I recently won an auction for a Samick Mind- 50, the carbon version of the Samick SKB that High Valley reviewed so well. I found it to be feather light, very compact, and (with a clean loose and proper arrows) fast, accurate and quiet. Mine is 40# @30". It has rapidly become my 'goto' bow of choice. My first end at the range was instructive; at 20 yards I just concentrated on form and loosing cleanly, and planted 5 arrows in a neat vertical line through the middle spot on a Vegas target. I have shot better but not with a first time out with brandnew bow of totlaly differing design than my longbows or long recurve. For the price one of the best bows I have ever got. A few years back I go a grea deal on a Hwarang bow bow from Thomas Duvernay (Bluelake here). It had been mis-marked at 47# (really more like 50-52#) and had been returned. In the past I have shoot that heavy but at the time was not willing or able to put that much effort out and so used it in a reproduction Han Dynasty crossbow. While crossbow shooting is fun, I far prefer handbows and after my distinct pleasure with the Samick plus the fact that having been shooting a lot more I was feeling more comfy with heavier bows, I dismounted and restrung the Hwarang. My God, that thing is fast! And just as quiet and surprisingly stable as the Mind-50. I will be taking it out to the indoor range this weekend. Gettin Hooked on Fast Horsebows here!

BTW I tried posting this in the "Shorty Bows" thread but my post never appeared.

Short Asian bows or so called "Horse bows" are great fun .

Fun? Well, a man, a short bow and a ring is more like a relation for entire life. Sometime fun, sometime frustrating, sometime perfect friendly and peacefully, sometime a real fight... but impossible to go back. Just try a hwarang and you will see.

Scorillo well said about the realtionship between the ring and a short bow. It is hard to explain when those siyahs come back and then you let the arrow go what a feeling it is compared to regualar archery. Just plain fun.

Agreed, though in my case is more an Amazon thing; they were said to have been Horse Archers. I love the light weight in hand, the seeming delicacy, and the speed.

I have been shooting the (mistakenly) so-called "horse bows" with a thumbring for years. Korean bows have a special place among them although I've been focusing on Turkish archery therefore using Turkish bow replicas mostly.

Here are some of my bows (from up to down): Mongolian (Grozer 45#@28), two Hwarang bows (54#@30 and 55#@30), two Turkish bows (Grozer Turkish base 60#@28 and 38#@28).

Ela gozlu avci, nice collection! I used to have Grozer TRH Hungarian, nice and smooth shooting bow. How do you find the Grozer Turkish Bows? As to the term Horsebows, I used the term since it seems to have come into general use.

While the term "horse bow" is not perfectly correct it is in common use by many people and at least gets the idea across.

Yes, the term horsebow became a norm somehow. There was a debate about it ealier.

Marilith,

Grozer bows are well-made. I have used several models of them. Making a long story short, here are my opinons after years of using Grozer bows:

Turkish base: Close to the original design except the string bridges. It's slow but long lasting. A few were broken but Grozer always sent replacement if the bows were within 1 year of warranty.

Turkish TRH: Much faster than the base model but it's not long lasting. Two of mine had cracks on the back. One of them was replaced but the other one was repaired by me with the advice of Grozer. The design is not as even close as the base's to the original.

Turkish Extra III (composite): Unfortunately the least satisfying of all. The efficiency is too low and so is the speed. The composite construction brings nothing if the bow is "overbuilt".

The recent Turkish bow models, called "biocomposite" are extremely fast with remarkably low mass. There is no string bridges and therefore it looks closer to the original. So far it has the highest efficiency among all the models I have shot.

Other than the Turkish bows I've shot Mongolian (the top one in the picture), Crimean Tatar, Scythian Old, Hungarian and Hunnic models. In general I can say that the models with ears (solid wood limb extremities) have more hand shock and a little bit slower. But Grozer makes good bows with reasonable price and beautiful finish.

Good morning, i have 3 grozer bows - hungarian bow of 65lbs, G4 bashkir of 76 lbs and a Trh turkish of 55 lbs. they are wonderful. 1-so please i would like to buy now another grozer but composite horn bow and i really do not know wich is the best;;;hunnish,avar,turkish:::etc ? please do you have any knowledge or experience of Grozer composite horn bows ?

2-do you know the life time of a turkish Trh bow ?

thanks a lot in advance

i forgot im thinking even in an assyrien composite horn bow ? thanks everybody

bow shooting is the best...

just in case My email is : [email protected]

Hi Riad,

The most efficient among all the types you mentioned is the Turkish bow due to its design. A friend of mine has a Hunnic hornbow and is satisfied with its performance. According to my experience with Grozer Turkish hornbow it's not as efficient as a hornbow of this design would have been. It's because of overbuilding which makes a bow more stable but lessens its efficiency. Avar and Magyar bow replicas made in Hungary are probably not historically true as some serious Hungarian academics believe. I personally believe that that's the reason of their moderate efficiency (here I'm talking about the percentage of energy transferred to the arrows under equal circumstances). The limbs are too long and because of the ears they have extreme handshock. However, I'd admit that I haven't shot their composite versions.

