I have yet to craft one myself. I am virtually in the Bronze Era. For the most part.
FWood is the best bow I have had yet. I've not confronted Elder to this point.

A finewood is harder to head shot due to the drift, the huntsman and fang are more accurate. If you are hunting nothing that is dangerous, then the finewood is enough.

I stay with the finewood until the Fang. Honestly don't think I have made a huntsman bow beyond maybe my first playthough.

Recently I just get the banded, pickax and mace from iron and go get silver in troll armor. As long as your food is good.

Originally posted by Jitatha:

A finewood is harder to head shot due to the drift, the huntsman and fang are more accurate. If you are hunting nothing that is dangerous, then the finewood is enough.

I make fair game from wolves and draug, ++^half a stack of chain, and 2 wraith trophies. Handfuls of Fuling and Draug. Abom....Leech, Wolf, Drake.
Half a stack of needles now.

Agreed, bows are mostly useless in the swamp, and a max upgraded finewood bow does ok in the mountains for drakes. I've never bothered to craft a huntsman bow since my first play through. Also, when you get to the mountains you have all the mats available for Draugr Fang, and you can venture into the mountains before you get the wishbone and mine some obsidian for much better arrows (I tend just to use wood arrows before this point and save my feathers). And if you are lucky you might find an exposed silver vein at the same time... If the huntsman bow didn't use any iron, I'd probably make one; but iron is needed for so many items I am reluctant to use any for something that isn't that useful.

Funny, I'm always happy when I get to the point when I can craft the huntsman bow. To me the throwback, small amount of dmg as well as the way better accuracy/aim is absolutely worth it. If you should happen to craft both of them, try shooting the same target like 10 times each, the difference is actually noticeable. With the FW bow i try to shoot something, pointing at the same spot and the arrows just won't hit that spot often times. But then again, I'm a heavy bow-user and always around 40-50 in that skill when I enter the swamps. And after 50 it just gets WAY better and easier as you can stagger enemies quite often.

Wait till the next bow 😆 🤣 😂

now that is a perspective which is not apparent. The particulars of the reticle trueness. The FWood fliffs wide every so often, and I suppose the range leaves it a little lacking. Now if they included some more stats. Some comparative for ranges. Draw times.
It gets me thinking if the draw time for all bows is equal. That is another vector to use as modifer. As well as stamina to full draw. If it were 2 sec's quicker for a FWodd Bow, than the Silver. Or visa versa. Then we get to start making more refined weapons. Truth to reticle and range would be good too know. And to know if all bows have equal draw times.
I'm able now to drop(one-shot) wolves with t4FWood&woods. Draug as well.

Bow:

Accuracy Drift - 1m
Projectile Velocity - 35
Attack Range - 1m +
Draw Time - Default (2.5s)
Attack Height - 1.5m
Attack Offset - 0.1 (Puts it below the reticle)
Stamina Drain - 4
Base Damage - 22

Fine Bow:

Accuracy Drift - 1m
Projectile Velocity - 50
Attack Range - 1m +
Draw Time - Default (2.5s)
Attack Height - 1.5m
Attack Offset - 0.1 (Puts it below the reticle)
Stamina Drain - 6
Base Damage - 32

Huntsman Bow:

Accuracy Drift - 0
Projectile Velocity - 50
Attack Range - 1m +
Draw Time - Default (2.5s)
Attack Height - 1.5m
Attack Offset - 0.1 (Puts it below the reticle)
Stamina Drain - 8
Base Damage - 42

Draugr Fang:

Accuracy Drift - 0
Projectile Velocity - 60
Attack Range - 1m +
Draw Time - Default (2.5s)
Attack Height - 1.5m
Attack Offset - 0.1 (Puts it below the reticle)
Stamina Drain - 10
Base Damage - 47 + 5 Poison

All arrow projectiles have a Gravity force of 5, which gives you the bow "arc".

