From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Earlier today in the "prettiest wood/bow" thread, I offered the opinion that the 51# Monterey on my wall might be faster than the 57# St. Joe River "Classic Recurve" model that I acquired back in August. Since it was on the shy side of noon and Frisky was still sleeping, GDS stepped in for him and called me on that assertion.
Because of their weight difference, I had never checked their cast against one another...but as I said to George, I found that I had to elevate my point of aim more with the St. Joe when shooting at a target, at least compared to the 51# Tice & Watts that I had been shooting much of July and August. I knew from past testing that the Monterey was only a smidgen behind the T&W for cast, so I assumed that both the Monty and the T&W were a bit quicker than the St. Joe, despite the weight difference and the FF string on the St. Joe.
Once George called me on this, I simply had to find out...so I strung up all three bows and headed up to my son's big field.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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The weather wasn't great--overcast, 30º and snow expected--but at least there wasn't much wind; just the tiniest bit of a crossing breeze from the NE.
I should say a bit about the Tice & Watts as well; it's a 1970-ish Spartan Hunter model, which as many of us know was the brainchild of a couple of NASA engineers, who used those early supercomputers at their workplace to come up with their limb design. There's no question that they developed a great limb geometry...but they left a lot of excess wood on their tips, IMO. The bow looked like this when it came to me, but Mr. Rasp and I made a few tweaks in the riser, and put those fat tips on a diet. Now it's just right, in my non-rocket-scientist opinion.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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I shot close to 30 arrows from each bow, and halfway through the session it started snowing...but not all that hard, and it didn't seem to affect the arrows. I was using some David Ellenbogen cedars, which were 75#-spined and 29.5" from back of point to valley of nock.
The chart at left shows the bows and their draw weights at my 29.5" draw. They all shot the same arrows, and I was just using my normal anchor point. The two lighter bows had 12-strand strings from Stilldub, and the St. Joe had a Fury string from Allen Schafer.
Through gritted teeth, I will confess that George was mostly right on this one. Assuming that cast and speed are pretty much the same thing, the St. Joe was almost five yards longer than the Monty. However, when you look at the Tice & Watts, the gap gets a lot narrower.
The reason I say "mostly" right is because there are several ways you can look at this. For instance, the bottom of the chart suggests a ranking that's based on how much cast you get, per pound of draw weight, from each bow. By this metric, the Tice & Watts wears the medal.
It's also pretty obvious from the results that even with the extra six pounds of draw weight and the low-stretch string, the St. Joe isn't all that far ahead. But, as many on here are quick to say...who cares about speed? All three of these are bows that I love to shoot, and right now the St. Joe is the one I usually reach for--it just looks and feels perfectly right to me.
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From: SB
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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I think a properly spined arrow would have added some distance! 75# spine for a 51# bow?
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From: Timbukto
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Way to many variables for this to tell me anything. I love those Monterey s they could be slow as green fir limb in fall and I wouldn't care they are lovely.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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SB, I have some 73# spined cedars that fly better from that Tice & Watts than any others I've tried. My draw is actually growing longer the more I shoot; it has gone from 29-ish three years ago to just about 29-3/4" now. I think most charts would recommend something in the high 60's for me with that bow...but David's thinking runs about five pounds spinier than most people's charts, and from my experience I think he's right.
When you shoot an arrow against the sky, it's actually quite easy to see how quickly it stabilizes. I've seen how 67# spines fishtail when I shoot them from the T&W or the Monty...but with spines up in the 70's, all I see is straight flight...and the distances bear this out, because that fishtailing really knocks the yardage back.
Today's shooting was really only checking on one variable: whether or not the 51# Monterey with a B-50 string could shoot the same arrow as far as the 57# St. Joe with its FF string--and the answer was that it couldn't, as George suspected; it came up about 2% short of the goal.
