Asian bows, speed test

[@musaadfelton3909]

The Hankyu bamboo Bow is meant to be drawn back further to get more power and speed. The Japanese usually don't anker there hands by the mouth when they draw back. They draw back further. Until passed the head. Almost until the shoulder of the draw hand.

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

I draw these bows to between 31 and 34 inches. The hankyu has a max draw of 32 inches. No matter these bows are compared the Hankyu is slower than the Sada horsebow. It's not really a big mistery though. The limbs are heavier and longer. Also keep in mind, that this is not a yumi bow. Much shorter and can't be drawn to shoulder, unless you have short arms. My drawlength with anchor at the cheek is 28 inches. Drawing it to the shoulder would likely brake it.

[@musaadfelton3909]

@@scandinavianarcher7015 Hi thanks for your response. You are 100% correct. Sorry I was thinking about the yumi bow😅 I don't know why I thought about the yumi bow when I made that comment. The yumi bow looks different.

[@jake4194]

The black sada performed very well considering it was the lightest bow of them all, I'm glad I ordered one in 40lb.

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

It is a splendid bow

[@sveng35]

Good bow indeed. Got one as my first in 25 pounds, pretty sure it's more like 35 pounds at 31 draw length. That thing does well with longer draw.

[@rex-y7v]

I believe the Hankyu bow is meant for war so will using arrows heavy enough to peirce protective clothing. I would try again using 54 gram arrows at 36" which I believe was the Manchu war arrow. The heavier limbs will certainly come into effect then.

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

@@rex-y7v I believe so too. Makes for a nice "horsebow". Although I think the bows would have had a heavier draw weight than mine

[@TORREX-A.D.]

Thx!

[@sigmanarchery54]

Hey anywhere from 10 to 20 feet per second faster from Mediterranean to thumb draw not bad thanks for sharing. Take care and God bless. 👍🏼🏹🇺🇸

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

Yes, because of the longer drawlength. Ad you are welcome 💪

[@Sirdaniels1]

Nice.

[@stevedjurovich194]

I'm not sure what to conclude. Shorter drawn med draw shots will be slower than longer drawn shots thumb drawn but how much is down to the bow being used more efficiently on longer drawn shots as more poundage being is being effectively reducing the arrow GPP figure, and how much is down to the draw style is impossible to determine. None of the bows are particularly fast at 10gpp+ The Hankyu is even slower than the other two. That's about it.

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

@@stevedjurovich194 what to conclude is what design is more effektivte. Historically the designs were based on usage and what materials was accessible. Looking at it from a physical perspective, the shorter limbs of the horsebow have less mass to move, less dead areas along the limb, and less surface areas that need to cut through the air. So for lighter drawweigts the shorter bow is more effektive. Also the material are better. Laminated with a bamboo core, vs leather covered fiberglass on the manchu and a bamboo/ash lamination on the Hankyu. When you higher in draw weight (70 pounds+) the Hankyu (yumi design) and the manchu trancend into a more effektive forcedraw ratio, becoming more effektive than they are in lighter draw weights. The high GPP og the arrows used, help reduce handshock and deliver a smoother shooting experience.

[@jkre]

It is not as much about the design, as it is about the materials and the build quality, meaning how well they have succeeded in minimizing the moving mass. The first bow is fiberglass laminated bow, the second one solid fiberglass and the third is bamboo laminated bow. The solid fiberglass performed better than I would have expected it to perform. The fiberglass laminated bow performed like expected, they usually perform better than solid fiberglass bows of same draw weight, cus the wood in between the glass is lighter than the fiberglass it self, but of course that comes down to the build quality, an overbuilt laminated bow will perform worse than well made solid fiberglass bow and vise versa. The hankyu is natural materials, and while possible, it is very difficult to make a natural material bow to perform as well as fiberglass laminated bows. On top of that, while being excellent backing, bamboo is quite terrible belly laminate, that and the quite hefty japanese style limb tips, make it the least efficient bow here. By the looks of those tips, they looks like over build for that poundage, quite common mistake in many bows, especially in asian designs, the bow builders just doesn't dare to make the tips as small as it could be and that extra material is extra moving mass. Also it is questionable is the belly bamboo properly heat tempered, that will increase the compression resistance of the bamboo, but even with it, I'm quite sceptical about bamboo being good option for a belly, there are certainly better options out there, like mulberry that was common bow wood in asia (don't know if they have that in japan tough). Mulberry is closely related to osage orange, and is very similar as bow wood, and properly made bamboo backed osage bows can shoot over 200 fps, I have no doubts a mulberry could do the same, or at least close.

[@jkre]

About the design, it matters way less than people often believe, that is because the other bows design might just have been executed worse, meaning over build. If the design is worse, but executed better, it will still outperform a better design that is executed worse. As an example, wooden longbows are generally considered to be slow, cus they usually shoot around 140 to 160 fps, but they can shoot as high as 180 fps, and that isn't so slow any more, it just so much depends from the skill of the bowyer how fast he can make the bow to be.

