Knowing your purpose and what type of bow suits you best will definitely help in honing your skills as a target shooter or hunter.
Two of the most common types of bows are the recurve and longbow archery.
How are these two differentiated? Recurve bows, when made of horns, make use of a pre-curved design so that when the bow is drawn, tension is gained thus emitting more power.
This type of bow has tips that curve away from the archer when the bow is unstrung.
One distinction of the recurve is that the string touches sections of the limbs when the bow is strung.
It stores more energy compared to other straight-limbed bows.
It can permit a shorter bow than the simple bow for a certain arrow energy.
This form is often preferred by archers in environments where long weapons could be burdensome.
Longbow archery was used in medieval warfare to a devastating effect.
People in Medieval England saw the bow as effective in naval battles as well.
It is a distinctively tall bow, sometimes roughly equal to the height of the archer who uses it.
The reason for this is to allow the users to have a fairly long draw, at least to the jaw.
Unlike the recurve bow, its limbs are relatively narrow, they are circular or D-shaped in cross section.
A longbow gets its power mainly from the length of its body.
It can be made from a single piece of wood and it can be crafted pretty easily and quickly.
Highly skilled bowyers can produce wooden longbows in just a few hours.