Bow weight.

[Scotsrick]

No not the poundage but the physical weight of the complete bow.

As age is catching up on me my thoughts are drifting to lightening my equipment.

On browsing I’m surprised to find although risers are advertised to the gram, with the lightness being a selling point, almost no other part of the bow appears to be.

You would think, or at least I did that lightness in the limbs and sights to name but 2 would be of interest to the average archer?

Are the manufacturers missing something important or is it just people don’t care?

 

[Timid Toad]

Border will tell you how much their limb weighs if you ask them - lightness also contributes to speed (lighter limb tips mean less mass to move) but no one else is much fussed. However in the scheme of things they aren't heavy. Rods are the main issue, but of course it's not just weight but moment you need to factor in there.

 

[dvd8n]

As someone with a bad back who's also getting on a bit, I've a few observations. If you're struggling with the weight of your kit then a lighter clicker, sight and rest aren't going to help. On the other hand:

• Choose a lighter riser. The difference in weight can be surprising. Don't ignore the wooden ones.
• Dump the impedimenta and go barebow. Just don't go overboard with the balance weights.
• Or even better, get a one piece recurve or flatbow. They are astonishingly light.
• Most importantly, have a hard look at the kit that you carry. You don't need most of the tools, and you need even fewer with more simple kit. You really don't need that fletching glue or that serving tool with you Most of the time you can get by with nothing more than a spare string, a couple of extra arrows and an allen key set stripped back to only the bolts that you have fitted.

 

[StevoNilo]

Yeah.. try barebow. I'm sure you'd love it. Many people changing to that discipline. These things weigh next to nothing. I know a pal here in Germany who did exactly that as his recurve was way too heavy, mass and draw weight. If you still really like recurve then look up Fiberbow. Italian company. My wife has 4 of them. Riser alone comes in at 800 grams. All carbon. They are brilliant. If it wasn't for Fiberbow my wife would of given up Recurve 15 years ago. Note to all recurve archers. Don't over do it with stabi weights. Just use what is enough. If you find the doinker material is too dense for light end weights then join the Beiter VBox disco and get a breath of fresh air. Here you'll be able to reduce the doinker density and lower your stabi weights. Also the good old fashioned but still superb Beiter centralizer stabi system is light too. It doesn't need hardly any end weights to soak up unwanted vibration that weights would normally do. The system has a broad resonance spectrum and is surprisingly good after several decades of being on the market. Nothing made now comes near it. Not hugely expensive either. Too much doinker weight coupled with hardly no shoulder pre hab is gonna give you grief in the long run and shorten your archery career.

 

[rfd]

Using a Gillo GT 25 kit for the Barebow games, I find adding riser weight as mandatory - in my case only 24ozs, but without that mass weight stabilization the bow is not fun to shoot. As I enter my 79th year on planet earth, if mass bow weight got to be too much I'd simply move on to the Traditional or Longbow divisions.

 

[Riceburner]

As someone with a bad back who's also getting on a bit, I've a few observations. If you're struggling with the weight of your kit then a lighter clicker, sight and rest aren't going to help. On the other hand:

• Choose a lighter riser. The difference in weight can be surprising. Don't ignore the wooden ones.
• Dump the impedimenta and go barebow. Just don't go overboard with the balance weights.
• Or even better, get a one piece recurve or flatbow. They are astonishingly light.
• Most importantly, have a hard look at the kit that you carry. You don't need most of the tools, and you need even fewer with more simple kit. You really don't need that fletching glue or that serving tool with you Most of the time you can get by with nothing more than a spare string, a couple of extra arrows and an allen key set stripped back to only the bolts that you have fitted.

If you think a flatbow is light..... try a horsebow!

I made a consious decision years ago to lighten my loadout (mainly because I shoot field, and often at places with hills, dales etc). I even went so far as to make up a stalking quiver with a couple of alterations that mean I can carry my 50" length horsebow bow on my back. This means I can jump across ditches, crawl into the undergrowth etc etc with the full use of both hands at all times. It makes a huge difference. (luckily I"m not fussed about whether or not it improves my score... but it does improve my day out! )

 

[albatross]

Same problem here. I invested in a Carbon Fibre riser - which was not cheap! Even then I had to remove my side stabilisers and just have a front rod.

 

[Stretch]

First step is to look at how you stabilise the bow. With a 3 or 4” extender you can drop a lot of mass from your long rod and twins and maintain a decent level of forward weight. It can be more critical of hand position - but 5” or 6” will be even more so. When I shot a 5” extender I had about 3oz on the long rod. Without I’m more like 7 or 8 oz And similar increases on the sides. Also things like adjustable vbars can weigh over 200g so big savings to be had if you swap them out for a 40g Shibuya.

It is true that a set of all carbon limbs will be a lot lighter than a glass wood construction limb but I doubt you’d notice it at full draw.

Light risers work to a point but ultimately there is a mass vs draw weight relationship for stability. You can reduce the mass needed using longer stabilisers but there is a limit (and it has other impacts on how the bow points). So actually if your mass is too high you can often lower it and stay stable if you reduce draw weight.

Riser geometry also impacts how much mass is needed to stabilise but that gets complicated quickly!

Stretch