I shot an old Tamerlane of mine the other day that has an unusually low grip and was stunned to see how much hand shock I was getting. 30 arrows and my wrist was sore already, so sore in fact that I quit for the day.

Today I switched back to the Tamerlane I shoot regularly (which has a much higher wristed grip) and shot 150 or so and no sting at all.

It struck me that the low grip height on the shocker is very longbow-ish and it reminded me of the brutality of my last (and admittedly cheap and I suppose nasty) longbow I had.

Granted that these bows aren't exactly identical otherwise, but would I be making up that grip height would be a major factor in handshock?

Bobby

Not in my experience no.

My '63 Tamerlane had a high wrist grip. Most stable shock free bow I ever owned. Just very heavy to hold. Maybe your wrist was not used to holding an old heavy target bow every day. Keep shooting it if your wrist is not too sore.

I think that changing the pressure point of the bow hand on the riser changes the point of the fulcrum, and would also change the loading on the limbs when drawn. One way to check would be to just use the web of the hand to hold the bow without any pressure on the palm or heel of the hand and see if that changes anything.

Do you shoot Split Finger or 3 under? Just for grins...try the opposite and see how it affects it.

It's about limb timing, but it's also about grip or non-grip. No matter what the grip is....low, medium or high, I shoot them the same way, with the pressure at draw in the web of my thumb...forefinger. The Tamerlane is one of the nicest shooting bows around, but yes....how you hold it can make a difference.

I used to think my 60# Carroll longbow was a shocker...no more. My hand position changed: web and fold between two hand butts (or whatever those are called). And I don't hold tightly, don't need to .

I was given a fine 58# Hill copy with locator grip because somebody thought it was a shocker. There's zero shock for me. My 60# Sentman has a narrow blade type of grip...no shock with the grip I described.

I hated a friend's Martin ML14 until he sawed it in half and made it a takedown. Now I just dislike it.

You're used to shooting high wrist so picking up a low wrist bow might have strained the muscles with the wrist in the low position. But shock is really caused by limbs out of tiller, not grip style. Maybe the grip caused you to torque the bow, maybe you grasp the string differently, maybe the limbs are just out off tiller from the bow sitting on a rack for 40 years.

Regardless, differences in grip style doesn't cause shock, and I seriously doubt grip style even contributes to felt hand shock. Gripping the bow tightly and/or torquing the bow or string, and limbs out of tiller not only cause hand shock, but cause it to be felt more. A loose grip and heavier arrows goes a long way toward reducing felt hand shock.

I have shot a bunch Tamerlanes over the years, I have never seen one with hand shock. Like was said, you were throwing it off time and perhaps you have a wrist issue, there are a lot of little bones in there to go awry.

With a low grip the tendancy is to heel the bow. It's not built for that and your throwing the limb out of time by putting the pressure lower than the bow as built for.

Try this. Lay the grip roughly down the lifeline in the palm of your hand. Grip it loosely, like a flower... with thorns ;^) only enough to keep it from falling to the ground. Keep your elbow slightly bent/unlocked. Then as you begin to draw straight back to anchor, close your eyes and try to feel the fulcrum point where the bow wants to balance in your bow hand. Is it high? Low? Somewhere in between? This dynamic fulcrum may want to shift as you draw further. That's ok, let it, don't fight it. Try to feel where it wants to balance at full draw too, and allow a greater percentage of your hand's pressure to focus there. Do this until you have a good feel for how she wants to be held, then go ahead and shoot it just like that and see how she behaves. This may not be the end of it, but it's a good place to start.

What Jeff said.

I shoot a lot of bows and you have to hold them the way they like it, not the way you do. - lbg

Thanks everybody for input. After we're done getting run over by a couple of hurricanes here I'll need to go shoot it and be conscious of those points everyone here wiser than me has mentioned-

Fulcrum point in bow hand, draw fingers, bow heel... did I miss any?!

Mahalo!

Bobby

when my brace drops some my recurve gives a little twang, three twist or 1/4" shorter an it is gone.

Eggsactlly Jeff D. JF

Jeff D described it perfectly. Lifeline, flower with thorns etc. He's a poet, and he don't know it. Or do he?

I'm going to disagree with those that say grip doesn't change the tiller. When you change the pressure point from the web of the hand to the heal, your causing the lower limb to bend more than with the other grip which changes the tiller at full draw, and depending on how the bow is tillered at brace height can cause the limbs to be out of time and thus cause hand shock. Bob

It doesn't matter how you draw the bow, once your release the string the tiller goes back to where the arrow is holding it back and it does this instantly. The limbs cannot go out of time either because they have a string connecting them and will have identical pressure on both limbs until the arrow leaves the bow. Handshock is simply left over energy in the limbs, too low of brace height, too high of string angles in the limbs, too much mass in the outer limbs, too much bend in the inner limbs. Lots of things can cause handshock.

