I ordered a 17" White Feather Lark ILF riser and two sets of Buck Trail bamboo/glass limbs from Alternative Services in the UK. They arrived today and I'm pretty impressed with both the speedy shipping and the overall products as received.


Limbs are short, so AMO will be 58". 30# and 40# ILF limbs.
I wanted a short bow for using in my ground blind - if I decide that they're not what I need, I'll sell them and buy something else for the riser.



Now to buy a bow stringer and string and set her up with the 30# limbs in anticipation of turkey season coming up.

Very nice! I've always liked the looks of the White Feather Lark.

I've also had nothing but super fast service from Alternative on several orders over the last few years. The shipping service they use, I think it's UPS International Express, usually gets here in two days. I received one order in less than 48 hours.

Lots of guys shooting them. Can't determine who makes them and where... Chinese?

Is this your first ILF? Do you have adjustment on the preload of the limbs? My favorite feature on ILF is to use preload to adjust tiller and get better Bare shaft flight, thus getting better all-around flight.

I believe they are made in either China or Korea - a lot of others are as well. The limbs are made in China.

The workmanship on both products is excellent. I couldn’t find a single issue with any of them.

The riser was in stock, but the limbs had to be special ordered. Still, the whole process was only two weeks from order to door.

They offer a lot of IFL limb options at (by USA prices) very reasonable rates. These limbs are a mid level and only $95 each set…. For that kind of money I would be pretty comfortable if I wanted to buy a longer set for 3D or trail shoots…

Yup - first ILF.
The string is being built as we speak… no one had a 54” string in stock here locally.

Once I have the string, I’ll adjust for brace height and leave it over night to stretch. Next day I’ll check brace and tiller and adjust as needed. Then I’ll add a string nock and start shooting and go from there….

I got into ILF a little more than 10 years ago. It was ridiculous back then how good some $100 limbs were. I have a set that are only maple core and carbon back and belly, no glass. They were in that $100 range and rival any custom maker's big $$$ limbs. I would shoot 5 gpp weight arrows for 3D and have a lightweight bow shooting well over 200 fps.

That's a really good-looking riser. Seems they have stepped up their game.

A better picture now that it's strung.

That's a nice looking bow.

Yes it is!

It being such a short bow you may benefit from an even tiller if shooting split and even a negative tiller if 3 under. The possibilities are nearly limitless when you have a decent amount of possible preload adjustment. Arrows a touch stiff, add preload to both limbs evenly.

Good looking bow, how does it shoot?

I've shot a lot of trad bows over the last 25 years but never an ILF. No reason why other than it never caught my interest. That is a good looking bow though.

After letting the string stretch overnight and adjusting the brace height to 8", I shot the bow with 28.5" Easton Trad 500's and 600's with various points. It did best with the 500's and a 175 gr field point.

When I shot it earlier at 7.5" BH, it was pretty noisy. I placed small furniture type sticky pads under the edge of the limbs in the pockets that folks claim will minimize some shot noise from that location - surprisingly it worked quite well... something I ran across while investigating ILF's. I'm also going to tie in Cat Whiskers.

In the morning I plan to run the BH up to 8 1/4" and then slowly work my way back down as I shoot, until I hit a sweet spot. Tiller, has been spot on throughout.

The "plan" for this bow is simple recreational shooting and wild turkeys. If/when I decide to hunt deer with it, I'll put the 40# limbs on and go through the process again. The 30# limbs on the bow now pull 34# at my Smurf-like 26.5" draw. I anticipate the 40's to run close to 45# or so.

Stay within specs so far as brace. A high brace puts more stress on the ends of the limbs and the arrow acts stiffer. Conversely a lower brace will give extra noise and tip vibration as well as being faster and thus the arrows act weaker.

What does spot on tiller mean? Spot on for me, particularly in shorter bows is even tiller. On longer bows 62" or longer I typically like 1/8" pos.

Any chance you can post a pic of that furniture pad in the limb pocket? I'm dealing with a noise issue on an ILF setup and am intrigued by this.

RHClark,

Spot on tiller means ( to me, anyway ) that they're exactly the same top and bottom.
The bow is only 58" long and I don't intend to play with tiller at all - just keep it equal.

JGray,

I took a couple of pictures to show you, but Postimages is having issues this morning and not allowing me to sign in ( bad gateway ) I'll get them on when I can.

Pads - they're about pencil eraser in size.




Pads (2) in ILF pocket to cushion limb movement.



These were almost too thick to use - there's lots of options available and they can be cut down if need be.

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The string has apparently quit stretching and BH is @ 8 1/8". I shot it this morning and it's noticeably quieter. I'm just going to tie on the cat whiskers and call it good for a while. When the weather gets warmer I may back it off a bit at a time and see if I find a sweet spot. I very well may not be archer enough to notice those suttle changes though....

I have bought several sets of limbs from Alternative Services and have been happy with them.
Highly recommended.

Thank you - I may give that a try. Sounds like you're using 2 small pads, I assume side by side? I use similar felt pads in larger sizes for arrow rests and have a bunch on hand.