Arrow rests, what do you like?

[yankytrash]

Recently purchased an old used Bear 60lb compound bow. Had it tuned up, she's shootin great, despite my inexperience behind a bow.

Part of the tune-up was to get an arrow rest. Not knowing much, I went cheap. Picked me up a littl $2.99 rubber dohicky that self-sticks to the riser. I got the bow all tuned in, then started changing things on experienced bowmen's advice.

Bought me a little rig that's spring loaded, with two little prongs that stick up to hold the arrow. Shoot the arrow, the prongs flip down under the light springweight. Or so they claim...

I took the new setup out, and started shootin. All my arrows were now wobbling their way to the target, barely hitting the entire target box, let alone the rings. Started to adjust sights, adjust my hold, adjust my draw finger grip. Nothing seemed to work. I even lightend the spring and made sure it wasn't binding, still worthless.

Then my friend says I HAVE to only use tips of my fingers on my release hand. Well, that's just friggin' hard, and why didn't I have to do that with my old rest? I tried and tried, and even slept on it and tried again. Still can't get it to work, nor get that fingertip hold to feel comfortable. Not to mention, keeping the arrow on the rest is next to impossible.

In frustration, the $40 techno-prongy thing had to come off in liu of the $2.99 rubber thingermerjob. Shooting in the rings again, and holding the string however I feel like holding it, happy that technology hasn't won this little battle.

What do you use for an arrow rest?

[CD1]

I currently use a Wisker Biscuit. I hunt, and the Biscuit makes it impossible for an arrow to slip off the rest accidentally.

I have used several prong style rests in the past. The last I used was a 3d Rover from Golden Key Futura. Great rest, never had a problem with it, easy to adjust on setup.

Are your arrows wobbling left to right, or up and down? Go to the bow shop and ask them to help you tune it. Sounds like you need to check your nock height, and/or adjust your horizontal placement of your rest. Let us know how it works out.

[ahenry]

About a month or so ago I was looking at a new rest for this season. I looked real close at those whisker biscuits. The only thing that made me decide to stay with what I have now (two prong set up, but not a drop away) was the fact that you have to feed your arrow through the biscuit in order to take a follow up shot. I have never “had” to have that immediate follow up shot, but I wasn’t real comfortable with eliminating my ability to have it in case I needed it sometime. Obviously YMMV, and aside from that one aspect, those biscuits are really fantastic and your arrow will never fall off if you use one.

The drop away rests like you have on your bow now are (for the most part) pretty outstanding. Without more detail (and actually probably without seeing the setup) it’s hard to say just what is wrong with the rest. I will say double check your nock point (I assume you have an anchor point on your string?). The arrow and string have to form a perfect right angle when the arrow is on the rest and nocked at the proper location. You also need to make sure that the prongs are properly adjusted for the arrows you are using. The arrow should fit down in the prongs somewhat. A properly adjusted two-prong rest is a really good one. You can turn the bow almost 90 degrees before the arrow will fall off. Also make sure that as the arrow leaves the sting the fletching doesn’t hit the side of the bow or the rest. If you are really having problems, you might consider removing the part of the rest that makes it a “drop away” and let the prongs stay solid. If you do that it becomes critical that the rest fits the fletching (as the arrow exits the bow the fletching cannot “hit” the rest or the side of the bow or it will throw the arrow off). You can adjust them so that the vanes will pass between and around the prongs. All it takes is a little time with an allen wrench and some patience. My personal recommendation is to shoot sans all the technology and once you get that down start adding the extra doo-dads. All those fancy sights and rests and peeps and stabilizers and silencers and on and on the list goes, are great but they minimize the skill necessary to shoot well. For my money, you will enjoy archery more if you take the time to learn how to shoot correctly and develop the skills, than if you put all the bells and whistles on a bow and just go out and shoot. The way I see it, doing the latter will make your archery hunt little more than a rifle hunt albeit at closer distances.

