Recommend me a Bow for deer hunting

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Guys, I fully understand draw length, aka powerstroke when talking about x-bows (and one of it's contributors/components, short brace height) is certainly directly correlated with with speed, as are cams, risers, etc. My question is -- Is *bow length*, ATA, or *bow height*, if you will, necessarily correlated with speed, ceteris paribus? All other things being equal.

There's always tradeoffs in everything. I was just wondering if the general tradeoff to get a shorter bow was, *in addition to* not being able to use fingers, a bit of velocity. Or not.

I ask because PSE had 26-26.5" ATA models in 07 and 08, maybe 09 too, but now their shortest ones, in 2010 are back up to 28.5". They were going the way of the Liberty in their engineering innovations, but evidently "hit the tradeoff sweet spot wall" and pulled back for some reason, on going ever more shorter/lighter. That wall they hit was almost certainly not the "fingers use" market wall, because everyone and their dog uses a release now, so just wondering what it is. My guess is arrow velocity. Certainly not materials cost, as shorter = less cost.

That wall might be speed, but only indirectly through limb design and brace height - perhaps the shorter you go, the harder it is to maintain a short brace height and keep the limbs long enough and "reflex enough" to maintain the desired arrow speeds. ?? After all, with limbs of the same length and stiffness, the shorter the bow, the more brace height you necessarily must build into it, no? Hmmm. I could be all wet on this. The Liberty solved the problem of making up brace height (or at least, decreasing brace height) by having an "overdraw grip" or "bullpup bow" design, if you will.

Or maybe another engineering issue, such as limb longevity....

Or maybe they just flat didn't sell well (the tiny PSEs), *in spite of* there not being any negative tradeoff to it, just because the public/market has a false mindset of "nothing that small can possibly be as good or as fast as this here bigger bow". That *seems* to be affecting the Liberty, but I'm not sure. It might just be lack of inertia & marketing budget, because the Liberty delivers the real deal folks. I'll be getting another one eventually - this time in the correct draw length and pull weight for me. :banghead:

 

[Danny]

Guys, I fully understand draw length (and one of it's contributors/components, short brace height) is certainly directly correlated with with speed, as are cams, risers, etc. My question is -- Is *bow length*, ATA, or *bow height*, if you will, necessarily correlated with speed, ceteris paribus? All other things being equal.

IMO, no. ATA has nothing to do with arrow speed. Especially now days.

In the old days, yes it did. In the pre-compound days, the longer bows usually required more drawing force, thus faster arrows. That wasn't really a result of a longer bow though. When compounds came about, most risers were of a deflex design (meaning high brace height). They were very forgiving, but not very fast. To get extra speed out of them without cranking up the draw weight, you had to reduce the weight of the arrows, or shoot "hatchet" cams which were much more harsh, and hard to draw than the round wheels of the day. With the old AMA rating, the only way to safely reduce arrow weight was to make them shorter. You could shoot previously underspined arrows that were lighter because when you shorten them, it makes them stiffer. So you gained a tad bit of speed there. Then, because they were shorter, you had to use an overdraw. Overdraws simply were a device that let the arrow rest sit behind the riser. Most were in the range of 3" to 6". So you could shoot a much shorter, much lighter arrow. The only issue was, form. If you slightly torque the bow side to side when the arrow rest is sitting directly above your hand, the effects are minimal. However, when you put the arrow rest 6" behind your hand, that torque is magnified greatly. A solution to that was to play with riser design. They came out with straight risers, and reflex risers, which took the place of overdraws. They perfected this design to the point that overdraws are now pretty much extinct, and cams didn't have to be so harsh. In fact, they figured out they could eliminate one of the cams, and replace it with a smoother drawing round wheel. Thus the single cam bows. Now, we have parallel limbs on bows that store even more energy then the old straight or recurve style limbs. All of that helps in the speed department. Unfortunately, they are quite noisy. Even the newer bows that are advertised as being quiet aren't nearly as quiet as my old 48" ata, deflexed handled, Pearson shooting a 600+ grain arrow.

Short bows became popular for one reason. They were easy to handle in a tree stand and brush. They later figured out a way to make them extremely light also.

 

[Wormydog1724]

My new BOW!!!

Mathews Drenalin.


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Anybody else have this bow??

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Danny, thanks - so it's a *general* rule that, given the same desired arrow performance, a longer bow (ATA) is QUIETER than a shorter bow, and vice versa? Interesting.

 

[Danny]

Not necessarily. When talking about bows of today, say a 36" bow vs. a 32" ata bow, it doesn't necessarily translate into the longer bow being quieter, given all other things are equal. Noise level can usually be attributed more to arrow weight (thus energy absorbtion), than bow length. Both bows will be quieter if shooting a heavier arrow as that arrow will absorb more energy from the bow upon launch. Very light arrows, will cause those same bows to be noisy as they can't absorb that energy, and it has to go somewhere. That energy not absorbed by the arrow, will travel through the bow, and it's accessories hanging off it. That is where your noise will come from. That energy is so great, that it can be absorbed some what with silencing devices, but can't totally be absorbed. In the older days, when shooting slower, less efficient bows shooting very heavy arrows, string silencers were enough to really quiet things down. Today's bows, if you'll notice, use very small string silencing devices, but also add silencers to the limbs, limb pockets, riser, and even the stabilizers, in order to absorb the noise.

PSE made a video many years ago showing very slow motion video of shots being made with fingers, and with a release, to show string deflection. The really cool part was watching the reaction of the bows themselves. Machined aluminum risers were flexing as if made from rubber due to the energy levels being forced upon it when shooting. And arrows looked like spaghetti coming off the rest. Really shows how much energy is involved in shooting. If you get the chance, find and watch that video. I found it on You Tube, here it is... It's old, so it's pretty grainy, but you can see some of what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, the part I really wanted to show, with the riser flexing, is not on it. That portion was shot with Terry and Michelle Ragsdale doing the shooting. For some reason, they left that out. But, you can imagine by watching the arrow being shot. They also, here, left off the arrows being shot by a release. They too flex, but in a more up and down motion as it leaves the bow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48R2ajWx3rY&p=69D243A018554CB0&playnext=1&index=13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuHW8InB5tk&p=69D243A018554CB0&index=15&playnext=2

 

[Wormydog1724]

Anybody have comments on the Mathews Drenalin? Just bought mine and wanted to know if anybody had any experience/.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

That Drenalin looks righteous - wonder if those rubber stops really make it quieter? What year is that bow? That's gonna be a smooth, quiet, fast dude, I'd betcha.

 

[Wormydog1724]

Its a 2007. It's super smooth and quiet, except a piece of plastic on the sight but I'm getting that fixed. I put a string stop on it and it's even quieter. I shot the new Z7 yesterday and it's simply amazing. If I had the cash I would have brought it home.

 

[austin.brown]

Crossbows are legal in OK now, buy a Barnett Quad 400. Got mine for 340 off ebay, complete package.

 

[Tampabucs]

Crossbows are legal in OK now, buy a Barnett Quad 400. Got mine for 340 off ebay, complete package.

Not to knock you, but those bows are notorious for having problems. Search archerytalk's website under crossbow section. I've seen a ton of those blow up.

The better brands are: Excalibur, Wicked Ridge, Ten Point and Parker.