Bob, I agree with that.

Badger, you're wrong. You need to do some simple testing my friend. You're making inaccurate guesses and assumptions.

The Hill design longbow is designed to shoot physically heavy arrows. If the arrows are too light you will get more hand shock and noise. With my Classic Hill type longbow I prefer a minimal of 580 grains to 650 grains in arrow weight. Unless the bow is extremely heavy in pull weight I would even go heavier with the arrow weight. Moosejaw Gary Sentman.

I saw a film years ago, pre digital stuff, I was really surprised to the bowstring going helter-skelter. I decided to go to 18 strand strings, don't know if it made any difference or not. If you put off center pressure on either the bow or the string, those two leverage springs are going to act independently. While they do any way, until they stop, but it is very convenient if they start their thing at the same time and end their thing at the same time.

Bob and Jeff have said it well. I picked up my Great Plains "D" bow a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't shot in a long time. It shot loud and with a hand shock/lower limb vibration, which isn't the bow's M.O. at all. A few string twists tightened the brace height and it quieted right down.

The second shooting session finally dawned on this tired and sometimes very slow shooter that I was heeling the bow. I consciously changed up the grip to the thumb webbing and loosened my death squeeze on it like Jeff explains, and the bow was back to being my old bow friend again, and does not have the split personality that I apparently have when sometimes switching bow grips around. Often the solution is a cup of coffee and thinking about the problem--not continuing to keep repeating it:)

Hurricanes? I thought they were Typhoons in the Pacific? Or is that something different? Anyway, good luck with the storms, hope weather them well!

And why should it matter? What physically happens is that if the limb timing is off, and both limbs don't extend at exactly the same time; The arrow leaves the string when the first limb hits full extension. When that happens there is residual energy wasted in the second limb. The arrows gone before that limb fully extends, leaving wasted energy, aka "shock" in the bow.

I should add to my post above, some bows are made to be heeled , some are not. Hold the bow the way it was designed to be held. As for HIlls mine kicked if oyu gripped it hard. A loose grip and I felt nothing. My arrows were 630-635 gns.

You know...one thing that might confuse some newer folks is what "heeling" really is.

For instance, when I shoot ANY bow, the part of my hand, thumb area that touches the grip, regardless of how the grip is made, is the area made up of the pad of my thumb/palm. Now, on a high wrist grip, the pivot point of the grip is contacted by the web between the thumb and forefinger, BUT, the pad of my hand touches it as well.

I was taght that heeling was moving the thumb and hand too far in the grip actually getting the flat area of the palm on the grip area,

Either way, I don't grip any of them tightly.

To get the proper amount of hand shock out of any bow one must have enough hand strength to squeeze the sap out of the riser, jam that bow arm straight, and keep all of the draw fingers well under the nocking point. Hill spoke of getting the base thumb joint on the center line of the grip and fingers coming properly around the grip. That does not mean tons of pressure, just enough so the little bird doesn't fly away. I have seen quite a few draw with not enough poser in the ring finger when shooting split finger with a Hill longbow. There are some bows that may be sensitive to an extra strong ring finger. I have a deal with my Grooves, when I lay in that ring finger harder, I also tend to heal it more, which makes the bow shoot up. If I use a tab that does not happen as much.

Thank you to all who chimed in here!

Double checked the way I was holding the grip (since it's so different from all my other bows) not that I ever 'choke the chicken' anyway- and my wrist, arm and shoulder orientation allow me to never wear an armguard unless wearing long sleeves, BUT...

I took Jeff's advice on closing my eyes for a good number of draws to see where the bow pivoted. I think I had the heel of my palm on my thumb side pushed into it pretty hard that day it rattled my teeth. I'm so used to feeling something under my hand there from all the other high grips I shoot that I hadn't thought about heeling the bow and how that would really alter my wrist orientation (and transmit vibration.)

Good points for shooting any bow really.

Then I even swapped the string out and dropped the brace height to 8 7/8" (always looked high to me before- even for a 72" bow), added a couple beaver balls for good measure and altogether now... no nasty vibrations. Even with not really heavy arrows (although I see now that heavier ones ARE noticably quieter.)

Appreciate all the helpful insight everybody. Learned a lot from this little exercise- proving once again how little I actually know! Haha

Aloha, Bobby

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