The last of the bows I've been waiting for came this week: a 58" Tim Meigs recurve that pulls 54# at 28" and 57# at my draw. Even though there was a puffy 5 mph headwind at times, it was so gorgeous out today that I had to try it out. This morning I took the new Meigs and the 60# Martin Saber out and launched a few.

Here in mid-coast Maine, the apple trees are in full bloom right now-- a perfect day to be outside!

The wind was just enough to play some havoc with my result-- it never failed that one bow would have some nice dead air, and then the second I picked up the other bow it would start puffing. Nonetheless, over a half-dozen rounds it became clear that the Saber would send the woodies 7-10 yds. farther, and the aluminums about 20 yd. farther.

This photo shows a round where the Meigs had nice quiet air (the two leftmost arrows) and the Saber had much rougher air (two on right).

These were definitely the two longest shots for the Meigs all morning. Take note of their location, because I came back a few hours later to try the 57# Meigs again, against my 56# Bob Lee takedown.

For the afternoon shooting, the wind was mostly gone. More importantly, I started trying what Badger had recommended: focusing on ripping the fingers off the string in conjunction with some forward push of the bow.

This tip definitely made a difference! Using it allowed me to gain about 15 yards over my best shots from the morning with the Meigs... in fact I was outshooting where the 60# Drake and the 60# Saber had been landing in my session last weekend, by about 5 yards!

Here's a closer look at the group in the previous photo. Once I started focusing on that cleaner release, my 525-grain cedars were routinely clearing this stonewall that sits about 200 yards from where I was launching my shots-- regardless of whether I was shooting the Meigs bow or the Bob Lee.

My 500-grain aluminums with vanes were landing another 40-50 yards out in the field beyond here.

So... for the third consecutive session, I could find no appreciable difference between two top-notch bows. The 57# Meigs and the 56# Bob Lee, shown side-by-side here, are just too close in their respective speed/cast for me to see any difference. The same thing happened when I paired the Drake and the Saber (both 60#) and the Monterey and the Thunderbird (both 51#) last week.

However, when I take them target shooting tomorrow, I'm expecting that I'll shoot a little better with the Bob Lee than the Meigs. Thanks to the phenolic in its riser, that bow weighs almost exactly twice as much as the Meigs. We shall see!

Another fine comparison between slow bows. Wonderful! To speak of fast bows, I went out and planted a small garden for my brother. When I finished, I shot the Grail. It is a marvelous performer at 10 grains per pound of pull.

Joe

crookedsitx

Thanks for that comparison. I've shot a Meigs replica of the Bear Compas Kodiak recurve & it's fun to shoot. I have a Meigs Duoflex longbow that is a sweet shooting bow. I enjoy reading about his regular recurve. Thanks

This Meigs recurve has "Flight Hunter" written on it-- perhaps having a bit of fun with the name? The lines of it are indeed like a Hunter-Flight, though not so short and dumpy and turquoise. I have no idea of how they would compare in flight shooting... owing to the usual chronic lack of data from Minnesota, heheh.

I'm expecting a new batch of cedar arrows-- half a dozen at 470 grains, and the other half-dozen at 495. Once I have those, I hope to be able to test most of my bows "apples-to-apples", shooting very close to 10 gpp from each of them. My hunch is that the 47# Browning Safari II from 1965 will rule the roost, but who knows-- there's a lot of shooting still to do. Such fun!

Post-script: I went back to the fields today, with two different bows and some lighter arrows, to see how things compared. Those two bows from yesterday, the Meigs and the Bob Lee, were shooting 9.2 GPP and 9.4 GPP respectively... so today I took my 47# Browning Safari II and my 45# Fred Anderson Mojo recurve, along with some 440-gr. cedars and a couple of 465-gr. Sweetland Forgewood arrows.

Doing the math, the Browning is shooting 9.3 GPP, and the Mojo is shooting 9.8. Based on results I'd had this past winter, I fully expected the Browning to be at least ten yards longer on average than the lighter bow by Fred...

Well, to my surprise, that wasn't the case today. This group is pretty typical of how it sorted out-- despite having a .5 GPP advantage over the Mojo, and an extra 2 pounds of draw weight, the Browning was only between 2 and 3 yards longer on average... and in fact the longest shot of the day was made with Fred's bow using one of the Forgewoods; about 220 yd., give or take.

In this photo the three arrows nearest the camera were from Fred's bow; the three farthest away were from the Browning. That's not much of a spread!

I can think of two possible reasons why Fred's bow performed better than I was expecting. The first is that I traded strings on it today; I got rid of Fred's hunting string with cat whisker silencers, and used bare Dacron instead... which probably gave it a little extra speed.

The second reason: I've seen threads where bowyers had talked about the need to "warm up" a yew bow, because the extra resin in the limbs sets up a bit in colder weather. I'll ask any bowyers reading this: is it possible that the yew limbs on Fred's bow perform better in warm weather? Since most of my winter flight testing was on a frozen lake in sub-freezing air temperatures, it seems at least plausible that this could have been a factor.

At any rate, I have to adjust my thinking a bit in light of all this. Both the Browning and the Mojo were casting just a bit farther than the Meigs and Bob Lee did yesterday... literally only a yard or two, however. Geez... at this rate I'm headed for a ten-bow dead heat in terms of apples-to-apples performances-- I need to get a couple of Bears and Pearsons I think, just to open up some gaps!

You need to get a Deathmaster and a real Hunter-Flight and you'll open up some gaps on the garbage you've been shooting.

Joe

or get one of these drake speeders.

May I also recommend you warm up those improperly seasoned yew limbs on that Mojo on top of a bonfire.

Joe

LOL... it's a tough crowd here on the Leatherwall; I'm starting to feel like Rodney Dangerfield! Go back to your arrow-making, Frisky-- they may be crooked and ugly, but since the farthest you ever shoot is 17 yards they should be adequate. On the off-chance that you ever do any flight shooting, I'll mail you a few straight ones.

LOL - Keep-em coming. You guys are great!

Tim Meigs is a long established bowyer that isn't mentioned as much as he probably should be. I've met him, he's a likable fellow & knowlegable in archery. One of the greats.

a meigs longbow is the only bow i own other than howatts. love it.

I feel like there's not much difference in performance in most bows. Most of the difference is in shootability, so find one you like and have at it.

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