As they apply to traditional bows...

What is "Cast"?

What is "Stacking"?

Also, what determines how smoothly a bow will draw and shoot with minimal hand shock/recoil?

I have a hankering to grab my brother's 50# recurve he bought a few years ago then proceeded to store in his gun case and get ready for next year, so I'm doing a lot of looking around at traditional sites to learn what's what then dive in head first...

I'll give it a crack,

cast is how far the bow will shoot the arrow horizontally.

Stacking is how quickly the draw weight goes up, usually towards the end of the draw. basically you start out and it draws easy and smooth, then about halfway or so, the amount of weight you pull or seem to pull goes up dramatically.

Usually the bow design determines smoothness and hand shock, some straight limbed Hill style bows have hand shock and some don't. the reflex/deflex bow usually have smooth draws and no hand shock.

Unless you draw more than 29 or 30 inches, or shoot an extremely short recurve, you'll probably never encounter stack. What is it? Say a bow's poundage increases 2 pounds per each inch it's drawn, then at some point the pounds per inch increase suddenly jumps to 4 pounds per inch. That's stack. You would think that someone drawing well into the stack will get a super fast arrow. Not so. That bow will only shoot an arrow slightly faster than it would if it were shot at the draw length just before the stack point was reached. If the bow drew up to 45 pounds before it began stacking, it would perform pretty much like a 45 pound bow, no matter how far into the stack it was pulled, or how many pounds it drew at the stack. In other words, it wouldn't shoot hardly any faster at 60 pounds on a 32" draw than it would for someone shooting the same arrow at 28" draw and 45 pounds. The long draw guy just gets to pull a lot more weight with very little gain for his effort.

Most 60-62" long recurves I've shot didn't really begin stacking until about 30" draw - some at 29" - but, with my draw length, I've encountered a boatload of stack-a-matics over the years.[&:] That's exactly why I've gone to the custom bow market. The best factory bows I've encountered about not stacking too badly have been from Bear. Worst have been from Martin.

I like the explanation of cast I found in an old book, "Archery, From Golds to Big Game" by Kieth Schuyler: So, stack and cast are kinda interrelated. I also feel that a bow with good cast is also one that doesn't give you much handshock.

Thanks guys.

I don't know anything about the recurve he bought, other than he got it from Cabelas at least 5 years ago and it's a pretty darkish red color

I'll have to get it from him and go from there...

I'll be back.