drawing what i can from that table, it seems FWood is best in class among it's contemporaries, for almost any category were it weighted. And since all bows draw time is equal, the equivalence is that much greater in a way. While also amplifying the the finer differences. No one of them is a particularly swifter striker, which brings it to damage and/or range. The FWood nearly sips stamina in comparison to the greaters. And seeing how the reticle acuity 'seems' to be the same for all. Anyone who's played knows the crude is trash. Seemingly there is very little difference with them technically. But how they play in the field is another matter entirely. I would not trade back for the crude from my FWood. Not today or tomorrow. With some updating the 1M drift is perilous with the FWood. Which stands to reason. Knowing at what frequency this occurs would granularize it, or how often is it forced to miss. Do they all weight 1.5? that would be one final type of conditional, in addition to durability. Start(max). Do they always maintain the same weight through upgrading? And one last thing comes to mind is the status of a movement debuff, had any of them not had it that would make it a bit more valuable. granted the single -5 does not debuff. Since it's rounded down.

For example if the FWood had a 2sec draw, that would account for some other shortcomings easily.
We should be able to make compound versions of them, albeit crude ones, not modern pulleys and such. But sophisticated enough to make a lesser and greater version of these weapons.

Originally posted by Samoth:

truly an oversight on my behalf, this was simply a cursory glance while at the crafting table(forge). Still though seems like much greater difficulty resource to acquire. Point given though. I simply happened to be holding my own upgraded one in comparison.

Despite your oversight I still agree. An upgraded finewood bow will still carry you just fine until you are ready to get the bow that comes after huntsman.

Bows are easily uncontested as the S class weapon type due to their range and the versatility provided by having multiple ammo options, but during that whole swamp phase pierce damage is underwhelming no matter which way you try to look at it. And once you get to the mountains, the wolves and drakes are pretty light in the HP department anyway, whereas most other things there are probably best taken on with some calm and controlled melee combat. Golems will take all day to kill while fenrings might not leave you with a lot of spare stamina for shooting due to their ability to chase.

You might need to hit some enemies once or twice extra with the finewood bow but taking that extra time to stock yourself with some cheap ammo isn't going to take you as far out of your way as a whole additional iron-sink. Not only that but if you need bow skill, you get the same XP regardless of your damage or target, so keeping with a weaker bow can even help to set you up with even better DPS later.

The huntsman bow and finewood bow also share the same max range if the wiki is to be believed.
Besides damage the other benefits that the huntsman bow has over finewood are small and spread out to the point that you would probably never notice them. It has double the knockback (but 10 knockback is still pathetic). And it produces half of the noise radius for both your firing and your arrow impact. The former won't make a difference unless you are performing a bow sneak attack from a close range for some reason, while the latter only matters if you keep missing your sneak shots by an embarrassing margin.

The only other thing is that huntsman is only slightly more accurate than finewood but that shouldn't really be an excuse for missing unless you are already attacking from a range where the enemies are too dumb to respond properly.

The main benefit that I have noticed is that the Huntsman bow does have a higher stealth component, arrow impact is almost undetected by adjacent mobs. Not saying that makes up for the other downfalls, but worth considering as I have found it useful.

You are comparing a fully upgraded finewood bow to a lv1 huntsman bow which obviously makes the huntsman bow look bad. When fully upgraded it has the same durability and 10 damage more. It's normal in Valheim that a fully upgraded thing from the previous tier is about as good as a non-upgraded thing from the current tier so why should it be different with bows?
For a lv4 huntsman bow you need a total of 80 iron which is 1-2 crypts depending on how big they are. That is not expensive considering the cost of other iron based gear.

That said, you are never forced to upgrade your gear and can continue as long as you manage to survive without better gear.

truly an oversight on my behalf, this was simply a cursory glance while at the crafting table(forge). Still though seems like much greater difficulty resource to acquire. Point given though. I simply happened to be holding my own upgraded one in comparison.

The finewood bow still sucks at long shots as the aiming is not correct at all. The huntsman bow improves that a lot. Considering iron scraps is also easier to get and easier to transport alot of once you got the long boat, I think the balance is fine.