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From: Frisky
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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No flight test is worthy of consideration unless it's a Deathmaster vs. a Jack Howard Gamemaster Jet. Then you have to put the winner up against the Drake Hunter Flight. Right now, the flight test of flight tests was when Jack Howard, Jet in hand, shot an arrow across a ravine and it landed just short of a mound of dirt. Bob Savage, Deathmaster in hand, took his shot and hit the bottom of the mound!
Joe
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From: George D. Stout
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Looks like they are all good performers. That Tice and Watts is a star though comparatively speaking.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Lance and Peter got to see the T&W launch a carbon into space this September on our elk hunt! All three of us looked for that arrow for ten minutes...and then just by chance found it on our way out, fifty yards farther than where we had been looking. Gotta love that thin air above 10,000 feet for flight shooting!
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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That arrow launch with the Spartan Hunter was an incredible thing...Kerry shot it from one rock spine to another covered in conifers across a large wet meadow...we all saw the arrow hit it's apex way out and begin the drop so we had a line...it was a long way out and I lost it "against" the trees (because it was actually behind the trees!! LOL) I took a bearing with my compass and off we went in search of the arrow. As Kerry said it was 50 yards further than any of us dreamed, but in line with the bearing...we just did not figure it could have gone that far. Funny thing was it hit the only patch of dirt on a rock studded downslope and stuck...three inches in any direction and it would have hit a rock and ricocheted off into parts unknown!!
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From: Jim
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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I think that the Tice & Watts Spartan Hunter was one of the all time greats! Thanks for the info guys.
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From: Knifeguy
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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That's pretty cool Kerry. I'd be interested in knowing how the 60# Grizz shoots the same arrow. Maybe on your next experimental journey.... Thanks, Lance.
P.S.: And to actually think that I was allowed to carry the T&W whilst in the wilds of CO!
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Lance, I've actually done a short test with that 1959 Grizzly and that arrow! A dozen of them flew an average of 219 yd. from it. However, there are two things to bear in mind: First, with my apelike draw that Grizzly (braced at 7.5") actually pulls 63.25#. Second, the air was a good 25º warmer the day I shot it, and there weren't any snowflakes in it!
Using the same ranking metric, that works out to about 3.46 yd./lb. of draw weight. However, 75# spine is way too light for that bow; I'm sure that something in the mid-80's would be more appropriate, and would fly farther. I will also say that the two quietest bows I've ever shot have been '59 Grizzlies...and this is one of them.
Lance and I swapped 1959 bows a bit earlier this fall--I got his Grizzly, and he got my 60" long White Wing. The White Wing, by the way, was 50.5# at my draw, and averaged right around 200 yd. with those same arrows.
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From: Lowcountry
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Date: 12-Dec-17 |
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Crookedstix - I alwAys like your flight shooting posts.
Frisky - concerning your famous flight test of lore - as you described it, isn't it simply be a matter of aim.
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From: Frisky
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Date: 13-Dec-17 |
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No, not a matter of aim. It was a matter of distance! Jack's arrow just didn't have the distance to reach the mound.
Joe
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 13-Dec-17 |
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It's been three years and we're still waiting for Frisky to step and toe the line with the "Holy Fail" or the "Slow as Deathmaster!"
Crookestix challenged him, as did I, when we dropped in last September...Kerry had the Tice and Watts and I had the Howatt Saber.
In a flat land with thousands of acres of freshly cut grainfields Frisky claimed there was no suitable location!!
Talk, as they say, is cheap!
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 13-Dec-17 |
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Anyway...enough about Frisky Joe and his slow bows and claims that will always be loftier than his arrows!!
Back to your interesting tests...
How do the FASCO Sonic and the Westbow Special Hunter stack up? I understand the Westbow was 45# but interesting to know.
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 13-Dec-17 |
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BATMAN...Tice and Watts got started sometime in the early 70's and were doing fine until the compound craze in the mid-70's that hammered a lot of companies making trad bows. T&W was one of them.
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From: Milk River Stickman
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Date: 16-Dec-17 |
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This is so interesting. Thanks for posting this kind of stuff.
