What Size Longbow Do You Need? (Draw Length Chart)

Stand naturally, arms out to the sides, palms forward. Have someone measure fingertip to fingertip — your wingspan. Divide by 2.5. That's your approximate draw length in inches.

A 70-inch wingspan works out to a 28-inch draw, which is the archery industry's reference number for a reason: it's close to average for adult men. If you've ever been measured at a shop with a draw-check arrow, trust that number over the wingspan estimate.

Notice the height rule hiding inside the chart: a 5'10" archer usually has about a 28-inch draw and lands on a 68–70 inch bow — right around their own height. The chart just gets there honestly.

Draw any bow far enough past its design and the weight stops climbing smoothly and starts piling on — an extra pound per inch becomes three, then five. That's stacking, and straight-limbed longbows do it earlier and harder than recurves because there's no curved limb tip to keep the string angle friendly.

A stacking bow is miserable to shoot. It feels like the bow slams into a wall right at your anchor, it magnifies every flaw in your release, and it makes you shorten your draw without noticing. That's why the chart leans long: the cost of extra length is a slightly slower bow; the cost of too little is your form.

The chart above fits the modern American-style flat longbow and reflex-deflex hybrids — the bows most people actually buy. A true English longbow, with its deep D-section, wants even more length: traditionally your height plus a hand's width or more, and warbow shooters go well past that.

Hybrids with mild reflex-deflex profiles are the most forgiving of the bunch and the most tolerant of sitting one size off. If you're between a hybrid and a straight-stave design, the hybrid is the safer first longbow.

Length sorted, weight is the other axis: most adults starting traditional archery shoot best at 35–45 lb, and heavy hunting weights come later, if at all. Longbow weights are marked at 28 inches, and you gain or lose roughly 2–3 lb per inch of draw either side of that. Our draw weight guide covers the details — the short version is that nobody ever regretted starting too light.

Different rule from a recurve, and this trips people up constantly. A longbow string runs about three inches shorter than the bow's AMO length; a recurve takes four. So a 68-inch longbow wants a 65-inch string, where a 68-inch recurve wants 64.

If the length isn't stamped near the limb tip, measure the bow unstrung along its face from string groove to string groove, following the curve rather than cutting the corner — that figure is the AMO length. Don't size a new string by laying the old one out flat: a string that's been shot for a season has crept longer, so you'd buy the stretch as well as the string.

Makers who deviate from the convention say so on the product page, so check the listing before ordering. And if you're stringing it after the new string arrives, our longbow care and setup guide covers doing it with a stringer rather than the step-through method that twists limbs.