Top Archery 60 inch long bow 35 lbs
Welp, its raining all weekend so I will not be shooting outdoors the next few days so why not add another post. I wanted to try out something different and this bow caught my eye, I kept going back to it and finally pulled the trigger, unsure if this was a good decision. It's a Top Archery brand and my luck with them has been interesting so far. With surprises like the Mongolian horse bow. And there is another bow I got from them that came with a disappointment (that’s for another blog post).
This longbow I purchased for $99 came and I'll be honest... I was a tad bummed as it looked too small for my hand. Yet after taking some time using it I can say yes it’s a little small for me, but it is punchy for its size.
I used a luggage weight scale to check the draw weight and it tested at 36 lbs. Also, I ran some arrows through a chronograph. 4 different sizes and types. 500 spine fiberglass arrows were rather slow as 130 FPS, next were 700 spine carbon arrows, these clocked at an impressive speed of 182 FPS, I wasn’t expecting those to move so fast. The 800 spine fiberglass arrows were slower at 143 FPS. Last ones I tested were 1000 spine carbon arrows and they moved at a solid 171 FPS.
Something I’m learning is I don’t care for fiberglass arrows, I have been far more impressed with the carbon fiber ones I have used so far. I made both the 700 and 1000 spine arrows with 4 inch vanes and 75 grain tips. The shafts were smaller in diameter at 4.2 mm. Shooting this bow made me realize my arrow collection needs to grow.
After my first attempt at shooting with a hand guard, it wasn’t working out for me. The bow is really snappy and it vibrates a lot. The hand guard only covers the top of the hand with only bare skin holding the bow. I’ve since switched to a full leather glove, it's been much more satisfying to shoot, and helps with keeping the vibration minimal in the hand. I was thinking of maybe wrapping the handle in grip tape, and probably will, as of now the glove helps.
I will say this little bow was challenging at first. Once I was dialed in, I was hitting my target over and over, the bow kept performing despite my wanting to put it down.
I've been shooting this bow over the last month. What I like is once I'm warmed up and hitting my shots, I'll switch over to another bow and have better accuracy. Shooting off the hand is fun, it's challenging, it's a decent longbow. It doesn't stand out or have a lot going on. The smaller handle took a bit to get used to, but it’s not a bad bow, after shooting this bow consistently over the last several weeks I am impressed with it, but not really happy with it either. My main gripe is the small handle. Thinking about using grip tape, it would take a lot, maybe I can wrap the handle in leather, I don’t know that's more work than I wamt to put into this bow.
Then again, I can gripe about having large hands that don't fit the bow. The glove did help, it still wasn’t comfortable for me.
In the end, I just don’t find this bow satisfying to shoot. It takes work, it isn’t relaxing, it can sting after some time. It works great, but it doesn’t excite me, doesn’t make me want to hurry on with my day so I can get some shooting time done. Unfortunate this beautiful bow is not for me. It’ll have to find a place on my wall.
