Let’s talk bows!!!
Equipment
This is Bowsite, so let’s talk bows and set-ups! Just bought a new compound about a month ago and wow! I’m loving it. It’s been about 7 years since my last new one and what a difference. So here’s my set-up. Hoyt Ventrum Pro 33” 60# @29” draw. W/Goldtip Hunter XT 400 w/100g brass inserts and will be shooting Magnus Stinger 125g. TAW right around 525g. Can’t wait to try it out this fall, also can’t forget about my favorite bow, Black Widow Pa in Greenleaf, 62” 43# @29” shooting Goldtip Hunter XT 500 w/100g brass inserts TAW right around 500g also shooting Magnus Stingers 125g.
Nice bow Scott and easy to describe. Actually does not NEED a paragraph description.
We don’t talk bows on bowsite
yooper89 lol, seems to be the new norm lately.
Thanks RT, when I was looking to order one I fell in love with the Greenleaf.
Both look like great setups and the Widow is a thing of beauty. Heck, even if they looked like crap it’s refreshing to see a thread that’s actually bowhunting related!
What stocks did you sell to buy those, though? ;-)
Great lookin rigs! I still have my Widow MAII Greybark. Might have to kill something with it again someday.
Still shooting a 2015 Carbon Spyder ZT.
If I got another bow, I'd seriously lean to going back to another Xpedition with 65 lb limbs. Problem is, the bow I wanted is no longer available.
in this day the black widow is the people's choice
Howatt Hunter, early 70's
Nice bow DanaC, I’ve always liked the earlier Howatt’s but never owned one.
Shooting an RX-7 Ultra. 80# 30”. Shooting Easton Axis 300 match grade arrows, AAE Max Stealth four fletch, wrap, 50 grain brass insert, 10 grain Iron Will impact collar, 100 grain Slick Trick Viper Tricks. Total arrow weight is 521 grains and speed is 289fps. Have an Ultraview UV3 double pin on an Axcel Landslyde picatinny mount. Hamskea Epsilon rest. 12 inch AAE mountain front stabilizer and 6 inch rear stabilizer. It’s a shooter.
Just return from Branson, Mo and BW is always a stop and it is hard to walk out not leaving money, the KB or PCH was very tempting but have a Sierra Blanca static coming. The PBS Hall of Fame at Bass Pro, Springfield is a must stop also.
Very nice, coondog! What size peep are you using with that UV scope?
3/16 peep. It is a hair bigger than the scope housing at the distance I have it off the riser. However, I cannot bring it any closer with the picatinny mount. I would not want to go any smaller for a hunting bow so I can allow enough light in my peep.
2008 Diamond Black Ice! I'm turkey hunting this spring with a vintage Browning Wasp recurve.
PECO2, my son had an old Browning wasp that he shot for probably 10 years. Was a great bow.
Banjo, those Brownings are sweet, all of their models!
I bought Hoyt ventum 33 last year, getting a better tune on it now. Had a problem with my power eye last year so did not get to completely tune it. Shoots great ended up the short stab back on the front with a QD when I finally got the back bar mount it was a good addition with just a 6”it balances and moves onto target nice. There were a lot of bows I wanted to try but limited stock in left hand. All seemed like good stuff. Got to finish up the compound tuning and going to try carbons out of my Bob Lee recurve soon.
yellow eye, My new Hoyt Ventum pro 33” has to be the easiest bow I’ve ever tuned, I put the D loop on, centered and leveled the rest bolted the sight on, sighted it in at 20yds then shot it through paper and had a perfect bullet whole, I couldn’t believe it. I used to shoot aluminums out my recurve but switched to carbons.
Hunting with a 2020 Axius Ultra, 29” 70#. TightSpot 5 arrow, QAD integrated rest, Spot Hogg SDP sight and 821 Crossover. Shooting 340 FMJ with Blazers, VPA collars and 100 Buzzcuts. Total weight, 480.
Anyone shooting Xpedition?
I've heard the Athens bows are real nice, too.
The first recurve I ever bought a hoyt ram reflex &killed my first trad bow deer with it. Several years ago I had the riser converted to ilf & put a set of Morrison max 1 limbs on it. I'll never part with this bow.
Here a 64" Sierra Blanca takedown longbow. Osage and Leopardwood riser with brown glass limbs.
timex, I have a Hoyt Gamemaster that I bought years ago, also shot my first trad. deer with it, it’s still a great shooter and it’s been pretty much bullet proof for me, it’s been through a lot over the years.
Bowbaker, nice bow! Looks like bamboo in the limbs?
"Anyone shooting Xpedition?"
Haven't since 2017. If and when I do get a new bow, it will likely be an Xpedition.
Banjo, I'm amazed you can shoot that spine arrow with all that weight up front. You must have it tuned to perfection. Nice rig! I'm jealous.
Banjo you have a eye it is indeed bamboo in the limbs.
Thanks 12yards, When I dropped from 70# to 60# a few years ago I really wanted to stick with the same spine arrow I was shooting out of my 70# pound bow, witch was 340’s. I tried like crazy but couldn’t get them to bare shaft or paper tune perfectly and had trouble getting them to shoot fixed blade BH consistently. I went to 400 spine and boom, they tuned perfectly and fixed blade BH fly great.
