Longbow advice please??

[Miner Willy]

Hope you enjoy your bow from YewTreeArchery. I have two and they are great. No probs with either of them. I can hit 100yds with the bamboo and osage one I got from him recently. My arrows have 75 grain point and are Boyton Pine with 3" shields on them.

The only thing I'd change is the string, Keith is very conservative when it comes to his strings they are 16 strand and will slow your bow down, they'll probably never break though!!! Change it for a 14 strand Dacron is you are shooting up to 50 pound, or a fangled fastflight with flemish twist if you want to get the distances.

Have fun and remember to post a piccy when it arrives.

[Blackcat]

Sorry to jump on here this late in the discussion, but the string thing got my attention. I have an old bow 30# at 28" and can get 80 to 100 yrd (not easily) and think a new string would be a benefit. I'm looking for a good stringmaker so any advice/guidance on where to look would be appreciated. If your interested I have boyton pine arrows 25-30's with 80 grain copper points and 4" parabolic feathers which fly like a dream.

[Mad Archer]

I've got a Bickerstaffe osage belly bow with about 60lbs on my fingers, so I have no probs reaching 100yds. However, speaking to other longbow archers, there are some common themes. Firstly, to get the distance the two key issues seem to be arrow weight and drag. A lot of archers reduce the weight of arrows by using light points, keeping them as short as they can (without compromising on safety) and barreling the ends in a similar fashion to ACE arrows. Secondly, the key factor in drag appears to be the profile of the fletchings, i.e. how far they stick out from the shaft, rather than their length (which seems to be less important). Obviously, a reasonable match of arrow spine to bow is important so that you don't compromise arrow speed. Also, when it gets hot a longbow will lose poundage and the arrows will lose spine, so your group will drop.

[steve58]

Originally Posted by Miner Willy

Hope you enjoy your bow from YewTreeArchery. I have two and they are great. No probs with either of them. I can hit 100yds with the bamboo and osage one I got from him recently. My arrows have 75 grain point and are Boyton Pine with 3" shields on them.

That's interesting, I am about to build a set with 70 grain points and 2.5" fletchings, seems like I may be in the right territory. At the risk of starting a lot of discussion... has anyone come up with a rule of thumb relating pile weight to fletching size? eg 125 grain pile means you need at least a 4" fletch? Or would it relate to overall arrow weight as much as the weight of the pile? What about distance? The assumption seems to be less distance = bigger feathers? I've noticed in another post in this thread, and on another thread about fletching arrows for a mongolian type bow, that height of the fletching may also be a crucial variable, anyone got any comments or relevant anecdotes? Or is this so personal to the archer that we are all going to have to agree to differ? How many arrows am I going to have to build to get this right!?