As far as your finger release is concerned I’m a tad confused. Are you saying that he tells you to put the string on the very tips (out on that last pad) of your finger or just that you need to have the string somewhere at or in front of the last (closest to the tip) finger joint? I was taught that you could hold the string in that front joint, but after shooting for a long time that way a coach told me to hold the string on the pads of my fingers. I tried it for a while but was never able to approach the accuracy I had with the string in the joint. Another coach told me that since I was shooting fine the other way, no need to change. So take that as you will. The point of where you grip the string is to eliminate the twist in the string that you create as you roll the string off your fingers. Technically you aren’t supposed to roll the string off, but its darn near impossible to release without some roll or twist imparted to the string. Holding the string with the pads of your fingers eliminates some of the tendency some people have to “roll” the string simply because there is less finger for the string to roll on. Proper technique will again eliminate the need for a true pad hold.

Well that was a lot longer than I intended. I hope some of it helped.

[ahenry]

If you are having trouble with the arrow falling off the rest as you are at draw then I would bet you are squeezing the arrow between your fingers. Loosen your fingers some, and relax (kinda hard to do when you are holding a 60lbs bow, but try). Your fingers should not be putting any pressure on the arrow at all. The nock and nock points hold the arrow on the string and you just hold the string.

[labgrade]

One of the niftiest ways I've seen to setting up a bow to shoot is to shoot arrows with no fletching - perhaps at only 10 yards or so- maybe some less.

Watch the arrow impacts & that'll pretty much tell you what your set-up is doing.

Do that, & than, start to set up your bow to fine tune its action, etc.

Tweak the knock point & then that of your sights. Do the knock point first.

Out of the bow-loop for years, but have touched base here 'n there ....

Spine, fletch-twist, & do watch for broadhead planing flight .....

Bows're wieder than any rifle ....

Enjoy the trip ......

[yankytrash]

Ahenry, thanks for the in-depth answer. Post wasn't too long, it wasn't long enough!!! I feel I could pick your brain on bows and technique until your ears bleed, but I'll try to make few of my own mistakes first.

To answer a few questions, a local bow mechanic, supposedly the best in my area, put the mechanical rest on. I tried to do it myself, but there were angles and measurements there I couldn't decipher. I drilled and threaded the riser for it, and physically put it on the bow, but my bow mechanic had to finish'r off.

While he was at it, I had him put a new string on it, because a friend and I suspected the bow wasn't at it's full poundage. He threw new nock points on it, and had them squared to the mechanical rest.

When I finally took the mechanical rest off and put the little rubber low-tech rest back on, I made sure to square it to the bottommost nock point (it just sticks on the riser with contact cement). I'm glad I did, and I'm kida like you guys - if low-tech works, why fix it?

As for my string hold, my friend did tell me to use my last finger pads. Like you, ahenry, it was extremely difficult to do and still get accuracy. Not to mention, before I had the mechanical rest installed, I could hold the string the most comfortable way - in the first joint. My release is quick enough to get the arrows in a pie plate at 40yd consistently, so I don't see the need to adjust my grip. After all, I'm not going for the national championship here, I just want a deer or two on the table this winter.

Thanks to all here. I believe I'm about as ready as I can be for opening day this coming Friday. Wish me luck, and I wish y'all the same.

Now it's time to figure out how to sharpen these little buggers......

[ahenry]

Yankytrash,

For what its worth, I learned how to shoot with a recurve and the exact same rest that you are using now and a clicker. My sights were nothing more than layers of duct tape around the bow and one or two straight pins stuck in it sticking out to the side. Perhaps that is why I am partial to learning how to shoot correctly before adding all the gizmos and doo-hicky’s, or maybe its just because I want everybody else to have to deal with what I did. Anyway, my point is the simple little rest that you have now is more than adequate until you are comfortable with your other one. There are most assuredly good advantages to a more advanced rest and a good drop away is a fine rest, but for now I’m with you, don’t sweat it.

If you are really concerned about torque on the string from your release you can always try a mechanical release. They can completely eliminate the torque and you can get them fairly cheap. If you do decide to do that I would wait until the end of this season because you will have to change lots of things. Your anchor point will be different, your draw length will be longer, etc. everything changes and you wouldn’t want to do that in the middle of the season. For all that, I have always shot fingers and perhaps I’m rare but I have never noticed a significant amount of twist in my string from my release. I think some people really can’t release fast enough and just twist the string all to hell and apparently I don’t fall into that category. I haven’t really studied it in depth because I figure if its not broke don’t fix it.


