With the technology and performance of our traditional equipment evolving, I was wondering how many of you hunt with lighter weight bow and have great success.

I am doing some studies and testing. I would love some feed back from guys who hunt and have had good success with bows ranging from 40-50 pounds.

For my testing, I am mainly looking for ELK, Moose and Pig hunters to chime in. As these are pretty tuff animals and good penetration is a must.

Thanks in advance.

My moose bow is 50 @ 30.5.

Mike

For those that are action wood fans the low poundage longbow and recurve slick sticks are said to have horsepower according to a friend of mine

Tuffhead, there is a 23 page thread just below with all sorts of pics of kills made with 40-45# rigs.  Should be very encouraging to you.

I think what gets lost in the discussions is that 40lbs st my 26.75" draw is not going to have the same speed and energy of someone shooting 40lbs at 30".
I'm shooting 52lbs and I've had arrows blow through deer and pigs.  I've also had the get 10" of penetration when I hit the shield on a big boar.  A big pig can go a long way on one lung.

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Quote from: wingnut on January 15, 2019, 09:02:44 AM
My moose bow is 50 @ 30.5.

Mike

Mike, 50 lb at 30.5 is not light weight 😎

Best of luck to you this year on your moose. That's a dream hunt of mine that I might never Attain.

I don't know if I've had "great" success but I have gotten full bh penetration on all 6 trad elk that I have taken with 40-50# bows.
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This cow was taken with a 40# bow. IMO, it's not the weight of the bow but the weight of the arrow that determines penetration (among other things, of course).

Nice Doug. All animals taken with traditional tackle is great success.
And I agree with the arrow weight.

No elk or moose for me, but I have taken kudu, waterbuck, gemsbuck, red hartebeest, nyala, warthog, and a boatload of pigs with my 48-50# at my DL bows. Really big boar pigs are the biggest challenge. If you hit them high in the shield, you may get enough penetration to kill them, but finding them is really tough as they often leave little to no blood trail.

Bisch

Last night we had a grilled roast from a 200 pound pig.  It was shot with a bow that started 50 pounds, a Montgomery Wards Pearson that I trimmed way down slimmed up everything including the grip.  I gave it to a friend so he could have a lighter weight bow to get his form in shape, he draws 27".  It is about 43 pounds at his draw. I did not intend that he make it a primary hunting bow, but he says that it shoots so accurate and smooth that it has become his go to bow.  He said the 1818 with an original Grizzly went clean through it, it bled out in short order and went down quick.  Wild hog on a Weber grill works really well.

When I started this game in the '60s the average deer bow was 40 to 45 lb. Because everyone was using cut on contact broadheads there was no need for anything heavier. Fifty pounds was getting into the realm of larger game such as elk.