A recurve have limbs that bend away at the tips. A longbow has straight, or mostly straight limbs.

A recurve usually has a fairly large riser with a pistol-type grip. A longbow usually has a straight or minimal contour in the grip.

A recurve has it's sight window cut close to center so it's pretty lenient on what arrow spine it will shoot. A longbow sight window is usually left at least 1/8" from center (tournament rules) and is quite a bit more particular about what spine arrow it will shoot well.

A recurve is designed to be shot straight wrist, putting most of the pressure from the bow hand in the throat of the grip. A longbow is designed to be shot low wrist with even pressure throughout the grip.

Of course, today you can buy recurves with longbow risers, longbows with recurve risers, short longbows, long recurves and anything/everything in between.

Mass produced stickbows are draw weight rated at 28" draw. That's simply what AMO decided to use for a standard. There is no set and fixed draw length for a stickbow (omitting selfbows - different issue there). Someone with a 26" draw can shoot the same bow as someone with a 32" draw. However, the longer the draw length, the higher the draw weight. The guy with the 26" draw might get 40 pounds, the guy with the 32" draw might get 55 pounds from the same bow.

At your size, your draw length will likely be long enough to run into stack. That is the point in a bow's draw where it suddenly begins drawing more pounds per inch than it did before that point. Say your bow draws 2 pounds per inch until it hits 29", then it suddenly jumps to pulling 3 pounds per inch. That bow 'stacks' at 29". There is a theory that for an ideal bow, you want the bow to begin stacking immediately past your draw length.

I don't know about that, but I do know you don't want to be drawing more than an inch or so past a bow's stack point. I can draw a 45# @ 28" bow to 55 pounds with a good bit of stack, but it will shoot like a 45 pound bow.

The best way for a long draw shooter to avoid stack is to buy a longer bow. I like the looks and handling of 60" bows and shorter. They're little jewels. But, with a 32" draw, I can't touch them. I have to stick with bows at least 64" to avoid stack.

I think that's a pretty good rule of thumb. Pick a bow's length based on double your draw length.

What you need to think about most is draw weight. Most guys coming from compounds will need to look at stickbows that are some 15 pounds less in draw weight than their compound. If they've been shooting only high letoff bows, they'd probably need to go even lighter. There's a big difference between pulling 15 pounds at full draw and 50 pounds. Most switch-over shooters try and pull too much draw weight and wind up not shooting well (at best) or hurting themselves (at worst) then giving it up and forgetting traditional altogether. The ones that stick with it are the ones that match their draw weight to their capabilities and work up.

Don't despair about draw weight. A stickbow running 40-45 pounds will shoot about 25-30 ft lbs of KE. But, believe it or not, that's plenty hard enough to poleaxe a deer, provided you make good choices with arrows and broadheads, keep your hunting shot distances to around 20 yards max, and then execute the shot properly. Executing the shot properly is a lot easier when you aren't plagued with gritting your teeth, bulged out eyeballs, hernias popping, hemmorhoids swelling and bulging veins in your neck about to bust from trying to pull more weight than you can really handle.

Some few switchover shooters can handle exactly the same draw weight on their new stick as they can with their compounds, but they are rare and unique individuals. The only way for you to know whether a bow will be the right weight for you is to grab it and draw it back. If you can draw the bow to a good, solid anchor and hold it for 5 seconds, and repeat that at least 10 times, then it will be a bow you can shoot - or at least work yourself into - without much trouble.

Good luck. If you've got any more questions, and I'm sure you do, come down and post them on the traditional forum. You'll get a lot more input there than you will here.