Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Recurve

There are many fine custom bows out there, for a production bow I am partial to Martin's / Damon Howatt's.

If you buy a Nano you better buy a extra set! Both of the Nano's I have been around have had the limbs came unlaminated. The customer service is the worst I have ever heard of !! The bow is made by Win & Win and is a great bow when they are working, and their WARRANTY is not worth the paper it's written on!

I have an old colt in about 45# range......as smooth as their single actions IMO.

Get your ILF limbs from Lancasters. They have excellent CS. I've used it twice and it was beyond expectation.

Boy have I been out of touch with this stuff. I'd have said Great Northern, Bighorn or Dick Robertson.

Oldies but goodies!

Hunters Niche Predator recurves would be one to look at. Tried them years ago and would buy one if I was in the market for a new bow

Still very much goodies.
And less tinkering.

Sometimes tinkering can be a good thing. You don't have to continually tinker with it. You set things the way that works best for you and leave it alone.

I agree with the Black Widow choice. Good track record over time, if buying new only about 8wks wait and plenty of good one's used for sale. Also you pretty much know what your're going to get for your money and they stand behind their bows.

Only problem I have with them is they don't make a 64" PTF. 62" is the limit on it.

Rick,
There are plenty of good bows available today.

What is your main use going to be? Hunting? competition? Both? Are you going to shoot instinctive? with sights?

My view is strictly from a hunting perspective, if you are mainly wanting one for competition I would follow RH's advice.
The ILF styles work for hunting, but I prefer the KISS theory.

If are looking for some economy, Samick is a very good entry level bow. I helped coach a kid to 4H nationals with a Samick Sage this year and have a another newbie bowhunter all set up and ready to go with a Samick DeerMaster. There is some initial tuning and set up with any bow. But those Samick's have been bomb proof for them.

But the best advice I can give you is to find a place to where you can shoot multiple bows. A big Traditional shoot or a shop like RMS Gear in Arvada Colorado. Black Widow and a few other bowyers have "test" drive programs where you can try a bow for the cost of shipping.

My goto hunting bows anymore are my selfbows and three piece hybrid longbows. My take downs hardly ever get taken down. But it is very nice feature when traveling.

CRS
I don't disagree with you at all but don't think that you have to tinker with an ILF. It can be just as simple as any take down bow.

I do like that I can adjust the tiller since I like zero tiller for my three under shooting, and I like that I can tweek preload if I am just on the edge of tuned with a particular arrow and point combo, or if I have a longer draw and want a the draw force curve to max out at my draw length.

If you like to tweek and have an ILF, you probably will tweek it but it can be just as simple as any take down, except that you don't need a wrench to take it apart or put it together.

I like the versatility and that I can shoot lighter faster arrows for targets or heavier for hunting. I don't know of any other system that will stay together with a steady diet of arrows as light as 5gpp. I can only get my arrows to about 6gpp and be legal tip weight where I shoot , but I still get 215 fps from my ILF 3D bow.

thanks for the comment. That being sad this ain't new to me

My advice; Go to a good archery store that handles a good variety of bows new and used. Find one you like and buy it. Simple as that.

Yeah, I missed the post where you said you had been shooting Widows for years. I think you should try a static tip recurve if you want to stick with recurves. To me, they almost have a slight let off at full draw.

Bigfoot, Toelke or RER come to mind.

R H,
Can you get static tip limbs for ILF risers?

There are many different ILF limbs. They are some of the most technologically advanced limbs made in the world. They are not built on wooden forms in some guys garage like a lot of custom bows. Not to say that all those bows are crap, or that single shops can't produce some very good bows but they just don't have the $$$ for R&D like the big boys.

Now that's funny!

The only negative that I see with ILF limbs is that most all the manufactures out there; match their limbs via a weight/bend test. In other words they are not true matched limbs. Your 45 pound limbs you buy may not have even been built the same day let alone come off the same form. Different quality control between the major company's yield different quality. Right now I'd say W&W are tops, with Samick coming in a very close second.

Some of the best limbs I've ever had the opportunity to shoot were some old SKY Archery (Earl Hoyt era) maple core & glass Conquest limbs. I personally don't like the feel of foam cores & carbon. And hate the ring from carbon.

While there are some very high quality custom bows being made, we both know that there are many just as I mentioned, made by some guy who decided to get into the business and made a form and started making "custom bows". I've known a few of them myself.

I would agree with your assessment of limbs except that I can't hear any difference between my Samick Masters which are maple cores and carbon face, and my glass limbs. My Winnex limbs with foam cores do have a bit of a different sound.

As far as being perfectly matched, I don't see it as important on a bow where tiller is adjustable as on a fixed takedown.

I do not however blame you for being a bit defensive. You make an excellent bow that would be at the top of my list for a non ILF.

I know some guys building stuff in their "garages" that absolutely blow away mass production..even with quality control.

Then they better slap some ILF fittings on them since they would have the market completely cornered with limbs that blow away the competition.

RH please don't misunderstand my "Now that's funny" as being defensive. Cause I certainly did not mean to come across as defensive. I really thought that was funny!

"As far as being perfectly matched, I don't see it as important on a bow where tiller is adjustable." Funny how most company/sponsored shooters actually request matched limbs...at least they used to back when I was making a run at an Olympic spot.