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

[...]

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

[...]

Blog Entries tagged 'archers advantage'

The Need for Speed

Pimpin My Ride(s) - Part 3