Extenders

[Barry C]

Knoledge about extenders seems to be slow to get to many archers, the last time i shot in the UK I saw man archers with v bar set up but not usung an extender. Its still the case that they dont mass produce the reccomended length for men. Most olympic men that shoot mid to high 40 pound bows seem to choose 7 (especially koreans) inch now with women often going for 5. There is a wonderful section about this in the heritic archer.

[Kellog]

I've voted for 4" as thats what I'm currently using, but I've got a 5" that I'm playing with at the moment.

[radsbow]

I actually use a 5" extender, but voted for 6" as I shoot an NX Expert and that has an extra 1" sticking out where the extender fits. Otherwise I would have just gone for a 6" extender.

[Barry C]

The expert NX may have one inch of carbon sticking out the front but its in place of 1 inch of allow, if you look at pictures of risers the long rod bush is near enough the same distance in front of the grip pivot so it doesnt actually count as a 6 inch in my opinion. The Expert however hoes have a 3 inch extender built into the riser.

[Jerry Tee]

I voted don't use one with my 'V' bar I don't see or feel the need to.

[Barry C]

Originally Posted by Jerry Tee

I voted don't use one with my 'V' bar I don't see or feel the need to.

Im not sure how it applied to compound bows but being open minded never hurts jerry.

[robbo]

my actual extender is 3 inches, but couple that with the carbon extension on the front of my riser makes it 6 inches.

Some people have said that I don't need an extender due to the 'bridge' part of the riser sticking out 3 inches, i've found however that with a 28" long rod like I use with no extender the bow is not front heavy enough. Using the 3 inch extender sorted this problem and the bow now moves forward nicely after the shot.

I was shown how to check the balance of my bow the other week by a fellow archer, it definately feels better now the balance is right. Wonder how many people don't really know about this and just wack on the bars and hope for the best...

[geoffretired]

I think more people fit them because they can than fit them because they know why. I have some knowledge of Newton etc etc but I would not know for sure what is best for bow set up as there seems to be too many unknowns in the equation. James Park says the balance point for him is better inside the dimensions of the riser. I know that getting it wrong is easily possible and that there will be some sort of best place that is less easily found. Much of the thinking is common sense,up to a point, but when you don't have the total picture there is much guesswork, I feel.
I have always wondered about extenders and why they are used. If it's to put a v-bar onto so there is less rear balance from the bars, why not use less rear weight on a non-extended V-bar?There must be some other reason.
I would like to know what that is as I feel left out when I don't know.
Is there a definitive explanation of these things somewhere?
Thanks
Geoff

[Wrexham Exile]

[quote=

I was shown how to check the balance of my bow the other week by a fellow archer, it definately feels better now the balance is right. Wonder how many people don't really know about this and just wack on the bars and hope for the best...[/QUOTE]

i use 4".

out of interest how did they show u to do this??

[joetapley]

Is there a definitive explanation of these things somewhere?

Geoff

I don't think I've seen an definitive explanation of anything in archery

As Barry C said experienced based requirements for an extender are given in the Heretic archer. There is also a table somewhere on Sagi board relating extender length to arrow draw length.

I put up a draft discussion about this topic for comment (see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/joetapley/bowload.htm ). Having had some feedback what's said needs some revision (when I get round to it). e.g. by relying on opinion rather than crunching the numbers I underestimated the contribution made by a V bar system to the bow dynamic stabilisation .