BorderArchery [2]

In this article Sid Ball who is the owner of Scottish Border Archery tells us how he began making longbows and how his experiments have resulted in some of the best shooting longbows in the world today. This is a story of the commitment to a tradition and continuing efforts to make better and more elegant bows.

By Sid Ball, Border, Mellerstain, Scotland

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Sid Ball with his dog Arron. Sid and his wife Ann are the owners of Border Archery since 1997.

I started making my own longbows back in the 70's. I had read the books by Howard Hill and John Schultz about longbows being better than recurves for hunting purposes. Being a hunter myself I decided to follow their advice. I made longbows in every shape and size trying to design a longbow that was as fast as a good recurve but I never did until I came into Border. The name of that bow was Osprey.

The Osprey I built in my Garage just before Ann and I bought Border. It was a fast sweet shooting longbow and from that we progressed to the Griffon. Our development of carbon fibre and other composites I found very exciting. We began to use these materials and for the first time we managed to make a longbow that shot as fast and almost as smooth as many recurves.

How to make a fast longbow
Recurves store more energy and have short lighter limbs. The o­nly way a longbow can catch a recurve is in having super lightweight limbs. Reflexed bows whether reflexed or reflex/deflex allows you to stress the limbs higher compared to a straight design because the tips are pulled farther. With this you have to reduce the cores for the same bow-weight and hence lose limb mass. And herein lies the big benefit in reflexed bow limbs: Reflexed limbs are very thin for a given bow weight and therefore light. First of all they speed up and second they lose hand shock.

And so the Griffon and Black Griffon were born and then the Harrier and Black Harrier were designed searching for improved stability. So with these designs we get the benefits of deflex/reflex but even more important we use modern high performance materials. The Harrier was also introduced to act as a transition from compound or recurve for those wanting to change to longbow. The low pistol grip design helps archers make the change.

A Black Griffon Longbow unbraced showing the reflex-deflex profile

A Harrier Longbow unbraced showing the reflex-deflex profile

Hand shock comes from limb mass. The old concept that reflexed bows shock more has nothing to do with reflexed designs but the limb mass in the way the limbs are structured; heavy outer limbs for example. Our very special limb construction is exceptionally light and the bows are fast especially with the Black version bow and so speed and low hand shock are what you get.

The down side is that a bow even with the heaviest of timbers in the riser is still a bit too light for some archers. We are looking at putting extra composites in the riser to add weight. Bows with hand shock need bow mass in order to help absorb the unused energy in the bow. The older designs with conventional glass limbs have hand shock and heavy risers help reduce the feel of the shock. In reality our bows are light and still have almost no hand shock so why have the weight? Most archers handle it well and see it as a benefit. John Schultz used to write about bows with narrow limbs light in the hand that were high performers and I read that some decades ago. But some who hold o­n to some of the older concepts still look for bows that are heavier in the hand. With new materials bows have changed and so what was considered valid in the past is now less relevant than it was.

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The handle o­n this Black Harrier is made with cocobolo.	This picture shows the thin and very light limbs o­n the Black Harrier.	A Black Harrier at the beginning of the draw.

Part of a tradition
It is possible to make an even faster bow. But the thrust of the longbow is in the tradition and for me that means it has to look like a longbow. If we build it even faster, the bow would have combined our limb technology with short limbs and a very long riser. In a short limbed bow the riser would have to be much longer and a bit bulkier and the limbs wider to take the stresses and tight bend radiuses that would occur from shorter acting limbs (We have made bows like that). But we wanted to enhance the traditional look and feel and so we did not go for that design. We wanted our bows to look like longbows.

[7]There is a huge traditional movement and some people join that movement without having the true feeling for it (like a fashion) and then they twist and change things. Bow speed is just o­ne of those elements. The drive for faster and faster perverts the holistic "traditional" aspect of the movement.  Again where does the balance sit?

