ADM Longbow Review

ADM Longbow Review by Pete Ward
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Adam Mooney is a new Bowyer to the traditional world, and he is making a series of D/R longbows that are quite striking to the eye.

The The test bow I have is the “Earth” model, 45lb. at 28″, 62″ long. It is on the bright side now, as you can see, however the Osage will darken and give it that warm Osage color we all like so much. The contrasting black and yellow, are quite striking, but the Osage has already started to darken and it is becoming a very good-looking bow.

When I opened the shipping tube I was very surprised at the bow it held. This new Bowyer is doing nice work. His glue lines are tight and it did not look like a new bowyer made this bow at all. The fades are long and thin and his limb is very slender ending in a fine tip that I did not expect to find on a newcomers bow. The overall workmanship is very good, and much better than I expected to see.

Adam asked for a critical review, and I admire him for this. With this in mind I did have some criticism to share and I did discuss these with Adam and got his feedback. Adam has told me that all of the things we discussed are not going to be an issue on the future bows he builds.

The first thing is the shelf size. He has done a good job putting a radius on it for a clean arrow passage, but it is very narrow. If you do not cant the bow a lot it has a tendency for the arrow to fall off the shelf especially if you roll the string at all when you draw. Walking with an arrow nocked on this bow would be difficult. Adam assured me that future shelf widths would be wider.

The next thing I found that could be better is the belly side of the limbs. They have a sharp edge. These sharp edges are only bound to be chipped if the bow were to be accidentally dropped or bumped against some hard surface. A radius on the belly side like the backside will fix this. Adam told me that his personal bow was made this way and it has some chips in it after his hunting season. He has assured me that all new bows will be given a radius on all edges to prevent chips and bruises to the glass.

The final two items are more of my personal taste in nature. This bow has a large grip and palm swell. I prefer a small grip and small palm swell however I am sure that many of you would like it the way it is.

This bow has a no-glare finish that is effective, however the finish is sprayed with a rough texture to it. My preference is for a smoother finish, yet I realize that some of you will prefer the textured finish.

The bow has a carbon core that is optional, and I will not recommend this option. The performance the bow has does not justify the expense of the carbon. I have not seen a bow with a single carbon core that showed any significant performance over similar bows without carbon. They may be out there but I have not seen them to date. Carbon seems to shine on the outside of a limb, but inside the limb it is just a black stripe that costs a lot of money.

In shooting the bow, I found that it does send the arrow quietly on its way however it does have some very light shock and buzz. This was reduced to an acceptable level by adding a set of large beaver balls and a padded loop string. Perhaps I am spoiled when it comes to shock and bows by the bows I have been shooting that have no shock at all. There are a lot of bows I have tested that were terrible to shoot. This is not like that at all but it needs to be mentioned that there is some shock with this bow.

There is a substantial mass to the bow and shooting accurately is easy for me. The ADM “Earth” has ample performance to be a good hunting bow at this 45lb. draw weight. It does not set the fletches on fire, but I would not hesitate to take it for Moose or Elk with heavy arrows. Remember this is a 45lb. bow at 28″ and I draw 27″.

I am looking forward to seeing more of Adams bows in the future as he fine-tunes his designs. There is not much room for improvement with his workmanship. The bow is good-looking and very well made and I do like shooting it.

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