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Bow Performance Project - AF Turkish Chrono Data

Silent Thunder Ordnance

AF Archery Turkish bow shown with our Hybrid ring in sterling silver

AF Archery Turkish bow shown with our Hybrid ring in sterling silver

The last complete project analysis prior to this post, force-draw curves et al., can be found HERE. It contains the complete breakdown of bow poundage, how much energy is being stored, and how efficiently the bows store energy. This though, this is where the rubber meets the road: how effectively can these bows convert that stored energy into kinetic energy? 

AF Archery has been landing a lot of winners in terms of physical beauty, efficiency, and smoothness of draw. The Saluki style isn't without its drawbacks, namely being somewhat less durable, but my god are they seductive.... particularly this example hand-painted, bamboo laminations under clear glass, ivory colored discs inlaid at the arrow pass, and a silky smooth draw. (remember, in terms of percentage of total poundage gained in the last two inches of draw, this bow is the lowest we have tested at just 10%). I was typing "it is easier for lower poundage bows to pull off this trick, and this bow is comparatively low poundage being a mere....." before noticing it is 60#s at 31". I guess it isn't actually low poundage, it is just smooth enough to feel like it. Whoops. Anyway, enough salivating, how did it do? Remember, this bow has the second highest energy storage per pound of any we've yet tested. Sadly, not a knockout, only managing 67.5% efficiency, with fairly low deviation. If I were to guess why, I'd point to the fact that the siyahs are both thicker and deeper than the Tatar's, while being about the same

length. The laminated on tip protectors are larger too. To that point, the bow itself is shorter than the Tatar, while having the same mass. This doesn't make the bow awful, far from it, even knowing all this I'd buy it again without a second's hesitation and 200fps is far from slow, but it does sadly mean not all AF bows are absolute monsters. I guess things had to come back to earth eventually? It is also possible, being the newest of my AF bows, that they had been experiencing failures from running too close to the edge and this bow was beefed up to address that. 

Stay tuned, next week we have the Gukgungwon up on the chrono. This, tied with my Hwarang, is my favorite bow. Qualitatively, it is a real screamer. It may well be the fastest bow we've ever tested. 

Chrono data