Gonçalo
03-20-2005, 03:02 PM
Hello everybody
Limbwalker directed me to this forum. I think I should start by introducing myself.
I am Portuguese, 59 years old, live in Lisbon. My first experience with "real" bows was at 16 when I bought a 28# American flatbow and a set of wooden arrows (I still have that bow hanging on my wall), but I only started to learn how to properly use a bow nine years ago when I went into olympic style archery (style, not level unfortunately). I shoot basically for relaxing and for fun, and as time went by I found out that a sport as structured as olympic archery was somehow loosing part of its appeal and I have been drifting into traditional archery to find again the fun and relaxing I got from archery some years ago.
I recently bought a 35# Martin X-200 and on first shooting it some problems arose. Sorry, this is bound to be a longish post!
My basic data:
My olympic bow is a 66" Hoyt Radian recurve, 37# on the fingers at full draw. I draw 28" to the back of the bow, so I expect to be pulling close to 35# with the X-200.
My first idea was to shoot off the shelf, but after reading through the Trad Talk archives I decided I would probably be better off with some sort of elevated rest. As the window cut-out in the X-200 is not very deep I chose not to use a plastic rest, as they are usually a bit thick, but put on a thin leather strike plate to get a reasonable center-shot, and built something similar to the limbsaver rest Limbwalker described some time ago. String is 12 strands of whatever comes with the X-200 (Dacron???), served with Diamondback.
I intended to shoot some Easton X7s with 86 grain NIBB points and 4" feathers wich I used to shoot indoors some years ago and which worked well out of the Radian. Although these arrows, at 27.5" overall, are a little too short for my present draw, I expected them not to turn out too bad from the X-200, as after all it is nominally just 2# short of the Radian.
Well, they seem to come out of the X-200 much too weak.
There is a heavy arrow mark on the center of the strike plate, on shooting there is a loud slap on the bow and the leather covering on the rest started
peeling from being stricken by the forward tip of the lower feather - these show a mark too. The flight is awfull even with the fletched arrows, and I dammaged two perfectly good bare-shafts in the process (and never shot at over 20 yards...)
My first assumption is that a 60" 35# recurve has probably much better cast than a 66" 37# one, and that these arrows behave weak because of that. I don't know if the arrows being too short also has something to do with the slap - the point standing about .5"-.75" inside the window at full draw probably doesn't help either.
The thing is, I am at a loss now about what shafts to use, as up to now the shaft selection charts have always worked well for me with the kind of bows I have been using. But at my draw and pull all of them suggest the 2012 or 1916 size, which I have seen to be too weak even with 86 grain points.
I want a shaft length of 28.5"-29", and intend to use RPS inserts so I can play with different points. As one of the points I intend to use are the Judo, I will assume basic point weight to be around 125 grain, plus 30 grain for the insert. I intend to use 4"-5" feathers. I don't expect to shoot at over 50 yards with this bow, probably 35 yards or under most of the time. No hunting, at least for the time being.
Can anyone comment on this and offer suggestions about a shaft size to use with these specifications? Or perhaps know someone who has similar specs to mine and let me know what they shoot? Any help would be much appreciated.
Sorry for such a bother on my first post, but I felt I should give Limbwalker a break, I really have been pestering him too much! :)
Gonçalo
Limbwalker directed me to this forum. I think I should start by introducing myself.
I am Portuguese, 59 years old, live in Lisbon. My first experience with "real" bows was at 16 when I bought a 28# American flatbow and a set of wooden arrows (I still have that bow hanging on my wall), but I only started to learn how to properly use a bow nine years ago when I went into olympic style archery (style, not level unfortunately). I shoot basically for relaxing and for fun, and as time went by I found out that a sport as structured as olympic archery was somehow loosing part of its appeal and I have been drifting into traditional archery to find again the fun and relaxing I got from archery some years ago.
I recently bought a 35# Martin X-200 and on first shooting it some problems arose. Sorry, this is bound to be a longish post!
My basic data:
My olympic bow is a 66" Hoyt Radian recurve, 37# on the fingers at full draw. I draw 28" to the back of the bow, so I expect to be pulling close to 35# with the X-200.
My first idea was to shoot off the shelf, but after reading through the Trad Talk archives I decided I would probably be better off with some sort of elevated rest. As the window cut-out in the X-200 is not very deep I chose not to use a plastic rest, as they are usually a bit thick, but put on a thin leather strike plate to get a reasonable center-shot, and built something similar to the limbsaver rest Limbwalker described some time ago. String is 12 strands of whatever comes with the X-200 (Dacron???), served with Diamondback.
I intended to shoot some Easton X7s with 86 grain NIBB points and 4" feathers wich I used to shoot indoors some years ago and which worked well out of the Radian. Although these arrows, at 27.5" overall, are a little too short for my present draw, I expected them not to turn out too bad from the X-200, as after all it is nominally just 2# short of the Radian.
Well, they seem to come out of the X-200 much too weak.
There is a heavy arrow mark on the center of the strike plate, on shooting there is a loud slap on the bow and the leather covering on the rest started
peeling from being stricken by the forward tip of the lower feather - these show a mark too. The flight is awfull even with the fletched arrows, and I dammaged two perfectly good bare-shafts in the process (and never shot at over 20 yards...)
My first assumption is that a 60" 35# recurve has probably much better cast than a 66" 37# one, and that these arrows behave weak because of that. I don't know if the arrows being too short also has something to do with the slap - the point standing about .5"-.75" inside the window at full draw probably doesn't help either.
The thing is, I am at a loss now about what shafts to use, as up to now the shaft selection charts have always worked well for me with the kind of bows I have been using. But at my draw and pull all of them suggest the 2012 or 1916 size, which I have seen to be too weak even with 86 grain points.
I want a shaft length of 28.5"-29", and intend to use RPS inserts so I can play with different points. As one of the points I intend to use are the Judo, I will assume basic point weight to be around 125 grain, plus 30 grain for the insert. I intend to use 4"-5" feathers. I don't expect to shoot at over 50 yards with this bow, probably 35 yards or under most of the time. No hunting, at least for the time being.
Can anyone comment on this and offer suggestions about a shaft size to use with these specifications? Or perhaps know someone who has similar specs to mine and let me know what they shoot? Any help would be much appreciated.
Sorry for such a bother on my first post, but I felt I should give Limbwalker a break, I really have been pestering him too much! :)
Gonçalo