How Traditional is Traditional? Does that mean we have to shoot bows that are hard, slow and lumpy.  I don't know were the balance lies, but for us a longbow needs to look like a longbow and handle like o­ne.  For us here at Border, well we are performance oriented with stability taking the lead over speed. Our bows are fast and we want our bows to be and feel traditional so we have consciously designed bows to fit in with the traditional revival in archery. A longbow should look like a longbow. We have blended modern materials into our designs and used them to maximum effect.

The Merlin
In our newest longbow we wanted to make an even more traditional statement in appearance than the Griffon but with as much of the good shooting characteristics as possible from the Harrier and Griffon. We have baptized this bow the Merlin.

The Merlin will bend differently because the bow is reflexed o­nly so the bow will be flattish across the riser and bend in a traditional "D" shape rather than a pointed "D" of a deflexed bow. The Harrier is even more deflexed and so is even more pointed and as a result almost triangular.  The Merlin will have a flattish "D" when braced but our advantage is that it will have super lightweight limbs and so will have a startling performance. Compared to the Griffon it will probably be a fraction slower. The limbs are a little longer and so a fraction heavier so theoretically it would be a little slower and with a little more hand shock.  I have just shot the 66" version prototype and it is very smooth so whether very smooth or VERY, VERY smooth is a mute point. The speed variation between the Griffon and Merlin will be no more that 2 to 3 ft per sec. so a pound or two extra o­n your fingers will solve that if that is of concern. The bow will be an exceptional performer by any measurement but will look every inch a Traditional longbow!

A Merlin unbraced.

Borders new longbow Merlin showing profile when braced.

Many archers have two bows or more. I have always shot o­nly o­ne, as I want to shoot well and with a limited amount of time to shoot and practise. I have always shot a recurve. I like to bowhunt so I shoot a short 60" 65lbs Black Douglas Ultra with HEXIV limbs. These limbs use the same composites as the Black Griffon and Harrier so the bow shoots faster. The recurve has short fast acting limbs with the advantage that the bow stores more energy and when you use the same materials the advantage goes back to the recurve. You get a short overall length bow that is ultra smooth and exudes performance so for hunting for me that is the way to go.  I think that I will now shoot a Merlin as well.  The contrast between the two bows will just add to my shooting pleasure. 

Where as I have gone for performance with my recurve with the Merlin I'll sacrifice a little performance for looks and go for Elm limbs 66" length and 60lbs at 28". o­nce you have become accustomed to your bow the speed does not matter too much. The difference between very fast and very smooth and "very, very" is not much in reality.

Our process towards more traditional looking bows have lead us to our latest experiments with longbows where we have abandoned modern materials altogether. We are now making a Bamboo flat bow called the Raven no Glass or Carbon o­nly natural materials. The second prototype has just gone into the spray room and hopefully will be ready for next week.  We are making adjustments to the design and we should start version 3 with the changes in place. We are excited about both bows.

Achievements
Even if the archer is the most important link in the chain when we talk precision and achievements at archery tournaments it is fair to credit the bow with some of the merit. And the Border bows have done really well. The Black Harrier came first in the European IFAA (International Field Archery Association) championships in Finland 2003 but the Griffon came second o­nly 4 points behind and also first in the ladies. An Estonian lady Katrin Virula came in first in the World champs with a Griffon in the USA this year and made 3 new World records and a Scottish lady Barbera Campbell came in second also with a Griffon. Katrin came in 4th over all longbow contestants’ men or women! Quite an achievement! The Griffon has also shot a new Indoor 18m USA record last year by an archer named Harry Steever. The two gents both Scots who took the European championships could not get to the World championships and so I don't think that we had men shooting Border's new bread of longbows there. While the bow helps, it's always the archer who needs to do the shooting!

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Rasmus Skjoldman with his Black Griffon. Rasmus has won DM in field shooting, Uggeløse Jagten and several other tournaments.	Jon Jagd with a Black Harrier at full draw.