It does feel lovely to shoot, I've not shot a whole load of other people's kit, but I've tried a few out, I think it's still a bit early stages to be able to determine differences between risers!
Interesting, as the advice from Aardvark was different. He recommended the plastic one as they're cheap, do the job just as well as the metal ones and can be replaced much cheaper and easier. There seems to be a mixture at the club I go to of who shoots what, but it's something I may consider adding later.
Each to their own I guess, but the plastic ones tend to be more of a "one will fit all quite well" rather than the wire ones being "fit one very well, once setup" And I think for the sake of a few extra £ it's worth it, and if it's a reasonable one, it won't need replacing anyway!
Tied knocking points?
I don't think I've seen anything in use other than the brass ones, unless it's a longbow and they're completely different. Not too concerned about the point coming off at release, far scarier was the ABS limb that shattered on our 2nd ever training session at the club!
Take a look at the link Robertnpmk posted, that gives you an idea. Personally I use serving to tie it. Unfortunatly the photo of the completed nocking point in that pdf looks a lot bulkier than they are if tied well!
I can't say with a lot of certainty, as I'm not 100% sure what each of those is. I don't *think* my bow will need limb alignment, as it has floating mounts for the limbs. Is that correct? They did say they'd set it up for me, and they measured draw length, weight, arrow thickness, and setup the pressure button etc.
The floating limb mounts is different to the setup I mentioned. like I've said, I've never actually used a hoyt, so I'm not 100% sure what the floating limb mounts are, but from what I have come across, is that they're basically just to allow the limb to sit in the limb pockets better.
I'll explain a few of the setup terms I used briefly...
Limb alignment - This is ensuring that (when the bow is strung, and supported from the riser) when looking from the rear of the bow, the string should pass directly down the middle of both limbs, and through the center of the riser. This ensures the string travels in as close to the direction of travel of the arrow, and to ensure one limb isn't shooting from left->right etc.
For example, here's a picture showing correct limb allignment. As you can see, the string passes through the middle of both limbs (that's what the yellow gauges are for indicating) and through the middle of the riser.
Centershot - This is what angle your arrow is in relation to your string travel. This is looking from the same angle as limb alignment, but this time you have an arrow in your bow. when the string is in the middle of the limbs/riser, you should see the point of the arrow just to the left (for a right handed archer, or right, for a left handed archer) of the string. Usually just the edge of the arrow point should be touching the string when looking at it, but it varies, it's mainly a trial & error test. That's a good starting point, but if you feel like it, you can have a play around moving the button in & out a little till you find what works best for you. (people shoot with the point of the arrow anywhere from further out than I mentioned, to directly behind the string. It's a matter of what works for you)
Once that setup is done, you can start the dynamic tuning, which I won't go into now as it could take a while to explain, and I don't have the time at the minute, but I'll try and find a good guide online for how to do it (I'm sure I've come across one before) But that covers the adjustment of nocking point height & button pressure to allow the arrows to group as well as possible.
Yeah they mentioned in the shop that they'd set it to the lightest amount of draw weight and that the screws will turn in to give additional weight, so I might wind it up a little bit as I feel more used to drawing it consistently.
Yea, it's worth doing, but just don't do it too fast!
Shot quite well last night, despite a painful 3rd finger on my right hand messing up my draw a bit. I'd say I got around 25-30% of hits in the gold, and was reasonably consistent with my shots apart from the few flyers where the string slapped my arm...
Very nice! Is the slapping of your arm normal, or is it new for this kit? If it is normal, you probably want a coach to take a look at you, see what's going on, if it's only started with this kit, it could indicate the bow isn't correctly setup, as if not setup correctly, the string might not be travelling in a straight line after release, which could cause the string to impact your arm as it wobbles about!
Looking forward to shooting a 10-end 'competition' like I did at the end of February with a club bow, to see what kind of score I can get with the purple monster!
From the sounds of it it should be a nice score, but depending on how much changing you do with the setup/tuning, it might not be as much better as you are hoping as it can take a bit of time to get used to changes in kit!
