New bow coming!!

[southernhunter]

I picked up a used LH 40lb Bear Montana, looking forward to putting it through the paces.

 

[southernhunter]

Bow is marked 41lb under strike plate but closer to 44 on my scale and roughly 47lbs at my draw of 29" with FF string it shoots a 440gr arrow through the chronograph 170/174fps , not to bad imo

 

[tree_ghost]

I'm wanting to get my feet wet in the trad game this year....what model would you recommend as a good bow to get the feet wet?


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[Omega]

I started with an old LH Bear compound bow, darn thing had very little let off. I upgraded to a PSE Fire Flight, which I still have, but also got another one off a friend, forget the brand, but it was priced right and loaded. Now my shoulder prevents me from using either one, if it doesn't get better I may have to sell them and use a crossbow if I want to hunt archery again.

 

[eddie c]

I'm wanting to get my feet wet in the trad game this year....what model would you recommend as a good bow to get the feet wet?


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That is a good million dollar question.
1. Determine if you plan to hunt or just target shoot. Keep in mind, a 45# bow will kill a deer if you put the arrow where it counts. You don't have to have a 60-80# recurve or longbow to hunt with.
2. What s your physical ability as far as drawing a bow? It has been stated many times a person needs to start with a 30/35# bow to get their form down then go buy another stouter bow. I don't think that is necessarily true with everyone. Imo if a person can reasonably handle a 45/50# bow in the beginning, they can start with one and not have to "upgrade" later. My opinion is that when a shooter gets tired and starts to mess up, they should stop right then and rest. Some of us hard headed joker's have a tendency to try to push it and create bad muscle memory on our forms.
3. There are a lot of good lower price bows, new bows, that won't break the bank and will make excellent hunting target bows. The hard part is finding what fits YOU.

There were 2 hard parts for me. One: on my first bow I tried to tune like a compound. Forget that method. That cost me a lot of money in the long run. I was blaming the bow instead of my ignorance and arrogance, got rid of a lot of good bows in search of a perfect bow. Pay attention to the tuning methods, especially arrows
Two: coming up with my shooting style. I worried too much about my style being "correct for the masses". Check out the different methods, then decide on one or come up with a combination of several. A good friend invited me to hunt with him one weekend with I first got started. I don't remember if we shot at a target or not but that Friday night while we were eating, I was asking a lot of technical questions. He stopped me and said " you have to find your own shooting style. What works for me may not work for you. Since you are a hunter, the best thing for you to do is grab a bunch of arrows and go stump shooting. You will learn more doing that than anything."
He was right. My style is a combination of different types of methods. Now I don't read any how to stuff on shooting because if I get to thinking about it I get messed up.

 

[eddie c]

I'm wanting to get my feet wet in the trad game this year....what model would you recommend as a good bow to get the feet wet?


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I forgot to add. Your compound draw length isn't necessarily your recurve draw length. My wheel bow was set at 28. I draw between 27 and 27-1/2 on my sticks.

 

[Stykbow]

Eddie has given sound advice. I would add this; don't overthink it. When I decided to start in traditional archery I just bought a bow in a reasonable hunting weight and went to work. Took me a month or so to work out form and the right arrow, but I had lots of fun figuring it out.
To the OP, congrats on your new bow. I've always shot a recurve, but longbows interest me more and more.


If you're going to be stupid, you'd better be tough!

 

[southernhunter]

I'm wanting to get my feet wet in the trad game this year....what model would you recommend as a good bow to get the feet wet?


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you will love trad archery, wish I would have got into it before I did,

My first suggestion is just to do it! After that I suggest you start out with a very low poundage bow, 25/35lb

Trad archery isn't a one bow game unless you buy a takedown model where you can buy several sets of limbs.
Even at that you are likely going to want to try others and that's part of the fun , I say that because like me a lot of ppl buy their first bow as a hunting bow and don't want to buy a bow to just learn on however that's not a good idea,

A low poundage bow will help you learn form and your shooting style the correct way, you will use it as much or more than any hunting bow you ever buy,

I rather shoot and have the most fun with my 35lb bow day in day out unfortunately I got it after buying many bows in hunting weights and learning incorrectly. I always go about everything backwards lol

Seriously I didn't understand the aspects of a trad bow and how it effects overall use including bow draw weight/ bow draw weight at my draw length/ overall bow length / etc

Tree walker

I know that this is more info than you wanted but there isn't one bow I can point you to but I can give you suggestions to consider, I have help several ppl get into trad archery since I began and I suggest you get on the trad forums , watch YouTube videos etc before buying a bow. You will learn the ins and outs of trad archery and what others like me learned the wrong way. It will save you the headache / like others have said just don't take everything you are told to heart

The wonderful thing about trad is it's a personal journey no two ppl do it just alike

As far as bows it does not have to cost a lot to be a good bow, certainly there is expensive custom bows available and they are awesome but in reality they don't shoot much if any better than some of the budget bows, I have had a lot of both kinds , you also have your vintage bows which are great , the old bears have good resell value and can be picked up Affordably ,other brands as well.

Ultimately it's learning the correct form and shooting technique that determines how well you can or will shoot.
I learned this the wrong way as well , I was shooting a $125 samick sage so so and had this idea if I bought a $800 Bear takedown my shooting would go to the next level, didn't happen and was a false hope

Now I love the Bear but It didn't magically make me shoot better actually I couldn't tell much difference between the bows or my shooting ability between the two

To cut this off,

Learn the basic trad archery lingo shooting methods etc while taking it with a grain of salt from any resource available
Study different bows recurve vs longbow, short vs long , straight grip vs pistol grip , so you can make a informed purchase
And above all go with a poundage that will allow you to learn and adjust to trad archery correctly,

As above I'd suggest no more than 35lbs at your draw length.


Hope this helps and makes sense, feel free to let me know if I can be of any help

 

[tree_ghost]

First sorry for detailing the thread...Guys thank you so much for the responses! There is a wealth of information here for me to visit and revisit. I am going to go ahead and take the plunge. What are the best trad resources that y'all have run across? I know AT has a pretty big section but it is AT so.........


Also do you guys think I need to dedicate my 3D season to going all in with the stick bow and put the wheel bow on the shelf? I'm afraid if I try to do the two simultaneously I will end up taking steps backward on both fronts.


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[Stykbow]

Some folks shoot sticks & compounds at the same time and do just fine. I dropped the compound altogether and went straight trad. Got my recurve for Christmas, shot it exclusively, and killed my first deer with it that fall. I was tired of the wheels already, so it was an easy decision for me. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do this or not, but Tradgang is about the best knowledge base I can find. I read a ton of threads on that site to get an idea of what I was doing. Good luck on your journey into traditional bow hunting.


If you're going to be stupid, you'd better be tough!

 

[eddie c]

i had typed another short story and lost it. :bash:
i was on TG for awhile. being hanging on Bowsite's leatherwall lately. there are several good sources.

22 years ago i sold my wheels and got a recurve. probably could count on both hands how many times i have shot compound since.
as Stykbow said, several guys do both. go with the concept of shooting firearms. if you can switch between a pistol and a rifle without issues,.......
now if you can find a shooting buddy in your area to pick his brain, you can learn a lot.

 

[southernhunter]

Leatherwall ain't bad and if you use Facebook there's a couple Christian archery pages that I am on that are pretty good.