wildcat junkie

Use feathers on the aluminum shafts. Vanes are designed for mechanical rests. What would be the preferance for vanes?

To be fair, Henry Ford's business model was far different than today's corporate mentality. He paid his workers 2X the going rate because he realized that "consumers" with "disposable income" were neccessary for his business to thrive. His employees made enough $$ to be able to afford to buy his product. That also put upward pressure on all wages. that was emenesely beneficial to his business. Besides that, comparing turn of the century industrial development to today's technology is comparing apples to oranges.

If you are shooting instictive (sights don't work all that well on traditional bows) you will also probably want to shoot "off the shelf". (It is quieter & less likely to cause an equipment related failure) Do not try to use spine charts that are geared towards mechanical rests & center shot configuartion. As an example, a 2219 XX75 shaft is spec'ed by Easton as spined properly for a 60# recuve @ 28". In reality, they are spined for traditional bows in the 75# range. Black Widow bows have the sight window cut past center & thus need heavier shaft spine. It is not, as they claim, because their bows shoot harder. They are also hard to tune. I used to build out the window plate with leather to allow Black Widow bows to shoot less spine & be easier to tune. For a 45-50# recuve at 28# draw, a 2016 aluminum shaft would probably be about right. Try shooting a bare shaft into a clean piece of cardboard (not a lot of holes) on a bale butt from about 3 yds. Start with the shaft a few inched longer that minimum & trim back the length until yiu get the straightest penetration. What you are doing is catching the arrow just as should be recovering the 1st time from the "archer's paradox". If the knock end is tilted away from the bow, the spine is too stiff. If it is tilted towards the bow the arrow is flexing too much & need more spine. You probably won't get a perfectly straight in penetration, but tuning for the best results will make the arrow fly true W/O large fletching. Low profile 5" feathers should be plenty for a 45# bow, even with broadheads.. The more feather that you need for stable flight, the faster the velocity will bleed off. After you have learned & arrow loss isn't as much concern, GOOD QUALITY, PRECISELY STRAIGHTENED & MATCHED cedar arrows will have advantages, especially when shooting off the shelf. They will be much quieter & will also be more forgiving when shooting with fingers than aluminum or carbon. We used to sell matched shafts to a guy in FL that shot competition & he was very competitive. He claimed they were more accurate shooting off the shelf with fingers than man made shaft material because of their forgivness to the variables of finger shooting.. If you want to really have fun get some Judo points & walk through the woods/fields shooting at SOFT tagets of opporunity. It's called "stump shooting", but often the targets are conspicuous leaves, ferns. Dandelion heads, etc. Stumps are OK if they are rotten, but if they aren't, they are hard on arrows. this type of practice is the best practice for hunting. You can shoot downward from banks for tree stand practice. Judo points will all but eliminate arrow loss. The only time i have lost an arrow with a Judo point was when a sharply oblique angle on a hard target snapped the point off. Here are the cedar Arrows I used to hunt with. You're going to have a lot of fun!

they have a wind sock so if there is a leak, they can tell which direction the gasses will blow. In this case the wind is bowing directly at the house in the background. Any chemical facility will have a wind sock promenantly displayed.

Leave the phone in your pocket. Better yet, leave it in the car.

Since Lacrosse has outsourced to China, their reviews have been inconsistant.

If you know what you are lookin for, I might go out & rumage through my stuff. Lots of accessories but I don't know what is left. I have a few dozen finished cedar arrows, but to start out, you would probably be better suited to using XX75 aluminum arrows for the cost factor as if you start playing around you will lose some arrows. If you want to stump shoot, probably the best practice for hunting, "judo points" are awesome as it makes it nearly impossible to lose an arrow.

I have several thousand 32" Port Orford cedar sharts in the barn. Many of them are already hand spined & weight matched. PM if you are interested in buying some or all of them. EDIT: I also have several hundred left wing full length Tru-Flight feathers. Even some natural barred.

I was involved heavily with traditional archery during the mid '90s. Anyone that went to the big East coast all traditional events in that period would probably recognize my business name. My wife & I were one of the top producers of high quality cedar arrows. Unless you are going to travel by air, there's really not much rational for a take down bow. I don't think I have ever seen anyone disassemble a take down bow. For the price of a take down bow with extra limbs you could have a pair of 1-piece recurve bows. One peice bows are lighter & in some respects, smoother. They are also generaly less expensive as pointed out above. 45-50# isn't too much for an average adult male. I sarted at 45# at 14 years of age & soon graduated to 55#. A 45# recurve bow with a cedar arrow & a good, properly sharpened cut on contact broadhead will pass completely through a deers ribcage. Your initial 45-50# range would probably be a good place to start. I don't think anyone here addressed fit. If you are short in stature, you will get the best performance out of a short bow, perhaps 58". It will have a little better cast at shorter draw lengths. If you are say 5'10" or more, then the added smoothness of a 62" bow will works better for longer draw lengths. Good advise.

Just for a little perspective. When I stated in the steel mill in '69, the pay was just under $3 an hour. In '66 it was probably closer to $2.50 so the .22 for $20 still cost a days good wages before taxes.

