I am a compound archer who is interested in doing more recurve archery. I moved to Japan from Cambridge UK in the spring. I have a Best Zenit23 with old sidewinder limbs for my recurve setup. I am in the market for new limbs and wonder about the foam vs wood debate.
There are several things that seem to be pointing that this debate is not over. The fact that the top Korean Archers are still using Samick Masters limbs is key. Park sung-hyun also set a Fita world record of 1405 with Samick masters limbs. And in the past several world records were set with Win&Win winact limbs. This doesn't seem to indicate that foam is universally better than wood.
Even today the Korean team is still predominantly shooting Masters Limbs
Korean Archery Team
I've also heard enough stories about limb failures that a few things seem to appear true
1) all manufactures limbs will fail. no manufacturer is immune
2) both wood and foam limbs fail. no construction technique is immune
3) but foam seems to fail more often.
If you are a pro, you shoot rediculous numbers of arrows and things like limb failure and wear patterns become very real and not just stories. You also have several sets of limbs.
So I wonder. I know the general consenus in the UK is that if you are serious about archery you shoot foam. But this might not be such a true statement anymore.
I've heard enough good things about the latest Samick Universal Carbon that I wonder if enough of the technology from the Master trickled down and for competition archers I wonder if a different approach might be better. We pay attention to our arrows and have no problem retiring an arrow if it starts acting strange. There is enough variation between limbs, and we all know that limbs change as they get older. Tennis pros carry several rackets with them and swap them all the time. The only reason we don't in archery is because the limbs are so expensive and they get more expensive every year. And we are convinced every year that the 'new' version of the top foam limb is so different and improved from all the versions in the past.
So what if we think more like a pro. Not getting 'better = more expensive" equipment, but by having several bits we swap in out, and plan on buying new limbs every year. Maybe always have two pairs on hand and swap between them. And maybe having several sets of good wood limbs (Winact, Samick Masters or Samick Universal Carbon) is the better choice than one expensive set of foam limbs which start to act strange at the end of the season.
I guess I am becoming less and less convinced by the one pair of expensive foam limbs approach. And I have become very weary of the idea of buying used limbs and arrows.