Black Hunter MK II 60″ Take Down Longbow – Right Handed

Just got the Mandarin Duck TD longbow, arrived in 7 days from china to the east coast USA, that alone is amazing as I’m still awaiting a vendor package from Florida that shipped out 2-1/2 weeks ago, Grrr. I’ve been heavy into archery since a kid in 1953, all flavors but particularly traditional archery and mostly Hill-style longbows. Needing a backup TD longbow for an upcoming flyaway hog bowhunt I took a chance on the Black Hunter offering and so far I’ve not be disappointed. I ordered the last 45@28 in stock and that’s what arrived, as my Easton digital draw weight scale registers a consistent 45.3lbs holding weight at exactly 28″ of draw length (to the front of the bow shelf). I was specifically intrigued with this bow due to the bamboo limbs as that’s what I prefer on all longbows. Bottom line, very pleased. Super smooooooth draw to past 28″ (thanx to bamboo), good speed with 10 to 12 gpp woodies and carbons alike. There is some boinging noise happening on release as the R/D limbs and tips do their wiggles, this is normal, but that was easily tamed with a pair of wool silencers inserted into the string … speaking of which, the supplied string was a tad too short at 56-1/2″, so I spun up a new B55 14 strand endless string at 57-1/2″, which is a teeny bit long as I expected and that allowed putting in some good twists to nicely round it off. This yields a brace height of 8″ to the depth of the grip. The supplied swatch of sticky backed hair hide would make a good shelf rest (there should have been instructions to let newbies know to make sure the hair points forward when making a hair rest), but I prefer Velcro sticky back loop instead. All in all, for the low price point, overall good build and materials, and good performance (stable on the release and fast arrow speed), I’ll give this bow 9 out of 10 stars …. if it lasts without issues for a year’s worth of shooting I’ll up that rating to 10 stars. Cheers! :)