Long or Short Limbs

[levelt]

This is further to a post I made several weeks ago but now have much clearer measurements.

My wife has a draw length of 23" (not 28" as we first thought using a measurement system that will remain unspecified) which will greatly reduce the poundage produced when she draws the bow.

I'm planning on buying her 28lb limbs for her first bow but I'm not 100% on which length would be best, I'm leaning towards short as I'm hoping this will compensate for the lost poundage in a small way. Is my thinking correct or is this just wishful thinking.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome (apart for the one about getting longer arms we've heard that one twice already).

[pHz]

accepted wisdom is that short limbs will be SLIGHTLY quicker but SLIGHTLY less stable and medium / long limbs the opposite

with such a short draw length i think there are other factors to consider -

- what riser does your wife have / what riser will she get ? - IIRC the rough rule of thumb for bow length is draw plus 40" which would give 63" - to get a bow anywhere near that length she will need a short 23" riser (like the samick mizar) and short limbs anyway

- what weight on the fingers does she want / is she capable of pulling ? - remember that with 28lb limbs but drawing only 23" she is likely to have only about 18lb on the fingers - it might be better to decide what she needs on the fingers and work backwards from there to a suitable weight limb ?

slainte rob

[levelt]

Thanks for your reply Rob to answer some of your questions:

- what riser does your wife have / what riser will she get ?
She wants a Hoyt Eclispe (this will be her first riser) mainly because she likes the feel of it as it has a very narrow grip and it fits her hand very nicely the WinstarII she tried was like holding a brick.

- what weight on the fingers does she want / is she capable of pulling ?
She's a wimp (her words). On the beginners cousre we used 24lb bows and she struggled to reach 40yds. She certainly didn't struggle to pull the club bows and even after a couple of hours practise was still relatively fresh.

I'd like to avoid a 23" riser if possble as it's not something we want to have to replace in the next few years and I'm hoping that as she develops more strength in her back muscles she will be able to shoot at longer distances. I'm aware that there can be problems with the reduced sight window on the shorter riser causing difficulties at longer ranges. The plus side would be a purple riser with the samick.

[pHz]

bearing in mind i myself am still fairly new to this (but have gone through the 'what bow and weight and limbs' process 3 times now for me and zoe) my PERSONAL opinion would be -

riser - with the eclipse (nice riser for the money BTW - zoe switched to one of these recently after starting on a mizar and LOVES it) the shortest bow youll get with mainstream (short) limbs is a 66" one which i dont think will be a problem - at your wifes short draw length she wont get into the area where short limbs might stack a little (an issue i personally had with a 66" bow and a 28" draw length)

limb weight - from personal experience - zoe is by no means physically strong (quite the opposite but dont tell her i said that) but even after shooting for only 10 months so far is easily capable of shooting a 12 dozen round with her current setup (around 34lb on her fingers) without getting noticeably tired - with what youve said this suggests that 28lb limbs might be too light - pulling 18lb on these limbs will limit affective range and arrow speed a fair bit i think - bearing in mind the eclipse has a + / - 5% limb weight adjustment id have thought limbs around 36lb might be a better bet - that would mean around 26lb on the fingers at the current draw length which should be a better bet for accuracy and distance and could be adjusted down to around 24lb or so if needed

as i said - just my own opinion - best bet is to wait for some more responses from more experienced archers and then head off to your closest friendly archery shop (which i guess might be this lot for you - Aardvark Archery home page ) and try some limbs / risers out for real with professional draw length / bow scales measurements and good advice

slainte rob

[geoffretired]

Normally, a 23" draw would suit a 64" bow. Before you rule out the 23" riser, check that the sight window is shorter than on longer versions, and by how much.

[Gwyn]

The short riser if it has a short window will not give you problems at long distances because at long distances the sight pin is at the bottom of the window near the arrow. I could give you problem at short distances like the field bunny shot but with a low poundage on the fingers this is unlikely. I think you need a short riser to give the correct length of bow and you won't have to upgrade it unless the drawlength dramatically changes.

[celticr]

My wife has a similar situation. She shoots a Nexus in 23" and her limbs are medium length which we felt would sort of split the difference in smoothness vs. stability. The sight window is similar to the Eclipse in that it is about an inch shorter than my 25" riser. But the only possible problem with a shorter sight window and distances can be more at the short end, ie. under 20 meters, rather than the longer distances since you can run out of sight space at the top. However my wife has not had any problems with this on her set-up shooting at 18 meters. She shoots about 24#s on her fingers. I have put my limbs on her bow and can easily reach 90 meters with no sight problems.

She is 5'2" tall and has no problem with a 66" bow. In fact she likes this better than the beginner bow she first used which because of her height and strength was sized as childs at 62" and 20#. She found the longer set-up to feel more stable and smoother.

Hope this helps!

[levelt]

Thank you both for the correction on the distance issue - that could have been embarrasing if I'd posted this to a public forum.