[@scandinavianarcher7015]

The design of the bow, and the materials used, has a lot of impact on the performance. For instance... The Manchu bow was used to sling heavy arrows, a long way. But the design works way better abokve 70 pounds of draw weight. Same goes for the basic design of the hankyu, that is modelled off of the Yumi. It's not all bamboo by the way, the core here is Ash i believe. A different species could be better, but basic idea is to have a long draw length, in order for the arrow to be in contact with the string for a longer period of time, absorbing more energy, creating the cast. Same goes for the manchu. Both designs hail from war, and the draw weights were two or three times the draw weight we normally shoot today. The laminated bow in this group is lighter in draw weight, and a way more energy efficient design for that draw weight. Design has huge part to play, in the efficiency of a bow. Same draw weight across a variety of bow design, will yield vastly different results. A lot of factors have to be considered such a limb weight, length, profile and shape. All in relation to the material. The best way to illustrate this in my opinion, is to take a board and swing it through the air.. When you swing with wide side front, the board has a huge air resistance. Turn it 90 degrees so the edge is front, and it goes much faster. After this, we can think about the way the board I propelled. The straight limb, versus the curved limb. The curved limb, has a much higher natural force as it wants to return to its resting state. To sum up... Design has a huge impact on performance. Off course build quality and materials has as well.

[@jkre]

@@scandinavianarcher7015 design is very broad term, it includes everything, so yes, it has huge impact, how ever what i meant by it, is that for example that hankyu or regular longbow, they are not slow because of their general design. Both of those can be build to outperform all of those bows in this video. The reason that particular hankyu has thick and heavy limbs because of the materials. Yes it has ash inside, but the core doesn't do compression or tension, so it's main purpose is just to keep the working compression and tension surfaces further from each others to increase draw weight. If the material would be more resistant to compression, the limbs wouldn't need to be as thick, hence would be slimmer and lighter. That's the effect of the materials. Another thing slowing down that hankyu is the size of the tips. That also fall under the general term of design, just like limb thickness, but i like to refer those as build quality or better, execution of the design. To me those tips could be slimmer and thus lighter and still keep the same overall design, that would improve the performance, while staying in the same rough overall design of the bow. This is the same in manchu bow design. The large siyahs are often over build, meaning heftier than needed and such have greater mass and lower performance, this is especially the case in light draw weights, cus the siyah size in 40 lbs manchu is same as 60 lbs manchu, and thus the 40 lbs bow has to use more of it's overall stored energy to move it self than the 60 lbs one, and because of that, it is less efficient. Curved or not, it depends on how much forward or back of the handle the limb string nocks are when unstrung, how much more or less it has pre tension. For example deflexed recurve can have it's tips at or behind the neutral line (in line with the handle) while a bow that is straight or slightly reflexed when unstrung can have as much or more forward resting position than the curved limb. Curved limb also has to compensate the sideways twist that occurs with the leverage of recurved design, meaning that the limb needs to be wider, and thus can (not always but can) be heavier. Not all curved limb bows outperform straight ones. They can do so, because curvature can increase the early draw weight and decrease the amount of stacking in the full draw, but well build straight bow can match and outperform curved ones because straight limb can be lighter and its energy transfer can be more efficient, meaning that non working recurves and asiatic bows with siyas have ridgid levers in them, that lever is aiding in the drawing of the bow but making the bows work at transferring the energy to the string and thus arrow harder. This is best demonstrated by lifting a sledge hammer in vertical position. The closer to the head it is being held, the easier it is to lift, hence better energy transfer, more further away from the head, the longer is the lever acting against us, like a lever in a bow acting against the limb, and the more difficult it is to lift, hence worse energy transfer. There is a good thing about ridgid levers tough, and that is that they are often lighter than the limb material, so even tough they would be heavier (but only slightly) than a straight limb bow, they are still lighter than if the limb material would continue all the way to the tip, what ever it is a fiberglass or horn composite. Bow efficiency depends from so many factors that it makes almost impossible to say witch type or design of bow is the best, cus there is so many variations even in the same bow type. Your video is very good and extremely interesting, how ever it doesn't clarify that the hankyu is slower because of it's materials and execution of the design. Because of that it can let people believe that a hankyu is just worse bow design / type, witch it isn't, it is just in an disadvantage being bamboo bow, and not even particularly well made one, it's not bad, but it isn't as good as it could either, it's average, compared against fiberglass bows. And a natural material bow to be able to compete with fiberglass laminated bows and better solid fiberglass bows, has to be very well made.

[@jme104]

The hankyu has no fiberglass in it , that explains everything .

[@Peter-ve6kz]

No it doesn’t. Wood self bows often shoot faster than fibreglass

[@jme104]

@@Peter-ve6kz I will believe you when a see a trusty test . Fiberglass bows can work with a very light foam or light wood core . In this way you can have lighter hence faster limbs.

[@alexcrowder1673]

Description says that the bows were all drawn to 28 inches. Sounds to me like thats the clear problem. Thats too short a draw for that bow. Its designed to have a longer draw for a reason. Not letting it have the full draw length is worthless for testing purposes. That doesn't prove anything at all. Use it like its meant to be fired. Gimping it to match the draw of other bows does NOT make this more fair. It invalidates it.