| 30/1/2020 - Same old, Same old -
Not anymore - Hoyt Formula RX and for ILF bows Kaya VPERF limbs (Victory
& Performance and they certainly lived up to the label)
Before choosing your next bow
here are some words of wisdom from Owner Tony Preston
Those
of you that know me will also know that during the last 30 years I have
shot to Master Bowmen level and maintained that for I think 3/4 years on
the trot. At the same time Suzanne and I were at tournaments with the shop
on almost every Sunday. Along
with this we spent a lot of time promoting our Perris Whitehart bow which
did become very successful; this bow had a twenty six year run with us
alone.
This
would have continued had we been able to get a well known bow manufacturer
to continue to produce the limbs to the specification required, unable to
do this I decided at great expense to withdraw the bow from sale, as I
would not be happy selling what I thought would be a sub standard product.
During
this time I got to understand exactly what was needed from a good bow and
we have stocked everything from all over Europe and the world, all good,
some a bit better quality than others but mostly pretty accurate until you
get the archer on the other end.
However,
the international limb fitting has
a lot to answer for, in itself not too bad but originally conceived by
Hoyt then we had all the other bow makers say to themselves “if” we
made limbs with that fitting we will sell more limbs because people will
by ours to put into Hoyt bows”.
In
fact we have ended up with a lot of mixing and matching between bow makes.
That’s OK, although bow geometry is very similar between them
there are differences, despite obvious ones like weight, some are stiffer
than others and the material choices both in the limbs and the handle all
contribute to a different “feel” so as long as you come to a shop and
try a bow first you can always get what is the nicest to shoot or suits
you best.
As
for myself, I have over recent years drifted away from shooting, slightly
tired of the sameness of everything. I get shanghaied by my club each
month to shoot the Essex league and last winter I used the very light
Fiberbow which at the time suited my need to take things
easy, this I shot to a level which I was happy with, then a
customer took a shine to it so it had to go.
This
winter I asked myself questions like should I shoot the exquisitely
engineered Bernardini or another FB but because this is in the main a once
a month event and both of those are a bit extravagant so I have been
shooting the Spigarelli Revolution with the cheapest Axiom limbs, it’s
true the scores are slightly down but still getting me in the A team.
Now
to the point of all this rambling.
I
go to the European Championships in Nimes France each year for some
business meetings and to watch some really brilliant shooting by archers
from all over the world. This year I
spent some time talking to Doug Denton, the Product Engineer at Hoyt. This
is the man responsible for both the GMX and the Formula RX, which was good
because I had questions as I had some concerns about the thickness of the
limbs, with my somewhat dated knowledge of bow making I had made
assumptions that they would be heavy and maybe brittle in particular the
F3 wood core ones, BUT it turns out the wood is resin impregnated and both
F3 and F4 were tested first by dry shooting from 24 then 27” (as a
compound bow) then placed on a machine which draws them up and down over a
million times which takes day and night three weeks to complete. All these
tests had to be passed before they could move on to production.
(Important
note the Hoyt F3 & F4 limbs only fit the Hoyt Formula RX handle in
25" or 27" - we recommend you talk directly to us as the choice
of bow length and handle length does not have to conform to today's ILF
ideas).
Hoyt
Formula RX Bow & Berengere
Schuh
The
atmosphere at Nimes is electric, Mexican waves, drums, whistles, hooters,
cheering, ooos and aarghs, a huge video screen with some archers on it
positioned just above the targets and commentary in French and English all
while two contest a final standing in a dark arena apart from the spots
over them and the three spot targets they are shooting at.
The winning French lady Berengere Schuh still shot a perfect 120
points for the dozen. This
lady was shooting the new Hoyt Formula RX & F4 Limbs and I understand
that this was the first major win taken with this bow.
Michele Frangilli won the gents gold shooting a Best riser with the
very new Kaya limbs from Korea.
  
Michele
Frangilli on his way to Gold at Nimes shooting the all new KAYA VPERF
(Victory Performance) limbs even a dodgy release that had father and coach
ducking for cover hit the 10 ring not only that but it was the last arrow
of the head to head and going into it scores were tied. Bottom right
picture a perfect X in the Final of the Italian Championships - 2nd major
victory in a week for Frangilli and KAYA VPERF LIMBS/
We
are going to be one of the first dealers to get the Kaya limbs in the UK;
we do of course already stock the Hoyt Formula RX in all three shops.
So
impressed with the way I saw
this bow shot (Hoyt) when I got back to Raydon I put one together, found
some 1914 arrows which should be close enough, shot the first arrow .That
felt and sounded good; shot another, same, another, same, and another, a
robin hood. The next day was
as good and another robin hood. It
could be expensive to shoot this bow but it has very much rekindled my
interest in actually shooting again, I just need to get shooting fit now.
Happy
Shooting
Tony
Preston
|
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