# Bamboo Core Longbows?



## Bonaire-Dave (Mar 13, 2011)

Samick and Howard Hill both have longbows with bamboo laminate cores. Just wondering how a bamboo bow will shoot and feel compared to some other wood bows. Thanks, Dave


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## WildWillie (Mar 13, 2011)

Dave,I have used it in some bows and cant really tell much difference in how it shoot or feels compaired to red elm or maple cores.
Billy


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## Barry Duggan (Mar 13, 2011)

I've heard some say smoother, others say no difference. Heard claims up to eight feet / second faster, others say no difference.
I'm inclined to believe bow design trumps most everything else.


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## kennym (Mar 13, 2011)

Here is a link to some test bows I built a couple years back. 

http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001491

I can't tell any difference in speed or feel, but I've been told I'm insensitive! LOL


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## Bonaire-Dave (Mar 13, 2011)

Thanks, Ken - I read all 11 pages of that thread. Looks like the basic Samick CA-60 @ 40# will be good enough for me at around $200.00. After seeing your shop, I guess I'll have to insulate the 24X30 extra garage I'll have, when I get moved to north GA this spring. Thanks, Dave


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## RogerB (Mar 13, 2011)

Cores are nothing more than spacers in bow limbs. Given that they really have no effect on smoothness, and their only effect on speed is determined by their weight. If bamboo cores are lighter than maple cores (and generally they are), then they are faster, that is why foam core limbs are faster than wood core limbs, foam is lighter than wood. Now the use of bamboo for the outer lams is both a matter of weight and, the difference in compression and tension strength of different materials (which bamboo is very good at for its weight). That is the same reason carbon is faster than fiberglass when used as the outer lam. However, if you were to put carbon in the middle of the limb it would do nothing for speed.
There are two things that determine the speed of a bow:
1. limb design, and;
2. weight of the limb/limb stiffness (measured in pounds to draw a bow to 28") If you have a 50# bow with light limbs it will be faster than a 50# bow with heavy limbs (provided the design of the limbs is the same).
Smoothness is nothing more than a measure of the variation of weight it takes to draw a bow inch by inch. A bow that takes the exact amount of weight to draw each inch of draw is smooth. A bow that varies up or down (usually up but not always) is not smooth by definition. Smoothness is completely determined by limb design and length, the materials a bow is built from has nothing to do with it. A bow may be smooth to a particular draw lenth, but when it begins to stack it is no longer smooth.
Bottomline, it will generally add "a little" speed. and there will be no difference in smoothness.

Bamboo cores are alittle harder to work with than maple cores and the little gain in speed is generally not worth it to many bowers. That is also why bamboo is often considered an upgrade.


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## Apex Predator (Mar 13, 2011)

Well, the lighter woods usually are required to be thicker to achieve the same weight in a limb, so the advantages are less than one would imagine.  Elm, hickory, and even osage orange can make a fine limb, and will be thinner than a similar bow limb made of foam or bamboo.


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## RogerB (Mar 14, 2011)

Apex Predator said:


> Well, the lighter woods usually are required to be thicker to achieve the same weight in a limb, so the advantages are less than one would imagine.  Elm, hickory, and even osage orange can make a fine limb, and will be thinner than a similar bow limb made of foam or bamboo.



On the limbs you build, that might be the case, but on the ILF limbs I buy, that is not the case, I have put calipers on too many. But I do agree that the woods you mention can and do make fine limbs. So much so that some Oly shooters prefer wood core limbs, but for other reasons than max speed.


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