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BOW REPORTS
TD CUSTOM LONGBOWS Ever so often I get the urge to play with a longbow. From this recurve shooters perspective it usually doesn't take me long to get over that though. But this time is Different. Tom Deputy sent me one of his lil crown jewels to tinker around with and I must say I was impressed! How impressed?? It's still here. I've not sent it back yet. Design: The Wolverine is a high R/D hybrid type one piece longbow originally built by Texas Bowyer Pat O'brian. Tom now owns the forms and builds the bows. It forms a "c" shape when strung and unlike most R/D bows does not have that flat spot in the limbs when strung. It has graceful lines, a nice arc and was built and designed to stay "Texas Longbow Legal". Along the same train of thought as the 21st century "Lonestar" bow. The Wolverine was built to gain the most performance as possible out of it's design while still keeping a shape that will qualify the bow for the "Texas Longbow Championships" Them Texas boys are sticklers when it comes to their sticks. Looks: It's a sleek slender smallish bow, but very graceful when strung. The one sent to me is 64" long. The bow is available in lengths of 60-64", Slim flat limbs, pretty tips, nice marriage on fades and overlays, the wood work is fantastic. The finish seems durable and applied with a fine hand because theres no mars in it at all. desert camo action wood lams in the limbs under clear glass and a mexican rose riser turned this bow in to quite a lil looker. Nothing at all wrong with the fit, nothing at all wrong with the finish, I must say at what Tom sells these bows for I was expecting much much LESS of a bow than what I received. As Tom is a one man bow building shop he obviously has a real job or his wife is loaded. Because there's no way he's making a living selling bows at those prices. To be perfectly honest?? The lil bow is plumb darn cute!
Performance: Here we go. I was expecting meat and taters performance from a meat and tater priced bow. I guess that fooled me just as the looks did. The price tag is the only thing meat and taters about this bow. Looks are T bone steak and performance is fillet mignon (or however ya spell that fancy high dollar tender stuff) This bows sports a no lateral torsion limb design. This creates a small whippy limb that absolutely HAS to be in sync with the opposite limb to perform AT-ALL. That's all in the bowyers tiller. Tom tunes and tillers it well. There's no flat spots in the limbs at full draw. She unfolds and arcs through out her entire limb. One of the prettiest little full draw bows I've ever saw. Due to the limb design and small size of the bow, if you aren't careful the bow can be a shade "grip sensitive" You can't throttle her. she has the usual dull feeling that allows you to know the bow has been shot just like all the rest of the high RD bows out there have. Nothing even close enough to be considered hand shock, and nothing you won't stop feeling completely by the 4th shot. It has an extremely soft draw. None of that massive preload a lot of today's high R/D bows carry. I mean lets be honest here. From a recurve shooters perspective, I've drew some of today's high R/D longbows that felt like it was as bunched up as a 4 balled tom cat. But not the wolverine. I had to go get a comparable weight recurve to draw and then go get scales because I knew for sure they lied to me or missed weight. There was no way this bow was 53#s. 43#s maybe but not 53#s, ah but alas. it's 53#s@28" according to the scales.. My test bow was 53#s@28" and shot 538gr carbons at an average of 181fps. Yea. that's right that's a 180 plus 10gpp bow. I've shot 1,000 dollar bows that were harder to be accurate with, and not as fast. IN fact, other than my one "void the warranty, just build it to blow peoples minds" recurve I have here, it stays right beside my hunting recurves arrow for arrow as far as speed is concerned. Hunting; Welcome to my world. This bow has one of the absolute first things I love and look for in a bow. It is dead whisper silent. a modern "thin" super string and a pair of small wool puffs and it is as quiet as you can get a bow. It's actually quieter than a lot of bows I have shot with just a bare string. But add the puffs?? Deer won't know what hit em. From longbow form the bow doesn't mind being canted hard, shot straight up, leaned in to, tilted or pretty much any awkward situation you could get yourself in to from a tree stand on deer to a ground stalk on pigs. It's not a hard bow to shoot at all.