Sounds like israel & leaving politics out of it, they are bad ass & there isn't a lot of crime among their citizenry.

Just out of curiousity. Where was "the hill in PA. I was born in Butler, graduated from high school in Irwin. Hunted in places from Ligoneer to Clarion. Saltzburg, Freeport, Ford City, etc.

Much better than being called an old fart. Some pencil neck in the AT&T store called me a "crazy old man" Wednesday night. just because I had a $50 cellphone & was't interested in a $750 iPhone. And I'm the one that's crazy?

Coming to a plot of land near you. Notice the wind sock?

I know what you were referring to. I just wanted to add another perspective.

Indana's "unlimited" handgun permit used to "require" concealed carry. Unless it has changed, it still does. Indiana is a very "conservative" culture too.

Some are so far on the right that anyone that is anywhere near the middle is left. They are so fixated on the fog line that they can't see the middle of the road. I have veiws on both sides, so since I'm not 100% in lock step with extreme right views, some would call me leftist. I'll say one thing, over the past several years the behavior of the extreme right has pushed me farther left & I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of moderates feel likewise. Is that helping the cause?

I did the same thing as a teenager on the fringes of the south suburbs of Chicago in the '60s. A buddy & I killed our 2 man limit of Cottontails fight behind a local Xerox office one January day. Nobody batted an eye because it was common & most everyone knew what we were up to. If I had stopped & went into a business establishment carrying my shotgun, I think there might have been a different response. Even then, I don't think I would have been gunned down by the cops. I did get a dressing down, rightfully so, when a cop stopped us when we were seen walking down the street with my Dad's 30/40 Krag & 8mm Mauser. We were going out to shoot in the local dump where there was an unoffical gun range with an earthen bank for a back stop. There wasn't a lot of drama. I was told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't safe to shoot such a high powered weapons in the flat terrain & I promptly turned around it took the rifles home as instructed.

I don't have a problem with open carry during demonstrations like you cite. Unfortunately, some looneys do stroll into diners, grocery stores & such with ARs & AKs. If people would also excersize their constitutional right to calmly & defiantly walk out of those establishments as their form of protest, the business owners would soon put and end to such childish behavior by "open carry" zealots. Unfortunately the average person would be intimidated due to the fact that they wouldn't know what the gun totin' a$$ had in mind. Add children to the mix & IMO it could be considered child abuse. What about their constutional right to the pursuit of happiness? I like the response by a school district that had a Dad escorting his daughter to school while "exercizing his right to open carry". They adopted a policy to go into lockdown any time this childish goon showed up showing off his toy. I don't know how it was even legal for him to be on the scool grounds with a weapon. I like your reference to "watching anyone that did with concern". What makes any sane, stable adult feel the need for such behavior? Now i'm sure we will here some "leftist' acusations from some of the zealots on the extreme right.

With age comes wisdom grasshopper. You young whippersnappers have it easy. We had no compound bows, no portable tree stands, no trail cameras & the clothing wasn't nearly as warm as what we have today. Wool was the only thing really effective. It was heavy & it made you itch. That is if you could afford wool. No Gore-Tex, no Thinsulate. I remember cotton "long johns". They would get soaked with sweat going in & after an hour "on stand" at the base of a tree, you'd be shivering. Readily available "Sorel" felt pack boots came along in the early '70s. Up to that point it was either Korean War vintage "Mickey Mouse" boots or your feet froze. Even a Leupold Vari-X II which was considered top of the line in those days, wasn't as good opticaly as some of the better "bargain" scopes of today. Getting a buck, any buck, with a rifle was worthy of having your name anounced on the Butler, PA radio station. Shooting one with a recurve bow from the ground gave you near God like status amoung the local deer hunting community. The "good old days" weren't all that good, but if you did connect, it was certainly cause for celibration. I will say one thing though. small game hunting was much better in those days. Not so much for squirrels, but Cottontails & Pheasants had much better habitat due to the small farms & practices that dominated agriculture.

The 1st vehicle I drove unsupervised, after getting my license, was the '53 Chevy P/U that belonged to my boss. 6-cylinder 3 on the tree. He was the owner of the Sunoco station where I worked. That was 1967 though. Killed my 1st buck in '67 too. It was a bow kill at that.

Yep, I learned that method when I moved to Southern Indiana. (after years of doing it the other way) Slicker-n-snot ona doorknob!

Anybody else notice that the deer season ran the same dates as this year. Oct 25 - Dec 6

I think you could get an H&R "Topper" single shot 20ga for about $40 in those days. But then again, $2.50 an hour was good money in those days. Used to buy my paper shotgun shells from Sear & Roebuck with money I made in the summer mowing grass & such.

Wow,1966, sure brings back memories. The 1st year I could hunt on my own. My hunting buddy & I gave the Cottontails & Ringneck Pheasants hell in the few remaning undeveloped prairie areas south of Chicago. I had a 1 1/2 year old Springer Spaniel that I got from the Humane society. He was already partially trained.