Dave, you wont see them on the main stage target archery stuff on YouTube, as Uukha don't pay the big boys to use their kit.
They don't actually get paid to use kit. It's the extra you get if you win with it.
If you're an excellent archer, the kit makes very little difference. You're going to win. So you have a choice.
You can win a medal with brand x limbs, or you can win a medal AND get several thousand dollars from manufacturer Y, because you used Y's limbs.
Archers put in a LOT of effort for very little financial reward. Contingency money is a significant incentive if you're going to get it for free. Edit. Stretch has already covered this. So did Whitehart.
And they're ABSOLUTELY correct, of course.
If we use two laminations, we can choose the outer for its ability to withstand stretching and the inner for its ability to withstand compression.
Yes. AND if we make them out of carefully chosen and constructed materials, they can be incredibly light and incredibly strong.
They just have to be kept in the right place and they'll do all the work perfectly, right up to the limits of what they're able to repeatedly withstand before crapping out..
So if the tension and compression layers are doing absolutely ALL the load work, then the shear layer does bugger all.
If the right materials are chosen along with the right thickness of each material, then the glue line can be subjected to being bent but not stretched or compressed. I think that is like the self bow of yew having the right thickness of heartwood and sapwood so the two layers both get subjected to just one of the forces. I would guess that a middle lamination could be used to good effect
The middle laminations tend to actually be over engineered and add more weight than necessary. Nobody complains about a bow that doesn't break easily, however they DO complain about
longbow kick. That's what happens when the limbs are heavier than they need to be. The sad thing about longbows (and flatbows) is that they aren't supposed to get the same limb technology as highly developed recurves. It's also much much harder to take a self bow to the point where they're finely tuned limbs. They just aren't reproduceable due to the materials variability.
Also, nobody likes it when they break them during manufacture.
If you look though, you'll see people experimenting with carbon laminations as early as twenty years ago and making some really sweet flat bows that were of significant performance increases over regular construction. The uproar from the traditionalists expected to compete against these bows was absolute gold.
As with the feel of limbs and being able to relate this to core material, the main issue is that you'd need to have limbs with identical top and bottom laminations, kept apart by different core materials.
And no manufacturer does this.
So different limb feel might be attributed to anything that someone can discern as being different and they can't be proven right or wrong because actual evidence is impossible to collect.
As for where limbs make a difference, there have been considerable theories over the years, however one appeals more than others to me.
When you're beginning, everyone is crap. Limbs don't make that much difference.
When you're at the absolute top of the pile, everyone is excellent and everyone has top of the line limbs.. So there's not much difference to be seen there.
However, in between these two extremes there will be people of similar skill. Let's say that they have identical draw weights and the same arrows. Over a competition, the nicer limbs throw faster arrows and are smoother through the clicker. The other limbs stack and are slower. So they're harder to shoot consistently and the arrows spend longer in the air, giving them more time to be affected by wind drift. There is even the measurable performance increase of being confident in one's more expensive gear. It's a REAL thing. (It also works in reverse)
So where this limb difference could logically be expected to make a difference is where it probably does. Mind you , nobody collects this kind of information and it comes about by excluding other factors at the beginner and elite end.
As a data analysis comparison, it was long considered that there were archers who were matchplay specialists. Individuals who were steely under pressure and who would beat better archers in matchplay purely because they were able to hold onto their game a HEAP better. And of course, we all saw that kind of thing happen, so it was a theory which met with some acceptance.
Then came James L Park's analysis of 14 years worth of high level archery matchplay. A study called "Winning major international target archery competitions"
It showed that the majority of winners came from the top eight places in the ranking round.
This wasn't really a surprise. These are the archers who are good archers, regardless of what pressure is put on them. It's WHY THEY ARE AT THESE COMPETITIONS!
But what about competitions where there AREN'T the world's best archers? Do these results still apply?
Consider your club archer who is super comfortable with a 1440, who all of a sudden has to make every arrow count in a shootoff.
You've all seen someone lose their shit and totally collapse. This is NOT a characteristic of a seasoned world cup competitor and is by definition exactly why they're NOT a seasoned world cup competitor.
And there are far more archers who aren't seasoned competitors shooting shootoffs at club level events. This data isn't being analysed. The archers aren't at the same level. There is logical reasoning to believe that at the middle level, there ARE matchplay specialists that outshoot typically higher performing archers in competitions with more arrows.
And when you extend the logical thinking, where do the top level competitors come from? The archers who lose their shit or the ones that keep it together? That kind of mental toughness doesn't magically appear once you hit 1350.
I'd like to put it out there that the archer is the thing that makes the most difference. Human nature will ensure that archers will try and make up for this by spending money. Confidence buys points, until of course, everyone is super confident.