Overall view: Seriously longbow shooters.... I mean what's not to like. Some of you boys could have bought two of these for what you paid for your bow. At 53#s this one has the stroke to send a big snuffer slap through a deer and in to the dirt. It's west Texas string jumper deer silent, a sharp little look and design and extremely well built. If your looking I would highly suggest grabbing one of these now. Because when the word DOES get out about Tom Deputy's' lil wolverine bow?? There's gonna be a waiting list fellas. A long one at that. Final Comments:
To Tom Deputy,
Raise the price of your bow. People may think it's not that good because your prices are so low. Your bow is worth way more than what you are asking for it. Trust me, after they shoot it?? They'll want to pay for it. ~ Lance Coleman ~ P.S. We're Not Through: I'll be sending this bow on to Rick Barbee for some hunting, and we'll be trying real hard to get some kill pictures added on here soon, along with field performance on animals for you. Maybe Rick will get a chance to lay down one a them Big Ole Texas Hawgs with this Lil Darlin. I bet he does. Any takers?
You can see more of
Toms bows at
www.tdlongbows.com
BRACKENBURY PEERLESS RECURVE The Peerless is still in prototype mode, and not yet available for order. I've been shooting Brackenbury Recurves for quite some time now. It seems only fitting that the first bow I do a report on here is Bill Howlands new Peerless Recurve.
For those of you that have not read my profiles before allow me to warn you now. I am NOT Norb Mullaney. I'm not even sure I can spell Norb Mullaney. I do look at statistics, force draw curves, dynamic efficiency, and chronograph profiles. But for the most part to me as a bowhunter? It's more like driving a nice performance vehicle. I could care less how it does it or how it works beneath the hood. I'm more interested in what happens when I stomp down on the gas pedal. So sorry if this country boy doesn't get techy enough in his profiles, I'm more interested in WHAT a bow does than how it does it. That said this one "does" it well. For many years now the "Quest" has been the flagship recurve of the Brackenbury line up. I believe that smooth shooting full working limbed beauty just got replaced by a sleeker, more aesthetically appealing, semi static sister. Looks: Let’s go ahead and get the preliminaries of fit finish and over all looks out of the way now. This is a bow designed and crafted by Bill Howland we're talking about. So we can throw these curiosities out the window now. Anyone who's ever held or owned one of Bills bows knows, Brackenbury bows carry a fit and finish that is rivaled by no one. Bills detail and finish work will satisfy the most discriminating bowhunter on the planet. The peerless I was sent to test was described as "it's just a prototype... nothing special." And still there was no mars blemishes or flaws in the finish of the bow. Brackenbury recurves take a back seat to no one when it comes to craftsmanship, fit and finish.
Characteristics: This is only the third semi static designed recurve I've ever played with. But one thing I could say of the other two was they were definitely not your typical full working limbed recurve shooters. They carry a different feel and draw force. See unlike today’s modern R/D and hybrid longbows, there's no umpteen thousand different limb designs and force draws out there on recurves. Most well crafted and skillfully tillered recurves carry the same basic inherent qualities, performance and feel.. The only true main difference being semi static, static tips and full working limbed bows. The more popular being the smooth buttery feel of the unfolding limbs of a full working limbed curve. Most semis have a shade of forward motion and just enough stiffness in their tips to allow you to feel the string tightened back up on the curve. For this design of tiller, semi statics are known for having a shade higher than normal performance value than full working limbs The peerless however doesn't have that (not the performance part, the feel part). It draws like a full worker, has the dull complete lack of hand shock of a full worker, but the velocities of a semi static. In fact I had to draw it in front of a mirror and watch the limbs to make sure Bill wasn't jerking my chain. Because the bow draws and shoots like a full working limb bow. But sure enough she's got semi static tips. It carries the best qualities of both designs. Ease of full working smooth draws, arrow speeds and silence of semi statics. Performance: OK now on to the good stuff. Like I said I am a hunter tried and true. I'm more interested in how this bow will lend itself to my hunting situations and perform in the field than learning how to calculate 57 numbers to get a denominator of something I am clueless about. But as everything else the bow has to perform well, and possess a certain feel that allows one to shoot it and shoot it well. Speed is typical of Brackenbury bows. For those not familiar with Bills Bracks?? That means its freekin QUICK. We use a 28" draw for chrono results simply because there's way more people shooting below 28" draws than there is shooting above 28" draws. No light arrows for big numbers, we use arrows with GPP ratios meant to penetrate animal. Shooting 10 grains per pound of arrow weight with a 28" draw, fully fletched shafts with nice big 5.5" long shield cut feathers for broadhead stabilization and a STOCK FIFTEEN STRAND Dyna flight string. Chronographs set 3 feet in front of the bow and a finger release. Survey says?? 184fps. In case you are curious that means with a 30" draw she'll hit 190. Get rid of that fat stock string and lay one of today’s custom string makers little thin steel S-4, 450 premium or plus 8125s in there and you'll fetch up another 5fps. The force draws is a typical Bill Howland draws. I've pulled some smooth pulling bows in my life time. But never have I pulled as many that dictates the same thing as Bills. I've graphed close to 12 bracks and every single one of them start off the same way, drawing 2.5# per inch, 2.5# per inch, 2.5# per inch. Bill believes a bow should achieve a solid 3# per inch pull ONLY on the inch of actual draw weight. Meaning if your bow is tillered to 28" expect the last inch (from 27-28") to be 3# per inch pull. Bill believes this maximizes the efficiency of the limb tiller and I'm not going to argue with him one little bit on that. There's nothing new here, its brack, and it draws like a brack. Smooth as butter.