Best of luck to you, I sure hope you are a more skillful hunter than I was my first few times to bow hunt (Aw hell, who am I kidding? My first many times to bow hunt). I discovered that a rifle had hidden lots of skill areas that I lacked, and a bow did not afford me that luxury. But then, I have always thought that bad day in the field with a bow beat a good day with a rifle, any day (shh, don’t tell anyone here I said that ).

[TERRY8mm]

I prefer the BAND AID BRAND, 3/4" strip, with the gauze pad on the thumb side of the finger. They are good for about 20 shots, before the fletching starts eating my finger.

[blackopsglock]

The arrow rest that got me back into bow hunting is the whisker biscuit.I really like it due to the fact it holds the arrow so securely no matter what position you place the bow in your stand.Also the arrow will never come off no matter how you hold the bow.Its a marvelous little rest and the only down side I see is the fact you have to thread the arrow in the whisker before you shoot.With just a little practice you can very quick to load so I don't see a real big deal about this.

[ahenry]

The slowness of the follow up shot is what has held me back from the whisker biscuit. How fast would you say you can get a follow up shot if you had some practice? Fast enough to get a second shot on a charging hog?

[blackopsglock]

No probably not fast enough on a charging hog but depending on how close it is and how fast its moving it might even be hard to get a second (aimed) shot off with a lever gun.

[DeathDancer]

Sorry, re-read your original post. My stuff doesn't pertain to you, except as interesting reading. Have fun with the compound!!

[blackopsglock]

UPDATE:

My son got a whisker bisket for his bow.At the bow shop we bought it at they cut a notch out of the ouside band at the 11:00 position.I did not ask them to do this and at first I was a little upset that they did.

Boy am I glad they did.It makes all the differance in the world.You can load it just as fast as a conventional rest. Now and after hundreds of practice arrows put through it there are so adverse affect on the rest.It still holds the arrow even when you tilt the bow around 360 degrees.

The bow shop said they did it with all of the whisker buscits sold and the owner himself even shoots one.He said he has put 1000's of arrows through it with no signs of trouble.

[skipjack]

I shot for years with recurve and longbows...just bought a compound this past summer. If you want to shoot with fingers, stay with a flipper style rest. NAP makes a good one that is inexpensive and durable. Personally, I shoot a release and a string loop and my rest is a NAP quicktune 800. I plan to replace that with a quicktune 3000 after hunting season. If you are experiencing porpoising, you may need to adjust the nock height. I would suggest going to the following and downloading their tuning guide. http://www.eastonarchery.com/
I prefer a release because it allows me to shoot the most accurately. My tackle is as follows: Parker hunter mag bow set at 58lbs at my 27" draw. I shoot a truball release, and I use an ultra-nock metal string loop. I am shooting gold tip 55/75 arrows with 100 grain muzzy 3 blade heads; the arrows are cut to 28".
I also use a NAP shock blocker stabilizer. For 3d and field archery, I switch to 100 grain field points. Oh yeah, I use a 3 pin sight and a peep sight that is served into the string so that I don't need any tubing. Shooting off your fingertips will induce torquing the string...when I shoot trad bows, I grip the string in the first joint of the fingers. Release is accomplished by relaxing the hand. Have fun with that bow and if I can be of help, drop me a line.

[nygunguy]

I agree with CD1. The Whisker Biscuit is fantastic. One of the most common oops' in the woods is the arrow slipping off the rest when drawing on a deer. The whisker biscuit eliminates this.

[PALongbow]

Man! Its a good thing I don't have to deal with this decison anymore. I really like those calf skin stick on plates that covers the shelf of my longbow.....LOL!

Ron

[MeekAndMild]

WOW, this brings back memories! I used to use one of those little calf skin patches aeons ago. then when I got a compound bow I ued one of those little rubber gizmos like the $2.99 one Yankeetrash was using. Ended up giving it to one of my kids, as there aint the same feel as a longbow. Somehow a compound bow seems like it should be mounted sideways on a stock.

[Cadwallader]

I know we're not helping, but it looks like we of the Brotherhood of the Bloody Knuckle just can't resist peeking in and saying hello!

[blackopsglock]

since this has been up a while ,has anyone tried out the biscut with the cut out?