Blog Entries tagged 'Quest'

The Need for Speed

aroney@bowcast.com — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:39:01 +0100

The weekend kicked off with a batchelor party for my good friend. We met at [[Coors Field]] for a Rockies game, and that ended with about 30 police officers escorting the entire batchelor party out of the stadium....more on that in another blog entry.

I did get some shooting/testing in this weekend. I was thrown for a couple of loops on the range today. Here goes ....

Quest 33 Arrows had good elevation at 20 yards, but I noticed I was clicking about an inch to the right. Not sure what was going on there. The last time I shot was through paper, so I am assuming I just had my sight off a bit when we were playing around. Anyway, couple of clicks of the Sure-Loc, and everything was back in order.I headed out with the last sight tape I printed off of Archer's Advantage. Things were fine until I started focusing on 50 yards. Wind picked up a bit, and I couldn't get a round off arrows to fly consistent. I was clicking in a 3 inch circle, but just not the same place....kept going round after round until I started to notice I was getting WAY off the left (like 8 inches off). I was stumped for a couple of rounds until I looked down at my sight and the 3rd Axis bolt was loose...the entire housing was moveable back and forth. I eye-balled it back and tightened it down....all was good again.
Katera
This was really the first time I shot any distance with the Katera this year. 20 yards was spot on. To my disbelief, 30 and 40 yards were clicking as well. I have some minor windage issues, but I thought my main focus with this bow today was going to be to adjust elevation....no need - didn't touch a pin on the G5 Optima XR sight.

Once the wind got unbearable (and my arms were starting to lose it with those 80 lb limbs), I headed down to the Sportsman's Warehouse in [[Aurora, CO]] to run both these bows through a chronograph. I was very interested in seeing what going with 80lb limbs was going to buy me. Keep in mind, I have not done any real "speed tuning". Basically this is out of the box, cranked down a bit (Quest is at 76 lbs and Katera is at 73 lbs currently). The results of the Chronograph:

Quest 33 - 271 fps

Katera - 286 fps

Now Chronographs can be finicky, so I don't take either of these measurements as the gospel....but I am very happy with those results. I'll do a little more tinkering to figure out if those speeds are actually accurate.

Came back home and entered those speeds into Archery's Advantage software to see what kind of Kinetic Energy I was getting. The results:

G5 Quest 33 - 61 ft-lb @ 80 yards

Hoyt Katera - 55.6 ft-lb @ 80 yards

Hmmm.....Katera is faster but has less Kinetic Energy. Interesting, don't you think?

More soon.

Aneal

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Pimpin My Ride(s) - Part 3

aroney@bowcast.com — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:12:17 +0100

...Back to the Quest 33.

I took some accurate measurements of my "peep to sight apeture" and "peep to arrow shaft" which is needed to estimate speed in Archery's Advantage (as well as setup sight tapes). I also updated my Archer's Advantage software so all the specs of the 2008 bows came in (i.e. Hoyt Katera). This is done by simply clicking the "update" button in Archer's Advantage which goes out to the internet and gets an executable file you can download to update the program's database.

In addition, I went out and shot again to get some accurate marks. I shot at 20 yards and 50 yards, and entered those new marks into the AA software. When all was calculated (Bow setup, sight setup, arrow shaft selection and weight), Archer's Advantage is telling me I am shooting 266 [[feet per second]] (fps) out of the Quest 33 with 80lb limbs. Sound a little low? Yeah, I thought so too.

But, no worries on this point. Right now my goal is to get comfortable shooting the bow and ensuring my form is golden with a new setup. Pin point accuracy is not my priority at this point....getting to know my new equipment (as well as how my arms are holding up with 80lb limbs) is what I have chosen as my priority. Over the next couple of weeks I will really start getting dialed in for some upcoming 3D shoots.

I'd love to hear what you all are doing with your bows this time of year. Any new accessories? New practice techniques? Add a comment to this blog entry and let me know what you are working on.

Shoot Straight!

Aneal

[...]

Pimpin My Ride(s)

aroney@bowcast.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:47:33 +0100

Hope everyone had a great spring weekend in your neck of the woods. I had a birthday party scheduled on Saturday for both of my daughters (Their b-days are on April 27 and April 28 - I guess I pretty much rut about the same time each year ;-) ) . The outdoor picnic plans got yanked do to high wind and eventually snow on Saturday. Weather is always a little tricky in April and in Colorado. We were able to move the venue back to the house, and the pinata was still operational.

Anyway, I did actually have some fun with my bow(s) this weekend. I finally took my new Quest to an outdoor range. Before heading out, I used Archer's Advantage to print off a very rough sight tape for my Sure-Loc Max ST. I say rough because I had not taken all my measurements, and hadn't run the bow through a chronograph. So essentially, I was printing off sight tapes without any idea of how fast I was shooting out of the bow (not recommended).

