I did some chrono testing of bows. Best out of all was this “surplus bow”. Patched up and beaten with heat, delaminations and so on. It just goes to show very little is needed.
Bow specs:
105# @26" from belly. 335g and 110cm long. 31mm wide limbs and 4,5mm of sinew.
383fps with 205gn and 431fps with 150gn.
150gn arrow mass is not realistic in wood world, but with carbon arrows it was funny to test. 200gn in the other hand is completely possible. Maybe 220gn would be better though.
Funny thing is, this bow being very much from optimal also - shot faster than the 550m world record bow! That bow did 375fps at 200gn. And bow weight was 120#!
This bow would have done 388fps with 200gn arrow. I calculated 5gn = 5fps, which seems close to reality by experience.
This motivates me to do more!
Unfortunately this bow broke a plastic nock from the chrono carbon arrow and broke from the top limb! Really, really unfortunate and makes me a bit scared to do any other tests with plastic nocks in the future. This was the reason i didn’t test any new bows - which actually seemed more elastic and better suited for good speeds. I made a aluminium nock for testing already, so i will use that next time.
It won’t be unrealistic to have over 400fps @200gn shooting bows in flight competition soon. I’m looking forward to that.
Those plastic nocks look to be too fragile and dangerous really.I never use them even on my bows.
In the past while testing speed I figured for every 7 grains of arrow weight + or - produced 1 fps + or -,but that might be different with shorter bows.Amazing speed.To be realistic really everything should be finger shot.
wow. incredible speed! have you ever splintered and wood arrow with these heavy bows. I wonder how risky it would to shoot these bows with such light arrows. I supopse the carbons hold up just fine for fun. what would be the limit for wood arrows for safety? very cool though still.
I once thought putting a horn insert would be enough in self nocks.I was mistaken as horn does have grain like wood also.A wrapping IMO is needed also with this style.
The turk arrow nock construction is probably the best example of durability for it’s sport.Or some sort of horn dowel inserted length into shaft butted against the end of the shaft.
Still needing wrapping to finalize the construction.
Time consuming to say the least.
Well we did manage to shoot these same nocks with a 138# bow earlier! But i agree, its risking too much.
Sure, but the point of shooting machine is to get rid of the human-factor. We want to test the equipment and evaluate its performance. I would prefer to test all of the bows i make but it takes time and setting up the chrono…
Thanks! I actually shoot wood or bamboo arrows with these bows all the time. Been a long time since i blew a nock with my wood arrows. Release is quite good when shot with thumbdraw. I think finger release would make more initial sideways thrust and break nocks.
I guess i could post about the world record setup i shot 550m with. It was done with a split cane arrow and all wood laminated nock. Wrapping under nock groove. Those arrows ranged from 180 grains to 220 grains. But i’ve found that the flight might be better with 220-260gn arrows. Need to prove it in the field next summer though!
Like BowEd explained, turkish nock is ridiculously good. A bit funny. Because they can be made so small!
