FiberBow

[Mufti]

Yes, I am about to purchase one, tried it a Quicks and fell in love.

Anyone else shooting one?

Any experience with weighting/tuning one?

Even with a minimal setup in the shop it felt like no other bow I had shot, I will be field testing it today with a view to handing over my dosh.

I noticed the poor quality of the finish to the metal work, but that is insignificant to the bow's performance and can be fixed in 5 mins.

This isn't the first FiberBow I have seen, the previous one held the longrod out of true with the bow so beware of that one.

The plastic grip will replaced with wood as soon as I can persuade a carpenter to do it.

Thanks for any feedback.

Mufti

[Kellog]

I've seen one shot, and held one, tho I've never shot one. The one I saw was really loud, and the guy mentioned he was still trying to find a bracing height he was happy with.

Let us know how it goes setting it up, they intrigue me

[Mufti]

I tried untuned G3 limbs in the shop and had very little noise (or shock) from it, I imagine with patience it could well be silent!

Have been looking at the Sagittarius website forums about this bow, much of the topic covered the pressure button of all things - being a lighter bow, some thought the arrow/pressure button reaction would affect the bow.

I will keep all updated on my findings.

Edit: Sagittarius website - not Aquarius ha ha

[Ffish]

I've had a play with one of these, but like Kellog, not shot it. It's a work of art, and beautifully made - the compositors in the carbon shop have done a great job with it.

I still find it hard to understand though how they can justify its price tag - £500 for a riser? Do me a favour! It probably only cost £100 to design and manufacture!

[Mufti]

What what?

The materials alone would cost £100 I am guessing.

The Carbon Fibre process is all manual unless you are creating very large items - aircraft Nosecones etc.

I think it honestly reflects the time it takes to make and check one of these babies and think £500, while not in line with the manufacturers recomendations of 570 Euro (worldwide) is a fair price.

Perhaps there are import costs I am not aware of - or maybe Brit shops are greedy?

[Ffish]

Nah - raw CF is as cheap as chips, but it is a labour-intensive process to create one-off models (such as F1 car components for example). Things like aircraft nose cones and these bows (I would imagine) although not exactly "mass" produced like the Hoyt bows, are certainly made in reasonable numbers to make them cheap(ish) to reproduce easily. The design process however, probably took a little longer using a decent CAD product like Catia, which again, once designed, is used en masse. This is perhaps where the additional costs come in.

If MRP is meant to be 570 Euros (about £400), I think that sounds about right, to allow for the relevant margins along the production and wholesale line - but as has been mentioned here a few times in the past, Quicks aren't one of the UK's cheapest archery retailers, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the £100 extra on top of the MRP will be clear profit for Quicks.

Archery isnt a cheap sport anyway, but personally I think that's excessive just because they're selling something exotic. They'd sell lots more if it was closer to the MRP, and ironically would probably make more money out of them!

Anyway - this is digressing - perhaps for a diffrerent thread about Quicks' prices?

[WhitehartFB]

Although left handed I have shot a right handed version and can't wait until the leftie is shipping. Excess bow weight is causing a problem with my bow shoulder and this with a suitable stabiliser set up putting the weight where it's most useful should help me. Build quality looks good except the plastic handle (why!!!) and again standing next to someone shooting it properly right handed 40lb (G3's) on fingers it was very quiet.

Compared to many similar equipment based sports (shooting & Golf) Archery is cheap, especially in terms of running costs even an hours windsurfing on holiday is £15 an hour compared to £8 for an all day tournament.

With regards to the price of equipment sometimes you have to look beyond the component costs plus a bit of labour - such as premises rent, stock levels most of us get disapointed if our desired item is not available in the colour we want there and then, all the commercial red tape in running a shop, paying experienced staff, enough profit at the end of the year to re invest into the business, interest on the money to pay for the stock and finally providing areas so that we can try out kit free of charge.

[Mufti]

Well I have bitten the bullet and decided to purchase it.

I tried several limbs with the riser and noticed that the braceing height varied wildly with the limbs:

W&W honeycombed core limbs BH 9.5 inches
Hoyt G3 BH 8.5 inches
My own Hoyt foam limbs 9.5 inches

Had no time to play with different string lengths or tillering, but the feel of it was superb.

I rejected both of the sets of spanky news limbs on offer and went with my own old foam ones.

The bow seems to be moving forward much earlier upon release (probably to do with its lack of weight) resulting with the feel of a much faster bow.

If I can explain a little further: Releasing the string was normal for me; slower than most (which I like), but on arrow release (from the string) the bow leaps out of the hand (which I will easily get used to). All in all a perfect combination to my way of thinking.

Tell me to stop if I am boring you all !

More later as I start to tune/tiller/balance this darned thing (if you want it).

[Kellog]

Originally Posted by Mufti

More later as I start to tune/tiller/balance this darned thing (if you want it).

Yes please! I'm very interested to see how this concept (the fibre bow) works out as its so different to anything else around

[Mufti]

Just a quickie on observing the bow:

The pressure point of the grip has always been the exact centre of the bow (or so I have always thought), at my club many of our beginners have been taught to measure to this point for bracing height measurements.

Not so on this riser, it is 1/4 inch below centre! My knocking point will now be lower than before as the arrow is less above centre than with my Mk I Avalon (one of the originals that never cracked).

Will my limbs now behave differently as the lower limb doesn't need to be as strong as before? Who knows?

I imagine I'm am worrying over nothing

Hoyt super rest fitted as standard, I have no reason to choose anything else, if it's good enough for Rick (my hero) then it's good enough for me.

Plastic grip is perfectly comfortable, the change to wood may well never happen as it seems a luxury now rather than a necessity.