Planning a Elephant hunt for 2012.
I killed a cape buffalo, Lion and 4 Australian Water Buffalo with my 83# Iron wood.
My question is has anybody messed with 100 pound bows?
How much power gain will i really get ?

Hey Marty,

Raging Water in the Pow Wow section shoots that kind of #age. He might be the best person to ask.
Where are you doing your eli hunt?

Thanks

Pete

sorry i cant help you, but i just want to say thats badass a cape buffalo, a lion water buff and now an elephant!

Good luck to you, that will be an awesome hunt.

You are going to be Nicholas' hero when we get down there to hunt with you this fall Marty.

you will not get that much higher speed:
- Dynamic efficiency will be (little) less due to the heavy mass of limbs. On most custom trad bow, the 10 gpp speed is higher on a 50# bow than on a 85# one.
-You will get 100# only at full draw...and with the emotion of the shot and the lack of warm up not sure at all you will get your full draw lenght
Maybe you should take the problem from the ballistic side : what arrow mass and speed do you want? Then you find the bow to give it. You can find 75-80# bows that will outperform a 90+# average performer recurve

what was your cape buff set up what kind of penetration did you get?would a cape be tougher than a elephant or not? I love reading your post .Iam really glad you have these opperitunitys in your life what an amazing hunt.africa is the best of the best.good luck be safe.ED

Marty I would like to see you shoot both bows at mabe a sheet of 3/4 to 1" plywood, for no other reason than to see what would happen. I shoot 45 to 50 pound widows. My draw is 30" and them light bows are bad.No problem with elk,deer,and hogs. I hope to take a black bear one day.Again I like poundage but spine problems keep me away from them.

An elephant would be way tougher than a buffalo. I can't remember how thick an ele's skin is, but when I dicected a rhino, the skin around the vitals was about 5inches thick. I've seen an ele run through a thorn bush with 6inch thorns that would give the toughest tyres a puncture. It didn't even leave a scratch on it. I would say that it would be all about penetration Marty. Super sharp broadhead, heavy arrow and alot of prayer when you hit it. I honestly can't see you getting a pass through on an adult elephant I don't think getting a shot will be hard, it's after the shot that the real problems start........

how big is a heart on a elepnant?

Respect man thats amazing i never thought you could take a elephant with a bow.

Way to go Buff! Read somewhere of a 92# compound shooting completely through an elephant 3 of 4 times (?). Believe it was Dr. Ashby doing the testing. The arrows stuck out the opposite side. Point being, heavy arrows w/razor edged bh's out of 100# bow should be no problem to kill an elephant. That is, except for running back to the truck with your shorts full.

dries want me to go with the 100# and a 1200 grain arrow. He said it would be much tougher than the Cape buffalo. Sounds like the big challage is to shoot between the ribs but he said you could see them.

I'd shoot that 1200 grain arrow with a couple of bows testing speed with a cronograph and penetration on something like wet newspaper or plywood or a combination of both.  I'm thinking that there isn't much to be gained by the last 15 or 20 pounds (a total guess!) but it would be great to hear what really happens.  

keep us posted....this testing should be fun to hear about.

One guy used super hitech 95#/28" compound and 1100 gr arrow to shoot completely through big ele (+arrow continued 7 yards after that). Too bad that it is a really difficult to calculate in theory the difference between 83# and 100# trad bows, I guess only way is to test in practise. Increasing draw length by 2 inches would probably give probably same performance.

I just finished readin Archer in Africa by Bill Negley and he shot all his elephants with a 102 pound recurve.  He doesnt get real specific in any of the stats from his bows unfortunately.
 Good luck and remember the cortisone!  lol

Thanks for the help, cool video

These are always interesting threads. Its good to hear that a 50# bow can kill almost anything in Africa. 50 pounds I can handle; 100?...not!

Hey Marty, It's probably a bit of a longshot, but you might try getting in touch with Andy Ivy (tradtusker) & talk to him about it. I know he was looking into working up a bow/arrow combo to hunt Giraffe & from what I understand (Because of shot angles etc...) an Elephant & Giraffe need about the same 'umph' to penetrate to the vitals.

I think (But I may be off) that he was putting around 1300gn arrows out of a 80#+ Kanati longbow, which I would guess performs pretty close to your Widows, & I remember him being fairly confident with his setup.

I would think that you shouldn't reall need much more bow than you're shooting now. You may also try having a chat with Monty Browning. He's another ultra-heavy arrow proponent & shoots (or shot...) mid-80# bows.

QuoteOriginally posted by JDunlap:
These are always interesting threads. Its good to hear that a 50# bow can kill almost anything in Africa. 50 pounds I can handle; 100?...not!

Ditto since that's what I'm taking over in two months.