Leather or Wood Grip

[BobCo19-65]

Just wondering what type of material you prefer on your grip. I have just a plain wood grip on my recureve and wondered if anyone prefered a plain wood grip on their longbow. My longbow has a leather grip, but wondered what it would be like without it. If, I take the leather off, it is a bit too small in my hand.

[Zelazny]

I like the leather wrap - after a while I can tell if my hand isn' t in the right spot and the grip is just better to me.

[CT Bowhunter]

I like the wood grip. Like the feel of the bow in my hand.

[LBR]

I very much prefer a wood grip. I love the look of the wood, but more importantly the wood won' t let me grab on like leather will, so I am less apt to torque the bow if I forget and put a death grip on it.

Chad

[Arthur P]

I like the bare wood on my recurves too. Usually like a leather wrap on longbows, but I didn' t put a wrap on the one I made because the wood was too nice to cover up.

[seymour]

I think the reason most recurves don' t have leather covers on the handle is because it would be harder to fit one to the molded handle than it would be with a straight stickbow.

I don' t know that there is a practical reason for a leather grip other than maybe leaving some place for the dirt from your hand to accumulate. I' ve noticed no accumulations on the wood finish of bows without the leather, so perhaps that' s not a practical reason either.

I had one flatbow that was so badly tillered it would actually blister the bow hand unless the grip was soft, smooth leather. That was before I realized the problem was the tiller. It might be too that leather has been used on bows that kicked, somewhat mitigating the annoyance, but who knows really?

My Asiatic bow is leather covered because it is leather covered, all over except for the Sihas. It doesn' t really matter though because I use a glove on the bow hand to protect my knuckle from the fletching quills.

Probably leather-covered versus bare handles is practically irrelevant in most cases. With wood bows, there' s little chance one' s hand will stick to the bow in cold weather and if the bow' s too hot handle, it' s probably going to come apart pretty quick if it hasn' t already. So I guess it would be mostly an appearance issue and nothing more.