My Turkish TRHs didn't last longer than 1 1/2 year with regular practicing once a week. I have always used heavy arrows (8 1/2 to 10 grain/pound)so it's obviously not the consequence of abusement. Besides, they're fast bows and soot smoother than Turkish base.

Other than having a beautifully made bow having Grozer's bows has another advantage: holding a piece of history in the hands. Most of his designs are too close to the originals, so buying an Assyrian one would be a good idea just to satisfy romantic motivs. I have unf?rtunately no idea about its performance.

Hope that helps.

Best,

Murat

Grozer's Laminated Assyrian (L1) is an outstanding bow. Very fast, nice looking and very light in the hand. The new Biocomposite also give some pretty impressive performance.

I second jbl. New biocomposite is great. I have a 35 pounder Turkish biocomposite and it shoots like a 45 pounder!

Dear Murat Thanks a lot for your help, according to Mr Grozer the assyrien has great performance and so is very fast. just personaly do not like the shape very much: the bow base magyar is the strongest and can be build until 120 lbs. one of my friend just got a horn composite mongolian bow and i tried it this morning, it is so slow, the worst bow i have ever shot in my life; so desapointed for a real horn composit bow. i think that i will go either with the hunnich or the magyar best regard Riad

re hello Murat i also have a kaya coreen bow of 55 lbs and it is so,so sweet, these coreens are really good constructing bows. i saw that you coreen bows as well do you prefer them or you go more with the eaterns of the steppes ?

Marlith , could you post a pic of that bow

re hello Murat i also have a kaya coreen bow of 55 lbs and it is so,so sweet, these coreens are really good constructing bows. i saw that you have coreen bows as well. do you prefer them or you would go more with the eaterns of the steppes ?

dear marlith i will post it Mr Riad

Hello Riad,

Yes, I do have Korean Hwa-Rang bows and I really love them! So far, among all the traditional Asian style bows (made of synthetic materials) they're the fastest ones. Thanks to their short length and low mass they're easy to maneveur when used in the woods. However, I have some tuning problems which I could not overcome. In short to moderate distances my arrows make obvious fishtailing. It may be because of the low brace height and inproper arrow spine or of a weakness in my shooting technique. I couldn't find it out. Even consulting with Korean archery enthusiasts like Thomas Duvarney (bluelake here on Leatherwall)and my Korean friends did not help solve the problem. The shooting distance of Korean archers is 154 m and the fletching corrects the flight in long distances.

Since I have no problem in achieving good arrow flight with other bows of mine I though I have an inperfect follow-thru on my bow hand. Therefore I reshaped and transformed one of my Korean bows' grip to that of a Turkish bow. I meant to adapt the bow to my muscle memory to achieve good arrow clearence during release. Although I had slightly better flight it didn't help much either.

Asian bows with relatively higher brace height shoot more accurately, but this is just my personal opinion.

M.

That's what I'm trying to explain: The bow 1st from left is my Korean 54@30 with his grip reshaped to a Turkish style grip. Next to it you see "Tirendaz" bow, 53@28. The difference between brace heights of two bows are obvious. Korean hornbows are instable while their Turkish cousines are not. The limb extremities are thickened to unnedable "kassan" section in Turkish design. These limb tips work like the "ears" of other Asian bows and avoid steep increase of draw weight at the last inches of the draw. The working part of the limb is shorthened and therefore the typical Turkish draw is around 27-29''. Korean bows can eaily be drawn upto 31'' but Turkish design beats it in stability and forgiveness. Similar bows, different ballistics...

P.S: The bow on the right is Grozer's Crimean Tartar.

Dear Murat, very nice bows you have i will take a picture soon of my bows and post them. please knowing that you have a good knowlege of bows i wanted to ask you if you know the best composite extra III horn bow that Mr grozer has (speed,accuracy,smootheness,good impact for hunting) and in witch draw weith ? i was interested in turkish or hunnish but you said that the turkish is slow and the least satisfying. best regard Riad

hello . no body is unswering me yet ?

hello . no body is unswering me yet ? Riad

I have soon 3 "horsebows".

Grozer TRH turkish is very light but fast. I have 70#@28".

Also i have Kassai Bear hungarian bow, 80#@30". Very smooth to draw, little heavy and kicks your hand off, but i like it.

Soon i have another Kassai Bear, 93#@30".

Grozer won´t make many bows over 60#. Kassai makes 110#, i had 105# Bear, fast bow, little too heavy.

Have shoot recurve and longbows, but just sell my last LB, will stay on these bows.

I have thumbring too, needs lot of practise... :)

How about strings of these bows, can you use FF? I have make B50 dacron strings, but like to try FF, if bow won´t brake...

Riad, Sorry that I couldn't follow up the post. Thanks 4 the PM. Hope you got my response and that it helped.

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