257 roberts; "you are right on!! he is getting rifle hunting confused with bow hunting... differant concept"
Okay let me start by stating that I am not confusing the difference between rifle & bow hunting. I am pretty sure I know the difference.
The point I was trying to make is not how much your bow draws. Because that equals to nothing. With broadhead lethality studies it has been suggested that there is a minimum force required to get that sharp broadhead in to the vitals in order to cause hemorrhage. These studies have even broken down by cut on contact, punch on contact, & expandable. Which these have different power requirements i.e. Kinetic Energy, in order to drive the broadhead in to the vitals.
There has been a trend over the last 13 years that I have watched were Traditional archers are lowering their draw weights. The main reason for this is because of our aging traditional archers. I am a firm believer that a man or woman should, in a hunting situation, draw the maximum weight that he or she can accurately shoot. Now if you are below or at the minimum force required then you need to do several things to insure a humane kill. Some things I would look at are; distance the shot on game is taken, Extreme Fine Tuning of your equipment, change your broadhead to a long narrow High Mechanical Advantage head. ETC.
Will a 40 pound bow kill a elk? Sure but the archer better know what he/she is doing and thoroughly think the process out very carefully.
Glynn, Congrats on a very nice looking buck. A big bodied deer for sure and I'm glad to see the recommended KE worked for you. Since you were on the upper end of the thin hides and light bones category 25 to 39 foot-pounds of energy. You should have gotten a pass thru and help to prove my suggestion.
BTW, Glynn, If I owned a 65# recurve or longbow that shot a 9.5 grains per pound arrow weight at only 165 fps or 175 fps, I'd cut it up and throw it in the wood stove to heat my shop. Altering numbers to impress a point isn't needed. I said nothing about bow poundage in my earlier post.
