What's the difference between a traditional wooden bow and a modern compound bow?
Let's start with a longbow (pic 1). This is as simple as they come - the bow is basically a "C" shape. This technology goes back a long, long time. (The exact number changes everytime the archeologists discover something new, err old, but let's say "over 70,000 years".)
Then there's the recurve. Still essentially a wooden stick and a string, but notice how the tips curve back in the opposite direction of the rest of the bow. (Hence, re-curve. It curves one way and then the other.) This stores energy more efficiently in a smaller package.
This is modern technology compared to the longbow, going back only a few thousand years. Today, this same shape is used in Olympic bows, which are made of aluminum, carbon, fibreglass, and a host of other modern materials.
3. By the time compound bows were patented, we'd already put a man on the moon. They look more complicated, but those 'complications' help us shoot more accurately. The wheels at each limb tip are cams, acting like pulleys to store energy most efficiently.
It still takes some muscle to pull them back, but once the string is all the way back it's easy to keep it back, so we can aim longer and we can be sure that we're drawing to the same length on each shot.
It's also typical to have front and rear sights installed on compounds, and we usually use trigger releases (or equivalent) to help loose the string with a minimum of torque.
They tend to be a bit heavier, but are much shorter tip-to-tip.
You can hunt or compete in target archery with any of these set-ups (in different categories for each), but what do you think: is shooting a compound bow "cheating"?
What's the difference between a traditional wooden bow and a modern compound bow?
Let's start with a longbow (pic 1). This is as simple as they come - the bow is basically a "C" shape. This technology goes back a long, long time. (The exact number changes everytime the archeologists discover something new, err old, but let's say "over 70,000 years".)
Then there's the recurve. Still essentially a wooden stick and a string, but notice how the tips curve back in the opposite direction of the rest of the bow. (Hence, re-curve. It curves one way and then the other.) This stores energy more efficiently in a smaller package.
This is modern technology compared to the longbow, going back only a few thousand years. Today, this same shape is used in Olympic bows, which are made of aluminum, carbon, fibreglass, and a host of other modern materials.
3. By the time compound bows were patented, we'd already put a man on the moon. They look more complicated, but those 'complications' help us shoot more accurately. The wheels at each limb tip are cams, acting like pulleys to store energy most efficiently.
It still takes some muscle to pull them back, but once the string is all the way back it's easy to keep it back, so we can aim longer and we can be sure that we're drawing to the same length on each shot.
It's also typical to have front and rear sights installed on compounds, and we usually use trigger releases (or equivalent) to help loose the string with a minimum of torque.
They tend to be a bit heavier, but are much shorter tip-to-tip.
You can hunt or compete in target archery with any of these set-ups (in different categories for each), but what do you think: is shooting a compound bow "cheating"?