Gear Heads

We had a wonderfully busy night at Takhini Elementary School last night. Not only did we have a ton of shooters out, but everyone was in a very positive mood and CHATTY. Quite a few people are interested in buying new bows so there was much discussion about that. Prior to buying a bow, there are many things to consider. First of all, what is your draw length. So Rob Ingram got busy measuring that for people. What weight do you want to shoot? Weight is the amount of force in pounds required to pull the string back at your draw length. Post factory build bows have the weight set at a 28" draw. You lose or gain about 2 pounds per inch. So, a 25 pound bow at 28" will only pull 24 pounds at a 27" draw. Weight depends on your own strength and what you are going to use the bow for. Most adults can pull 25 pounds without much problem. If you are going to hunt big game in the Yukon, you need 45 pounds plus at your draw length. Many of our men shoot between 35 and 45 pound bows.

Then there is what type of bow. We have a selection of club recurves of different types you can try and most members are more than willing to let you try theirs. There was particular interest in the Border Bows that come from Scotland. These are amazing high performance recurves and super recurves that are also beautiful. You can check out the link to their site here http://www.borderbows.com.

Price range is also a consideration, if you are pinching pennies, the Border is not the bow for you. They start at about $2000 and go up to close to $4000. The best bang for the buck is the Samick Sage. It starts at about $170. This is what we shoot for club bows. You can get the higher end Samick and PSE bows for about $300. You are paying for better finishing and aesthetics mostly. The more expensvie bows like Bear and Martin are better performing and better made. These can easily run to $600. One of the best bows in the $600 - $800 price range is the TradTech Pinnacle. This is rated as a lovely bow, accurate and forgiving. The next step up would be into something like a Hoyt. These are high performace target bows used by many tournament and Olympic shooters. They have metal or composite risers and are meant to be used with sights, stabilizers and counterweights. Then there are the high end traditional bows like Black Tail, Border and Dryad. These will all run you over $1000 but they are beautiful and renown for their performance.

Of course, everyone has an opinion about what is the best bow. Recurve vs compound, target vs 3D, tournament vs hunting. So you will want to decide what you are going to use the bow for and then start your search.

Happy searching!