Athens Vista 31. The most well rounded hunting bow as far as I'm concerned. Super smooth drawing and shooting. You'll only feel a little bump feedback at the shot but not really any residual vibration to speak of. As fast or faster than most any flagship bow these days. Well balanced, appropriate mass weight for its size, and the stability of a longer axle to axle bow.
And it works pretty good on deer I suppose :)
Nice, SaddleReaper! Did you buy from a dealer or order online?
That bow was an engineering sample.
I think every bow hunter has that one go to bow that they love. 20 years ago a friend let me shoot his Palmer recurve after that I never shot anything else and own 3 of them. Mike does an amazing job to please his customers.
For me it's been Black Widow for 29 years , and I still have and use the first one I had made in 1993. Waiting now for my sixth Black Widow. However , I got myself a bow with a long handle a couple of years ago (xbow) , just because I wanted to know what the fuss was all about. It works great , and I will use it eventually when I can no longer use my recurve . Until then, I put it away in a secure place, out of sight . I used the training wheels (compound) for a few years . When I got my recurve, I got rid of the wheels for ever.
Coondog! That’s a sweet bow! How r u liking it thus far? Did it tune up nicely ?
My beautiful 20 yr old Matthews Icon
I actually have 5 of them.. not likely to ever shoot a different bow unless another round wheel comes out that’s comparable/ better
Nice bow Stryker, I've shot Palmers for years, carbon and standard limbs both. Excellent bows.
Stryker, Palmers are good shooters as long as you never need customer service from Mike. After the way he treated me and my hunting partner, I do everything possible to steer people in a different direction.
My bow had glass fatigue in the upper limb after less than year. I sent it back to Mike. No problem, covered under warranty. Weeks went by. Then months. No response to emails or phone messages. Hunting season came and I had to borrow a bow to hunt with. Finally after five months he returned it, no note or anything. The way he "repaired" the glass fatigue was to spray paint the limbs black so it wasn't visible.
Later, after the warranty expired, the glass began to split and delaminate. My option was to buy new limbs. Nope. Apparently the black spray paint didn't hold the glass together..
Lots of great bowyers out there that take care of their customers. Mike Palmer isn't one of them.
Yeah Jaq, I've heard he can be tough to reach and has lousy customer service. My Palmers have all been bought used and I've had no issues with them.
One other interesting thing about Palmers - he hides a bar of aluminum inside the plywood riser. Not sure if he still does it, but we discovered it inside mine by accident. Wonder why?
My hunting partner, Tom Kelley, switched from custom woodworking to custom bow building after his bad Palmer experience. Besides developing and building amazing recurves and longbows, he built a "Palmer jig" to make limbs for Palmer risers for people who gave up on Mike.
Dino, It tuned nicely. Have been shooting out to 100 yards and the arrows are flying like darts. The bow itself is super dead in hand and very quiet.
Shug, that’s funny…time to get out of the 90’s man! :) Coondog, good to hear…I went ahead and ordered that same bow but with black 65lb limbs! Looking forward to shooting it!
Jaq, why would Palmer stick an aluminum bar in the riser? Not sure how that could even be done? Help me out here.
Been shooting a Mathews Traverse for a few years now and was looking for a back up. My buddy told me of a guy who had bought a VXR 31.5"s and had to sell due to TP. Guy had 2800 into everything and I picked it up for $950. It was shot 50 times, sweet bow and I will now use that for my main bow. 60#s shooting VAP .166 SS arrows that weigh 475 grains. Hope to kill a mule deer in Nebraska and a big Kansas whitetail this year! Shawn
Kodiak, good question. We discovered it when we were drilling my riser to insert a threaded bushing in the front. The bushing was for a threaded string tracker stem. Turns out we didnt need the bushing, just screwed the threaded stem into the aluminum bar after we drilled through it. The bow is at my hunting partner's house right now but when he gets back from a trip I can tell you how far inside the riser the bar is hidden. Why he would do that is a question only Mike can answer, and from my past experience, he doesn't answer questions.
Lol, wow that's crazy. Sorry about your troubles with Palmer,but I've heard similar stories for years on the Leatherwall.
Saddlereaper, I really like the looks of those Vistas! It would be a Vista 33 or 35, or an Elite Remedy for me right now.
Maybe the aluminum bar stiffens the riser, and makes it lighter if he is using heavy dense wood? I think that would create hand shock though. I don't know.
It's an impregnated plywood ("Actionwood!") riser, so. I know a number of other true custom bowyers and none of them know this trick.
12yards
I have no idea how much of bow nut you are, but I'd like to give my .02 for you or anyone else who may be reading this. The only real advantage the Remedy has over the Vista is the SET tuning feature (which is pretty slick). Otherwise the Vista is probably the better choice in many aspects. Full disclosure: I've worked for both companies but currently with Athens.
