Originally Posted by bfisher
Guess it's time for me to put in my opinion, and again, based on personal experience over the years. Although not the same brand I owned and shot split limbs from Golden Eagle (1997-1999)and Pearson (2000-2003).
I had two Golden Eagle Litespeeds. One with solid limbs and one with split limbs. Using a chrono I found their performance to be identical with the split limb being 1 fps faster on average. I did think the split limb performed with slightly less vibration and noise, but pretty imperceptable.
Pearson was a different story. Split was all they offered. These bows were an absolute dream to shoot. Fairly fast for their time, smooth, and very quiet. No complaints at all with the five bows I had over those three years. At the time I leaned heavily on wanting solid limbs, but over time I learned to appreciate each bow for what it was.
Now, drawing on this experience I would lean toward the split limb design. One reason is that I believe that given the amount of cam lean (limb twist) in today's shorter bows I think split limbs would be more reliable simply because as the limb do twist each side can do so independently of the other lessening the chance of limbs splitting in the middle. We all are aware of the issues of a couple years ago with the limb failures. Maybe this would alleviate it almost altogeth
Spanner brought up the thought of twisting a yoke to getd of cam lean. The onlyproblemwith this is that with a single or binary cam system there is no yoke to twist. Even with a true dual cam system it's not the complete cure. At what point do you want to adjust for? At rest there is a certain amount of force applied to the string and cables. As the bow is drawn the force on the string transfers to the cables, so now the cables are holding most of the forces. On a bow with a cable guard this means that side torque increases. And it's not constant throughout the draw cyle. It's constantly changing till the bow is fully drawn so no matter whether cam lean is alleviated at rest or at full draw it has to be present somewhere in the draw cycle. It's never gone.
However, being as all Martin, and most other companies, are only offering solo or binary cams these days adjusting a yoke is a moot point.
Without having complete inside info I have a feeling that Martin's decision to to a split limb design is not only for reliability, but also to make the bows moret as this has been an issue voiced by a lot of owners and prospective buyers. I have to commend them for listening to thepublic and having the where with all to try something different. I hope it works out and am sure that if it does then you will see more improvements over time.
Very true! It's a decision most buyers are faced with when buying a bow today.
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