Who has the best AKC rabbit dog or UKC coon hound? What NBA player can make the most astounding slam dunk? Who in MLB can hit a ball consistently out of the park? Competitions designed to discover these champions seldom have anything to do with creating a gun dog to take to the briar patch, or a night dog to catch coons with, or revealing a complete basketball or baseball player.

The challenge behind the Ambush Challenge is to reward the kind of multi-dimensioned bow you want to brace up for ambushing game. The criteria exist to serve that purpose.

Testing lasted five days. Each day the bows were braced for at least four hours in the morning and for at least four hours in the afternoon. Each bow was drawn about five times to 28" on the tillering tree, first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening, and then weighed. After this exercise, three arrows were shot through a chronograph and their averages recorded. Upon completion of this exercise, the bow was graded not against other bows but against its own standard, to measure how much it degraded over the course of the testing.

The highest score attained for the first criterion was a perfect 5, achieved by both Tim Ott in the Selfbow Category with an osage bow, and by Jerry Ross in the Laminated Category with a bamboo/osage bow. Tim's bow lost only two pounds from Tuesday morning to Saturday night and 2 fps of arrow speed. Jerry Ross also lost two pounds of weight and 1 fps of arrow speed. His bow dropped from 62 pounds at the outset to 60 lbs by midweek. However, it was back up to 61 pounds the last several testings, so I'm really not sure how much the bow actually lost (two pounds or one pound) and how much was due to misreading a hash mark on the scale. Nevertheless, both bows showed remarkable resilience.

In fact, all the bows that made it through the five days of testing (there were only five of the original eight) scored well. The lowest score was 4 with a weight loss of 4 lbs and a speed discrepancy of 3 fps. Of the three bows that didn't complete the testing, one dropped to 45 lbs by the second day. It was disqualified. Another bow delaminated and a third showed apparent signs of chrysalling on the belly and a splinter on the back.

We did not have an instrument for measuring noise more sophisticated than our own ears, but anyone's ears would have worked satisfactorily enough for the appraisal, seasoned bowyer's or bystander wife's. The highest score here was again recorded by Tim Ott's osage self bow, 4.5, and the lowest score was a 2, sounding less like a walnut hitting soft ground than a hammer cracking one on a railroad anvil.

No bow graded above a 4 for ease of bracing. They were all fairly even in this category except for one bow which scored a 1. The nock grooves were shallow and narrow, the angle did not fit the braced bow too well, and the string had so many coiled twists in it, twists that stretched out upon the bracing, that the throw to brace was exceptionally long and strenuous.

Balance proved a bugaboo for some of the bows and their lack of it caused a deterioration in tiller, evident by the fourth day of testing. These same bows did poorer in shooting both light and heavy arrows, so a relationship may have existed there. Had the testing lasted longer, their tiller probably would have worsened, their weight loss would have become more marked, and the difference in arrow speed as well as the discrepancy between heavy and light arrows likely would have increased, or so the trend and common sense indicated. The bows that balanced best on the tillering tree kept their shape throughout the testing and maintained a more constant performance level.

For the balance test, we placed the bow handle upon a radiused shoulder on the tillering tree slightly below the arrow rest, which we deemed to be the dynamic fulcrum, and pulled it from the position of the middle finger on the bowstring. Some bows pulled smartly from this position, others required compensation, either in their handle placement or on the string position, or both. (See the accompanying article "Tillering the Organic Bow" in this issue of The Bowyer's Journal™ for a fuller explanation of this procedure.) The highest scores here went to Tim Ott and to Jerry Ross with a 4.5. The lowest score was a 2.

Jerry Ross' bow still showing balance after four lumps to the head.	Jerry's bow, showing three vaults from the tillering tree, one to go.

Jerry Ross' bamboo bow gave us fits. Not that the bow wasn't balanced. It was. But a combination of a dramatically inclined bulbous handle resting upon the slippery slope of a radiused shoulder with no more friction than the varnish of the handle to hold it in place resulted in the bow flying from the tillering tree on four separate occasions at full draw. Once the bow unbraced, flipped through the air and stuck the landing, burying a nock end into soft sod, leaning there for an instant like a gymnast on a bad leg before toppling over. Each time a new series of dramatic dents tattooed the belly, presumably from the bow scale slamming into it, all of a similar pattern, in the same location. After the third explosion, I wrapped the varnished wooden handle in tape to give it some grip on the tillering tree, but it still vaulted from the tree one more time. Even though there wasn't a category for it, the bow earned points for ruggedness, doing brute work after each mishap, like a coal mine mule which every morning banged its head against its rail car before submitting to hard work down the shafts.

