I would like to ask whether the bowmaking technology and material make a difference in accuracy. I do not mean the skill of the archer, the length or the draw weight of the bow, shooting with sights which are parameters that certainly have influence on accuracy. What I am asking is whether a particular technology, take laminated bows as an example, changes the bows stability and accuracy by -just brainstorming- reducing the lateral oscillation of the limbs, making the bow less vulnarable to temperature changes, etc.

Any experince- or evidence-based comment will be helpful.

Thanks

I believe accuracy will always be limited by the shooter.

Years ago 20+ I heard that a guy with a hooter shooter shot an arrow up at a 45. Picked up the arrow and shot it again. He could have covered both holes with a quarter.

Bowmania

Yes. Those things can make a difference, given the same archer on the same day in the same conditions.

But some overdo it too. There becomes a point of diminishing returns, just like with most technology that's used in human hands.

e -

This keeps getting asked over and over again. Unless a bow physically changes during a shot or shooting session (which is very possible with a lot of self bows), any bow strapped to a shooting machine will stack arrows all day long at any distances, assuming a zero condition environment.

And yes, in some regards that has improved over the years, but not as much as most companies would have you believe, and some may have even gotten worse...

More simple things like physical mass, balance and grip contour may make reproducible shots easier for the shooter, but as John alluded to, that can and usually is over done these days.

Viper out.

The bow may fit your hand well, or may feel uncomfortable in your hand. High wrist, low wrist grip? Some bows draw more smoothly than others, some bows stack. The shooting machine does not care, you might. The accuracy depends on the shooter and how well the particular bow fits him. assuming you are not shooting a piece of melted PVC. I shoot my Sitka pretty well on a good day. I shoot my Hoyt less well. A lot of that is in the grip. (Hoyt sells alternative grips, I may try one). So I believe some bows are more accurate than others, depending on the shooter and his preferences and shooting style. If you watch the Olympic archery matches you will see everyone shoote either a Hoyt or a Win&Win. Could be sponsorship, could be accuracy coupled with customization for the individual shooter. TheRC30Guy

Only as good as the shooter who is steady at the shot.

More accurate? Not in and of themselves. But more forgiving, which allows archers to use them more accurately.

Yes it can make a difference as to how someone can be more accurate with one bow over another.

There is no standard methodology for measuring bow accuracy that separates the archer from the equation. Hooter Shooters exist, but they are not as well distributed as say basic range gear for rifles like benches and rests are. I have heard it said that bows are perfectly accurate, but I see little reason to believe it in the absence of tests.

Various bows are marketed as being more stable than others which is accuracy subject to the the influence of human inputs. These are generally bows that have the ability to resist the asymetry of releases, or bow hand torque.

No.

In my competitive prime I competed mostly with modern longbows and did well. But over various types of events generally scored 15% higher with long target recurves, shot without add-ons. It was not that the recurves were more accurate, just that they were several times heavier in the riser, which made them easier to hold steady and shoot consistently.

There have been days when I was able to shot even the featherlight and slender Howard Hill longbow nearly as well as a target recurve, but that required exceptionally fine focus and near perfect execution.

I think it must be very hard to shoot a low mass, short length Asian style recurve as well for more than a very few shots but it must be satisfying to try. We do this for the challenge. If I want extreme accuracy, well, I use a rifle. - lbg

Longbowguy,

I am a Turkish bow shooter, and have some similar, light- weight Asian recurves like Korean, Crimean Tatar and Mongolian. I have been testing some bows which had been provided by bowyers. To be able to test them exclusively I do some qualitative analysis like grip comfort, pulling comfort, finishing, etc. together with detailed quantitative evaluation of their performance: I have chrono'd them with 8, 9 and 10 gpp arrows, calculated the potential enery they store at 28'' draw and the kinetic energies that the arrows absorbed, hence the efficiencies. Such Asian recurves are more difficult to shoot since they don't have a heavy riser to stabilize the bow, are short and require very consistent anchor point, etc., as you precisely said. There are two main construction attitudes among the Asian bow replicas in the market. All-resin bows, that can be made more or less look- alike (specifically for Turkish design) and laminated bows that are faster but do not follow the original design due to the restrictions of this technology. I was wondering whether wood-glass lamination provides more lateral stability which may have influence on accuracy. According to my personal experience you could be as accurate with an all-resin bow as you are with a lamineted. But how is it scientifically?

90% shooter, 10% bow.

Yea, but we spend 90% of our time talking about that 10% LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzNi-L4it_I&t=638s

This is one of my test videos and I thought that it would be great to be able to evaluate the accuracy of a bow based on more or less objective parameters that are known to be correlated.

The accuracy of bows is entirely satisfactory...it's the archers that suck!

With the exception of extemes in weather pretty much any bow in a machine will shoot the same. Its how well it reacts to the archers mistakes that make the bow.

I agree with Pickngrin and Longwalker. Every bow I've owned has been capable of shooting far better than me.

"Every bow I've owned has been capable of shooting far better than me."

Of course it is a combination of both that determines results. In the shooting press they will flatly say stuff that implies that as long as you are more inaccurate than the gun it doesn't mater how bad the gun is. I got into an exchange with Jeff Cooper over that, back in the days of ink and stamps. And in the case of handguns the shooter issues relative to target size are dominant, but in something like rifles it can be the other way around.

Archery accuracy is pretty amazing. I remember a shoot back in the 90s, I forget what was special about it, it was in Arizona, and a fairly unknown Matthews shooter won the tournament in blustery conditions with target mainly in the 45-55 yard range. I believe it was the first big tournament after they changed up the 3D targets to have a 12. The guy cleaned the course and won on Xs or something. Whatever the case, I did the math at the time and standing, so called unknown distances, wind, he was at his best shooting on targets similar to those used in the English small bore prone round. Just unbelievable.

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