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What Would You Do?

Thinking about upgrading bows. Am 70 yr old and very comfortable shooting 52#.

Would you buy a 40-50# and crank limbs down to get max efficiency or buy a 50-60# and set poundage on 52#?Please give reason for your decision. Tks

I would buy the 50# bow. Unfortunately none of us are getting any younger. Odds are down the road a few years you may find you want to shoot 45#. If you have a 60# bow that won't be an option, unless of course you want an excuse to buy another bow:)

^^^ agree.

I'm 70 also and regardless of which compound you go with, consider getting an old recurve or longbow slightly heavier than whatever you choose.

Use that to practice pulling and holding. The big challenge at our age is maintaining muscle mass. You don't want to just pull the lesser weight as it will get harder.

Pull a little more and keep challenging your muscles. You should pull the bow both right and left hand to maintain strength.

Another option is bands, but they can be hard to calibrate or maintain consistency.

40/50 compound bow perform the best max-weigh

Go with the 40-50. If you ever need to drop weight you'll have the ability to do so.

Tim Meigs made me a #54 bamboo longbow and a #60 yew longbow. I left the yew bow on top of my pickup cap after coming out of the woods and it fell off and a logging truck ran over it. I called Tim and told him I wanted another bamboo longbow in #45. I told him that it was for practice as I still had the # 54, and I would never hunt with it as it would be too light. I remember him asking me if I planned to shoot elephants with it. He then told me he hunted muleys with a bamboo #46 longbow, Hill style. I asked him how it worked out for him and he told me he killed a nice muley at 45 yards. That sealed it. I had him build me the same bow. That was in 1985. That bow is all I have hunted with since. It has killed a pile of deer and 3 bear. Zwickey Eskimo with birch, ash, or douglas fir shafts, B50 14 strand string and Mercury speed nocks. Buy the 40-50 and hunt until they bury you. Just my opinion

New Bow?...40-50# Harder to find, harder to sell.

Used Bow?...50-60# Easier to find, easier to sell.

I don't believe there is much efficiency drop-off on today's parallel limb bows.

All Bows do not draw the same. Bad shoulders have made me a weakling when it comes to pulling bows. I have a 60 Elite that I can draw where as my Matthews Creed has to be turned down to 53. I am not recommending PSE evolve but it is by far the easiest bow for me to draw. I would try several bows because at 70 you are probably not going to develop significant gains in what you can pull. Whenever XMAN gives me advice I listen!

Why not have a new set of limbs built?

45-50 and I bet cranked all the way in you get around 52#s anyway. That way you can always go lower if ya need too and 52#s will kill anything in NA. Shawn

40-50. Today's 50 pounders will kill anything. Unless you have T-Rex arms. Edit to add that I will be moving to a 50 pounder in the next year or two.

Greg, I shoot 52# too and have a 50-60 lb bow so that I can go up to 60 if I were to hunt larger game. But my Bowtech Invasion with my 29.5 inch draw wt and VPA BHs shoots through animals, breaks bones, sticks in the ground after passing through...

I think your lighter bow is going to be fine and you have the option of going down further if you want. And you'll still have no problem killing white tails with that set up.

I would get a 50 pounder

Efficiency wise it doesn't matter. Practicality wise, get a 50. If 52 is your max then you get a 50 and more than likely it will make 52 or so. With a few twists to the cables it definitely will. None of us are getting younger so you will have plenty of range to lower weight if need be.

If you are going to keep the bow a year or 2, sell and upgrade. Get the 60. You can sell a 60 pretty easy, the 50 not so easy.

twisting the cables a bit provides great flexibility on bow draw weight. may need to offset with string twists so DL is not off, but the cable trick is a way to get a bunch of poundage added if needed and have the ability to come way down in weight in the future if needed.

You can easily get 8-10 pounds beyond advertised peak out of a bow with cable adjustment. easily.

You tossing your two Synergies?

I'm 66 and was faced with the same decision you have. I opted for the 50lb limbs. I bought a Bowtech Prodigy and set the cams on soft draw. The draw weight at max is 51lbs and the draw is very smooth. I feel the smooth draw is whats important for our old shoulders. Just a note , I took 3 deer with it this year and had 2 pass thru's, so 50lbs is plenty of killing power for Whitetails.

Read an article by Dwight Schuh in Bowhunter Magazine and he shot a nice Idaho bull elk with a 50 pound Hoyt Carbon Defiant or Spyder (can't remember which) and FMJ arrows.

I am close to your age;went to 50lbs Bear Method a couple years ago.I used to shoot up to 80#;70# more often.Both shoulders have had surgery.With today's bows you aren't giving up a lot.

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