Bill Howland at full draw with peerless. Notice the semi static nature of the limb tips. So when we combine this arrow velocity with that gentle sweeping smooth pull, we come up with a recurve that is fun to shoot (which is what we all want) add a grip that your hand just melts in to, no recoil or hand shock to remove your focus and follow through and we arrive at a high performance recurve that allows you to get that shot after shot consistency we all long for. The one plus I can always give a semi static is they always seem to be a lot easier to quiet down and silence. The peerless shines here as although it's shooting qualities and over all characteristics rival and equal the quest?? The peerless is noticeably a more silent bow. And that’s saying something because Quests aren't loud bows by any means of the imagination. It's a sleeker more slim lined bow than the quest. Still with graceful lines, defined flats and perfect fades. But a more refined riser with better eye appeal and less mass weight. Mind you not a lot of difference in weight and feel. But enough for a fella to differentiate between the two.
Durability: THIS is where I freak bowyers out. In all the people I've met, all the guys I've hunted with, all the bowyers I know and all the hunts I've been on, I know exactly ONE person that’s more brutal on bows than I am (ahem, and he shoots a brackenbury Quest) To say I skeer bowyers to death when they hear of what I'm putting their precious products through is an understatement. I have not tortured Bills Peerless because I was strictly instructed "don't beat it to death!! You have to send it to another guy to test when you’re done! I don't want him getting it with mud blood and scuffs from one end of it to the other!" But I see no reason it would not be like any of the rest of Bills bows. See normally when you find a bombproof bow its over built. Meaning more woods been left here, wider and thicker glass there, bigger tips etc etc. This robs a bow of its performance properties. But not these. Bills bows are built to get every ounce of performance possible out of them. From the lam tapers in the limbs to glass thickness, to riser laminations. One could argue Bill uses the parabolic grind on the limb edges as a performance enhancer. Me personally? I see it as no way possible for a glass splinter to raise up, run down my limb or snag itself on something. My Infamous "Outlaw" Brack has pretty much been in every situation you can imagine. From west Texas heat and hundreds of shots a day, to freezing mt. temps. Dropped from tree stands, torn from 4 wheeler racks by brush in Arkansas, stuck up in the mud in Louisiana, used to beat copper heads brains out in Georgia, it's had alligators flopped on top of it in air boats in Florida, hogs bounced over it in boats in Louisiana, the upper limb has been used to "poke a diller" in his hole to make him come out and run in south Georgia swamps. She's fell off tail gates going down dirt roads, I've dropped her in the water while wading and bow fishing to go untangle my line and come back and get her after everything was straightened out (try that with a metal risered bow) she's been in a Lance+bow+backpack+treestand+deer rolling fall down a 60' Georgia mt. slope (I think I came out worst for wear on that one) left strung for 8 months at a time. And her force draw is the same today as it was the day I got her, her chronograph profile is the same today as the day I got her, and no bow has put more game on the ground for me than it has. Trust me when I say "Brackenbury's are as tough as tough gets" Overall impressions: I like it! Well OK I'm brack biased so we all knew I would now didn't we? But why wouldn't you? You're getting the butter smooth feel of a brackenbury force draw that convinces you it's a full working limbed bow, yet the arrow performance and silent limb characteristics of a semi static. Easy on the eyes, easy to shoot accurately, capable of lasting forever, simple to tune, simple to shoot, beauty on the eyes, beast on the performance. It truly is a perfect combination designed for the most diehard of hunters. Look out quest, I think you just got demoted. The Peerless is still in prototype mode, and not yet available for order. ~Lance Coleman~
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