To my surprise, I got out to the range and it took me all of 30 minutes to have arrows tacking out to 50 yards. I had to slide my sight tape down about an 1/8 of an inch to get dead on at 20 yards. To my amazement (given the guesswork I had done in Archer's Advantage), I was dead on (elevation wise) out to 30, 40, and 50 yards. Not bad for a bow I have only shot about 25 arrows through. Windage was another issue as my arrows were about 3 inches left of target.....but I wasn't too concerned as I knew my rest needed some adjustment and I haven't even paper tuned that bow yet. Overall, I was impressed with how easy the combination of Archer's Advantage and the Sure-Loc sight got me "semi" dialed in.

So, I am off to paper tune as well as get my Hoyt Katera setup with a new sight as well as a swap out of a rest. More on that soon.

Shoot Straight!

Aneal

[...]

Aneal's 2008 Bow Choice - G5 Quest

aroney@bowcast.com — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:08:49 +0100

As many of you know, I have been shooting a Hoyt for many years now (and I hopefully will continue to shoot a Hoyt for many years to come). Anthony and I and the rest of the BowCast team made a decision this year to shoot and hunt with some of the latest bows out there.

With that being said, I made the decision to commit this year to the latest bow on the market. About 3 weeks ago I purchased my new G5 Quest Bow. I am going to shoot a Quest 33 with 80lb limbs for big game this year. Since I am still fine tuning the setup, I will get back to my Hoyt this weekend while I am out chasing the gobblers around.

Many of you may not even be aware that G5 has now officially entered the market as a bow manufacturer. And some of you, may be aware of some of the "ugliness" that has surrounded G5's entry into the bow manufacturing arena.

The ugliness you ask? Well, it is not by accident that the G5 Quest bow looks similar (some would say identical) to the Ross Cardiac. In addition, those of you who keep up on this type of stuff know Ross experienced some severe financial troubles while engaging G5 to make some engineering enhancements to the Ross Cardiac, and eventually, close to going out of business were recently bought by BowTech.

As far as what BowTech plans to do with their acquisition of Ross Archery, I have no idea other than the speculation I hear and read about out there. As far as the new Quest bow, let me detail some of the engineering enhancements that were made above and beyond the original Ross Cardiac design:

1) The Quest cam looks dimensionally similar to the Cardiac design, however, G5 engineers have slightly changed the geometry and have manipulated the cam to increase the efficiency and provide level nock travel.

2) The string stop design has been improved. On the Ross Cardiac there was a flat rubber bumper that the string would slap against. G5 modified the design to have some "capture". The string stop is "cupped". This is mostly important for the guys shooting lightweight/highspeed setups. In this situation, the string would have the tendency to slip off to one side of the bumper due to side-to-side oscillations of the string.

3) G5 has improved the cable slide design. They partnered with Alpine Archery on this. Alpine Archery makes a great cable slide and G5 made the decision to not overlook or re-invent the wheel...so the AA slide is what you are getting on the new quest bow.

My resources tell me that G5 will completely redesign the quest bow for 2009.

So, to say the least, I am pumped. I am still dialing in my Sure-Loc Max ST sight on that bow. I am overall impressed with my decision to try out the G5 Expert II rest on this bow. From a non-engineer perspective I look at that Expert II rest and marvel at how simple the design is. I have also noted how considerably more quite it is when I draw an arrow back. I thought my NAP quicktune was relatively quite on my Hoyt, but the draw noise on this Expert II is non-existant. In addition, the Quest riser feels great in my hand (something I am extremely picky about), and the draw cycle is smooth and packed with energy. I can't wait to run this baby through a chronograph.

So, I wanted to give you all an introduction to the decisions I have made on equipment this year. I plan on blogging quite a bit as I fine tune that bow to get ready for 3D tournaments (right around the corner) as well as the big game seasons that I am already getting pumped about.

As a note, there may be some very strong opinions about the "ugliness" that has been portrayed by the failed Ross/G5 relationship to improve on an already great bow (the Ross Cardiac). I encourage you all not to try and dig too far into these outstanding companies' business. Ross is going to be just fine now that Bowtech has acquired them. G5 did nothing other than improve a great bow using the great engineering talent they have in house.

I suggest we put the ugliness aside, and all focus in on how well this new bow from G5 performs. I will be the judge, and I look forward to all your quesitons and comments as I provide you with my experience with the newest bow on the market.

In addition, stay tuned to some updates from the other BowCast team members (Anthony, South, Dan, Jason) on some new choices in bows that they have made this year. I think you are going to find a wide variety of manufacturers and reveiw in the upcoming months on BowCast.

Heading back out to chase the thunder chickens. More on that soon.

Shoot Straight.

Aneal

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