Luke
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From: larryhatfield
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Date: 16-Dec-17 |
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Kerry, the norm for bows that compete in Flight have a much higher threshold. An older model standard factory longbow I sent to Ike Hancock, 35# with his wood flight arrows, shot 7.8 yards /# in 2000. The 35# Venom longbow is almost at 10 yds/# at 9.63. Flight is sort of tricky with comparisons due to the fact that there are so many variables that can come into play while shooting. Strings can easily add around 10 ft/sec., for instance, as can a clean release with no string roll. That is interesting though!! Nice you can enjoy the flight of arrows!!
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From: mangonboat
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Date: 16-Dec-17 |
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This thread makes me a bit nostalgic for my earliest days as an archer in NW Ohio/SE Michigan, about as flat as you can find and still be habitable. We were just kids trying to see how far and how high we could shoot, and there was so much flat land that you never lost sight of your arrow. There is not 250 yards of flat land anywhere within 50 miles of me, now. It would be fun to drag a car full of bows somewhere, shoot them all at the same spot in the sky and see where the arrows come down.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 16-Dec-17 |
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Yes, Larry,
Someday I'd like to track down all of the variables between my "back-field" flight shooting and the stuff that goes on at Bonneville. I'd especially like to see the arrows, and also a slow-mo video of the way the serious flight archers rip/punch their release. My inner scientist wants to know just how much extra oomph you get from each little tweak.
The analogy occurs of the guy who takes his family car to the drag strip and does the quarter-mile in 15 seconds. Take that same car, but start adding in fast tires, bigger breathers, headers, competition camshafts, etc. etc....maybe bore those cylinders a wee bit more...and before you know it he's running eleven seconds!
When I compare bows, I'm pretty careful to keep it as apples to apples as I can, so that the only variable is the speed of each different bow. I know that there will be slight variations from one shot to the next in terms of my angle of release, smoothness of release, and air movement down-range...but in theory those should all inflict random error (as opposed to biased), so a large enough sample size should take care of the problem.
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From: crookedstix
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Date: 16-Dec-17 |
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And speaking of such things, here's a photo from a delightful comparison I did a few years back: a Martin (Howatt) Saber against a 62" Harry Drake recurve. As I recall, both bows were rated as 60# draws; at the time, I didn't have my own scale, so I don't know what they were at my draw length that day.
What I do know is that they matched each other, arrow for arrow, always within a yard or two back and forth. Fifty arrows later I still couldn't call a winner. A couple of great bows--gee, I probably should've kept them!
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 17-Dec-17 |
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They both went to good homes!
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From: Frisky
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Date: 17-Dec-17 |
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They're both piles of junk! My Drake is a true flight bow. Says it right on the bow. Hunter- Flight. Now that my Bow of Bows is boxed up and leaving me, my new bow will blow the socks off of everything!
Joe
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 17-Dec-17 |
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Oh come on Frisky...when I shot the Saber at your place at the Garage Light Range I heard your gasp of amazement when the arrow hit the chicken head! Oh...I mean the pheasant. I actually traded the Saber in Kerry's picture for another that was a bit higher in weight as a fellow Leatherwaller wanted to step down in weight. I prefer the new one ( which is the one that impressed you and MT Quiver) as the grip is slimmer. So some other member on the LW may not be happy that your calling his new bow a piece of junk!
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From: Frisky
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Date: 18-Dec-17 |
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MT and I thought you were shooting at the turkey's butt, as that's where your arrows were landing. I didn't see a single shot out of that dog hit where it was supposed to hit. Wait until you see my secret new bow!
Joe
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From: Pdiddly
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Date: 18-Dec-17 |
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That was a pheasant target...not a turkey...you and Mt need glasses!
Speaking of turkey's are you going to sell your Drake too?
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From: Frisky
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Date: 18-Dec-17 |
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I meant pheasant, lol!
The Grail is safe in my hands!
Joe
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