Mike Westvang's composite bow required a consistent grip and was awarded a 5. With a sculpted palm swell, there was only one place and one way to hold the bow. All of the bows but one graded high here, around 4.5. They all had some feature to the handle that welcomed a repeatable grip. One bow that did not scored a 3.

Tim and Jerry scored highest for smoothness of draw at 4.5. These two bows gained a consistent 3 to 3.5 lbs each of the last three inches of draw. Remarkable considering their length and a draw of 28 inches. The lowest score was a 1 from a bow that was a bit mushy with its early string weight, but then gained an even 5 lbs each of its last three inches.

The results of the heavy arrow category were probably the most surprising. Jerry Ross's bow recorded a phenomenal discrepancy of 1 fps average between groups of 700 grain and 500 grain arrows. It earned its 5 with sparkling results. I'm still rubbing my eyes over that. The poorest performance earned a 1 with a 10 fps discrepancy.

All of the bows proved of a dependable, simple construction, available to almost any bowyer except for Mike Westvang's composite bow. Bamboo backed with bloodwood and bamboo laminations, featuring a horn belly and embellished with horn and olive tip overlays back and belly, its level of sophistication and the tool kit required for its construction put this bow out of the reach of most of us. There's no getting around the criterion even while there's no avoiding a tip of the bowyer's cap to Mike's craftsmanship.

The last category is the only truly subjective one of the ten. Yet we all agreed that Tim's bow was smooth to the draw, felt sweet upon the loose and was the most pleasurable of the lot to shoot. It earned a 4.5.

The final tally of scores revealed a tie for third place with a score of 34.5 out of a possible 50. John Scifres with his osage selfbow and Matt Simpson with his bamboo backed bulletwood bow earned these honors. John's straight-limbed selfbow bent through the handle and featured a subtle Holmegaard execution of the limb tips. At 1 1/8 inches, the bow was narrow of limb, deep-cored and radiused, but still withstood the testing without damage to the limbs. Matt's bow was a reflex/deflex laminated bow, 1 5/16 inches wide, lightly radiused of the belly and backed with snake-skin. If you'll permit me a subjective observation, irrelevant to the grading, it was also gorgeous beyond description.

Second place went to Jerry Ross who lacked half a point of tying Tim Ott for top honors. Jerry's score was 42.5 and Tim's was 43. Tim's and Jerry's bows were similar in many regards. Tim's was 1 5/16 inches wide and Jerry's was 1 ¼ inches wide. Both employed radiused bellies. Both were straight-limbed with a gradual taper to the tips, showing a little string follow when relaxed. Tim worked a subtle elliptical tiller into his whereas Jerry's braced profile consistently graduated toward stiffness, dip to tip.

Congratulations to all the bows entered for this inaugural Challenge, and especially to those that made it through to the end. I'd also like to take a moment to commend Jerry Ross on behalf of everyone who hopes to age with bright eyes. Jerry is 75 years old. Drawing a bow of contest weight is beyond him, yet ABC 1 challenged him to create an entry. The bamboo of his first bow lifted a splinter. He assembled another in time to put it through a rigorous week of testing prior to submitting it, using a tillering tree to work it in and a friend who came at intervals to shoot it for him. A record of the bow's performance during that week accompanied his entry, and the bow did not deviate from it during the testing here. His bow endured two weeks of brutality. In the process it also incurred profound bumps to the head that failed to faze it. Congratulations, Jerry. I hope we're all so lucky to reach your age in good health, yanking strings and excited to explore new territory.

I've recently concluded my Grand Prize hunt with Tim Ott, which I enjoyed thoroughly, except that it was shortened due to the death of his wife's grandfather. Our condolences to the family. Tim is an excellent but unassuming bowyer, and an ethical and savvy hunter of good humor and generous spirit. He can "skin a buck and run a trot line," a country boy that can survive. He's welcome here any time.

"Carve a little wood, pull a few strings, and sometimes magic happens." — Gepetto