100. So, a 60# straight limbed bow will give about 160 fps, give or take a few.

Bow speed is based on the profile of the bow unstrung. Reflex/deflex bows, with the tips pointing forward, like recurves, store more energy and are usually faster.

The fastest historical bows were the so-called "Turkish" bows, which were made with a horn belly and a sinew back, with a strip of wood sandwiched between to furnish a gluing surface. Other Eastern bows were fast, and Korean bows are probably the fastest all-natural material bows in the world. When at full draw, the limbs are almost horizontal.

When unstrung, the tips of Turkish war bows frequenlty would touch each other. They were left strung most of the time. Unpleasant to shoot, but very fast.

A fiberglass backed bow, you don't really need to unstring after shooting, and some manufacturers advise against it, because that's where bows are damaged most. It's fairly easy to twist a recurve limb when stringing or unstringing it. Shouldn't leave them strung in the heat inside a car, but at home, it's fine to leave them strung. They won't take a set in the limbs.

I have a Jack Howard bow, and he recommended it be left strung.

I have used several broadheads for deer. The Wensel Woodsman is a fine head that penetrates well due to it's smaller cutting diameter (smaller than Snuffers anyway). It leaves bigger holes than a 2-blade but does not penetrate as well.

Night before last I killed a buck with a Zwickey Eskimo 2-blade head. It penetrated the near shoulder and exited the ribcage on the opposite side. The holes in the deer were smaller than with the Wensel Woodsman, and there was darn little blood on the ground. But the deer went less than 50 yards before expiring, and I love that penetration.

Use what you like, and shoot every day. Follow through with the bow hand and let the string slip off your fingers. Keep at it and you will improve.

Live well