minimum bow weight for hunting

You certainly don't need high draw weight to get good penetration. Deer hunting I shoot a 50# @28" recurve, and on an 18 yards quartering away shot put an arrow through the chest and 10' out the back side, going through a rib on the way in and on the way out. I could pull more, but why?

Higher draw weights will give you flatter arrow flight and allow (mandate, actually) heavier arrows, always a plus, but make it more difficult to hold proper form. The trade off is not worth it IMO.
 
a good hit at 45lbs is better than a shitty one at 75lbs. buck fever and the cold mutiply how hard it is to shoot heavy bows. there is no animal in alabama that i cant kill with my 52lbs longbow, if i cant kill it with that, im running..........................

side note no one has mentioned that howard hill killed every big game animal in North America with a 35lbs longbow.... But he was A phenom with a bow
 
most states ahve a minimum poundage requirement. Those are there for a reason.

Kind of like how most states wont let you hunt deer with a 9mm. There are minimum requirements becase anything less is just do difficult to kill the prey with.

35# is the minimum in a lot of areas. Its the lowest you can reliably kill most large game with.
 
mete said:
I'm not an archer but I think there's some confusion about terminology.We have the same problem with firearms. 'Energy' never killed anything [kinetic energy =1/2 MxVxV ] What you need to do is penetrate into the vital organs and do damage to them.To get more KE you boost velocity and thus lighter and faster arrows.But those arrows don't penetrate as well. What you should be looking at is Momentum [1/2MxV ] a much better measure of penetration and effectiveness for arrow or bullet.
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Mete is right on. If we are going to use terminology to explain the physics of a situation, we need to use the correct terminology. Energy is used by many archers and archery experts as a blanket term when discussing arrow flight, but energy alone is not a good determinant of effectiveness of a bow/arrow/broadhead combination. Things like Momentum (P=m*v/2) or force (F=m*a) are a bit more descriptive.

longbow50 said:
Arrows don't have much K energy, especially down range, which is why a heavier arrow will normally do a better job at penetration. An arrow from a 50# recurve with modern string material and craftsmanship and a 500+g arrow (mine run just about 600g) will completely penetrate a deer sized animal, unless the arrow hits heavy bone. Since the arrow doesn't have knockdown power, the broadhead needs to get into the vitals and cut, bleeding the animal out. An exit wound makes for an easier tracking job.
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A properly matched arrow from a heavier bow will do a better job than a poorly matched arrow. The key is accuracy.

If all is properly matched, the weight of the arrow has negligable effect on the killing efficiency of the bow. Only at ranges BEYOND 100m will a 20 gr. difference in arrow weight result in the heavier arrow having more energy/momentum/force.

A bow can only impart a certain amount of energy to an arrow. Some is lost to friction, some to heat, some to noise, but the remaining force will be functionally identical regardless of the mass of the arrow setup (force=mass*acceleration) Once the arrow has left the bow, the exiting velocity will be different based upon the mass of the arrow.

the key: Find a bow at a weight you're comfortable shooting, match it as best you can with proper arrows and broadheads, practice, practice, practice until you're confident in your shot and you'll enjoy your hunt.

J-
 
My first recurve bow was a 35lb bow at 28" draw. This was in high school and I usually pulled it to 29". Eventually the thing just gave out and broke. 35lb bow would be more than adequate for small game. 40 or 45 lb is generally recommended for whitetails in a recurve. You will find that the compounds do better than recurves and with the let-off, they are easier to shoot at a higher draw weight (say 55lbs or so) than say a 45lb recurve.
 
WOW! I have found this discussion very interesting. I have never hunted and have no interest in hunting, so I had no idea how big hunting bows were. I have 2 double recurve bows that are about 5 feet long. My first one was 65# and my second is 90#. I was trying to work up to a full size Japanese war bow before I injured my left shoulder
I appreciate you guys sharing your knowledge.
 
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