So here's my take for what its worth. You mention a range of ata sizes from 33-35". The Remedy would be the happy medium if that's important to you. But lets take a look at the Vista 33 compared to the Remedy with consideration to some of the nuances of each. The Vista is 1" shorter, has a 6.5" brace and shoots 335 (these are accurate specs/ ratings - I can't speak for Elite's). So the Remedy at 34" would seem like the more stable platform at a glance, not considering the minute diff in brace height, but it's not. The Vista has a slightly less reflexed (straighter) riser with a more parallel limb configuration. The limbs are shorter as well. So from a string angle standpoint the Remedy is better, but from a stability/ torque resistance standpoint, the Vista would get the edge. The shorter and wider set of limbs on the Vista are going to be more torsionally stable. The cam and cable configuration is the same between both bows. Both cams feature rotating modules with adjustable let off - which also allows incrementally adjustable draw length beyond the standard 1/2" if the user doesn't mind reducing holding weight. That may also be perceived as a disadvantage depending on how you want to look at it. So, if you want to run your bow at 80%, you'll stop the cam sooner with the draw stop which will in turn reduce the overall draw length slightly. From a tuning standpoint, as mentioned before, the SET tech of the Remedy is pretty slick. Manipulating the limb pressure induces cam lean one way or the other to move the string plane or point which it exits the cam lobe. Bowtech's deadlock cam is a little cleaner of a method to adjust string plane. The Vista has the typical re-shimming capability like new Hoyts, Mathews, PSE etc to move the string plane. Prime just came out with a special shim system that doesn't require disassembling the limb/cam set. With that said, shimming is usually a last resort. The cam system of ether the Remedy or Vista is going to be pretty well balanced with the take-up cable straddling the string plane. The static but laterally adjustable roller guard of either bow will allow you to influence the tuning slightly by adjusting the load on cables. This can also serve as a means to optimize vane clearance.
So there's my .02 on the tech side of things ... If you haven't already, I hope you get a chance to shoot both and formulate your own opinion!
Actionwood makes for a terrific riser, not as pretty as exotic woods though.
Yeah, actionwood is solid. I have no idea why he would have put aluminum inside an actionwood riser.
Thanks for all that Saddlereaper! Honestly, some other differences are the limb stop option, which I've grown accustomed to on Elites. Also I believe the Elite to have a deeper valley which I also like. But what I like more on the Athens is the lighter overall weight of the bow, the finish options, and Gas strings. Also like the overall simple design of the Athens and the faster speeds. While the speed difference isn't huge, as I've gone down in poundage, every little bit of speed advantage is desirable.
I cannot think of a better customer service than Black Widow Bows. Twice I had a problem. First , after I had my bow for three years , and a sliver of glass started to de-laminate from the string groove. send it back and fixed great. You can still see the area , if I tell you where it is. I guess they did it right . Still going strong 25 years latter. Last year , I had a minor crack developed on a new riser. I think it was only cosmetic , but , they insisted I ship it back. No questions asked , they made me a new one , and even paid the shipping back to me. I think I'm not the only one that they had provided with such a great service.
I belive Jack Howard put a metal bar inside his risers. I believe the idea was to reduce flex in the riser.
Hard to imagine measurable flex in a plywood riser vs a solid wood riser. I sure can't feel any difference. I wonder if Black Widow puts aluminum in their plywood risers?
Kodiak, I agree. Impregnated, dyed action wood is solid as hell and pretty. I have some. Since my partner became a bowyer, all my risers, longbow and recurve, are osage and cocobolo. Love that combo when the osage ambers-out.
12yards - Idk how I forgot the limb stop option! Yeah that's a big option difference if you prefer them. I came from limb stops to cable, so it was something I noticed... for a little while anyways. Both the Elite and Athens cams have large flat faced cable stops which are quite firm. Many other bow companies are still using a small post style cable stop which allows the cable to bend more easily around them contributing to that "sponge" feel. And yes the valley or dwell is slightly less on the RT-X cam by design, but yet it's still very friendly to hold and let down.
Iowa Games 2021. 1st Master Sr. BHFS.
Iowa Games 2021. 1st Master Sr. BHFS.
I was a sop/lanes owner from 1964 thru 1982 so wasprivvy to shoot just about every great bow back in the stick bow days. In the mid 70s when compounds took over, I again was privvy to shoot all the leading top liners. Today, old & blessed with over 65 years of Archery/bowhunting I have what makes me happy. None are "new" now but serve me well (my compounds have been some model Darton the last 45+years). My outdoor target bow is shot the most & used for 3D, Field & Target. It IS a ONE of a kind that was made for a sports show raffle. The winner was NOT an Archer & I got wind of it.. I made a cash offer & he acceprted. SO, here is my Darton Maverick HARLEY DAVIDSON.. Love it..
The Darton Maverick Harley raffle, I remember that!
Bowbaker, nice bow! Looks like bamboo in the limbs?
yellow eye, My new Hoyt Ventum pro 33” has to be the easiest bow I’ve ever tuned, I put the D loop on, centered and leveled the rest bolted the sight on, sighted it in at 20yds then shot it through paper and had a perfect bullet whole, I couldn’t believe it. I used to shoot aluminums out my recurve but switched to carbons.
