You can expect alot of "Killing animals is wrong" hatemail from my freind that read that...

If your friend hasn't ever eaten anything that's alive, then what your friend has to say is justified.

If she could, truct me she would to to live on bricks or something.

Ya know what, to those who say killing animals is wrong I then say "So is killing plants, by that standard, so is killing any living thing. No matter how hard you try to go through life, something will always die that you can live."

Exactly, I try to use that argument myself too. She's slightly thick though... >.>

pants are still alive when you eat them...nuff said. Nice bow.

plants.....oops

Yep because some are poisonous.

Thank you. XD Everything dies. Some things earlier than others.

Kickass. I've always wanted to go hunting - except I'd be going with firearms, but hunting with a bow is definitely something I'd like to try out sometime too.

Archery is something I dearly miss. I haven't shot in years. My old bow... *sigh* Such a beautiful thing.

Soo cool

good to know another longbow enthusiast.. what do you prefer to hunt?

Compound Bow. I haven't dopne a whole lot (none with a weapon yet), but if I had a choice, birds and boars.

Ahh, okay.. I've done compound and longbow(I'll admit I found I preferred longbow, simple-minded phin couldn't get the pulleys right on a compound). I'd try birds first; helps sharpen your hand-eye, and birds don't gore you if your arrow goes off target.

I have a compound bow myself!
But eveyone freaks out when i start to use it lol

I have to say that overall, I would be using a rifle. That is only because I have the most experience with military hardware instead of hunting weapons. If given the chance, I would want to try a bow.

a rifle is easy to hunt with it requires no skill at all. Using a bow however is much more a test of skill and marksmanship then just pointng and shooting, you want to kill the animal with 1 arrow and there arnt many places on an animal that will do that.

BTW im a GNAS qualified archery instructor ( Grand National Archery Society(UK)) so my opinium on matters to do with rifles and bows are abit biased

I see you have one of those draw clips for the bow, instead of breaking your fingers with repeated shots. I am with Scubble on the fact that hunting with a bow is ACTUALLY hunting, where as with a rifle it takes a tenth of the skill and athleticism to use it. Unless you are doing a drive across 100 acres of land with a line of other folk... that gets tiring quick, going back and forth like a military formation trying to rustle up deer...

Very cool. What kind of draw are you pulling?

Ne'er mind, found the answer.

So you use a kisser button and a release too. I go natural. 2 fingers holding 65 lbs. i got strong hands. :P You should add an overdraw, extra speed.

Might do that if I weren't an inch from the manufacturer's longest drawlength.

I have a 31" draw length, I just have trouble finding arrows long enough to be cut down to my draw length.

There's a place here in Edmonton called Trophy Book (no, not Tophy Buck... that's what I thought at first too). They just got a new middle weight arrow in stock, and I think they're long enough for a 31" drawlength.

I got one place localy I can get them. Going to check another place out. Thanks for the info. :)

the flame and the void

Hmm, a bow for hunting doesn't sound too good for me. I'm not against hunting at all, but isn't it really difficult to kill an animal fast with one arrow? The risk of a bad shot which makes the animal suffer is much higher than when using a gun, I assume.

Good question. =3 Let's do some physics.

Newer compound bows on the market (like mine) push a hunting arrow at a relative speed in excess of 350-400 feet per second (around 430 km/h or 270 mph), in a period of acceleration of less than half a second. A deer caught unawares (the only time you would be able to release the arrow), has to react to the sound of the release (far quieter than a gunshot) of an arrow travelling at almost half the speed of sound from a distance around 40 yards, which is in reality (due to the speed of the arrow) is now 20 yards. The arrow is careening towards the animal, having lost nearly none of it's speed, and the animal is only just now aware that it should leap out of the way (not entirely sure which way is away). Even the mighty Elk, capable of traveling at speeds of around 45 mph, is still traveling six times slower than the arrow running all-out, not to mention the fact that the animal is stationary by the time the arrow is in flight and only 20 yards from it's target. If you factor in the delay of the deer's reaction time, most deer are aware that they've been shot at by a hunting bow after the arrow's passed through their lungs.


Is a hunting rifle' bullet a faster kill? Yes.

As for the risk of a bad shot, it all comes down to the situation. If the shooter's green, regardless of hunting style, they're more likely to make a poor or unethical shot. The equipment has been precision manufactured to do it's job as effectively as the hunter's skill to use it. Is a hunting bow a less ethical way to hunt? What's ethical about hunting?

What's ethical about the hundreds of thousands of cows that are culled by McDonalds every day? The way I see it, the animals I hunt are honorable creatures deserving of respect, and thus an honorable death. What can we say about McCow #957,877,912? Which is the better death? Neither? Well that's a different debate altogether.

My cat killed a mouse the other day, and would have eaten it had I not thrown it out. Did he need to kill and eat the mouse to survive? No, but he's hardwired to do so even though he's got a full dish of catfood (also contains dead animal). Should I give my cat hell for doing what eons of evolution have programmed into him to survive? I don't think so. Is it wrong for an animal to kill another animal for sustenance? I have every intention of bring the remains of the animal I kill home and providing food for my family. The only difference in doing it this way, is I'm not buying it from a tertiary outlet- I'm hunting it from the primary source.

Wow.. that was a bit of a rant.

I think you got me a bit wrong. I wrote I'm not against hunting, in fact I have a license myself (quite hard to get in Germany, takes a six month course in most states), so I can fully understand what you say about killing an animal.
It's just the bow. I was taught to aim for a fast kill and using a bow might be as effective as a gun for a skilled person but it's still some kind of personal challenge. A challange I'd expect from a sport and not from hunting.
Well, my opinion is most likely the product of my training. Over here the caliber and the energy of the bullet you are allowed to use for each kind of game is regulated by law. So using something like a bow is a thing I never did even think of.
After looking it up in my hunting law but I just found out that you might be allowed to shoot a fox with a crossbow, but that's a loophole.

I know you're not against hunting. Your first few questions were sort of an outlet for me to figure some things out. =3

The little ring I'm sighting though is lovingly referred to as a "Peep-sight". If you're looking through it at full draw, and your chin and nose are in the right places, it blots out the outer edges of your pin-sight, giving you that perfect shot every time (having learned on a recurve many years ago, using one of these keeps your grouping nice and consistent... till your arms get tired).