Picked up my first bow today.
 

This is what I went with.

http://austinarcherycountry.com/imag...ionVenture.png


What sold me was the service and the way the owner acted towards me and the other customers. I found a local archery shop online about 15 mins from my house. It is a fishing and archery store with a 45 yard archery range where they have about 40 different animal targets, plus movable bullseye targets where they have competitions, give lessons, and have leagues. I go to the store and start walking around. I hear a father and son (kid was probably 18-20) just starting to ask him about getting them set up with their first bow. The first thing he asked was what their budget was out the door. They said $1200-1400 total for both set-ups, which was right where I was thinking I'd be. After a few minutes of talking to them he asked me if I needed help, and I told him to go ahead and finish up with them that I would probably take a while too because I was also looking for a first bow. So he took a few more minutes discussing things with them, then said if they'd wait 5 minutes he'd give them a bow to test on the range. Then he starts asking me stuff, and figures out that I'm probably looking at the same range of bows that the other two were. So he measures us and checks what eye is dominant on us, and sets us all up at the range.

We took turns shooting for a good 30-40 minutes, and we all liked the bow. There were a few other guys shooting as well, and they were more than friendly and helpful with random questions we had. By the third or fourth groupings I was doing fairly decent. The site was way, way low, but basically if I aimed at the very top center of the paper (from 20 yards), I was hitting the bullseye. My next to last group and my last group were all on paper, save one arrow, and had two dead-on bullseyes. Except for the one flier, they were reasonably grouped too. I was pretty happy with it anyway, considering I've probably shot a total of 50-100 arrows in my life, all at least a few years ago.

But what really impressed me was the service. The guy knew most of the customers by name (I bet close to 40 people were in and out of there in the 2+ hours I was in there), he was handing out advice left and right without being condescending or sounding like a know it all, and he was super polite. He was down an employee today because he was off turkey hunting, so he was swamped, but he did a great job of balancing who he was helping and giving everyone a slice of his attention when they needed it. When I finally decided to pull the trigger on the bow, I flat out told him that the reason I made the decision to buy today without shopping around was because of how great his customer service seemed to be. His wife, who was helping him behind the counter, said that most of their customers have been coming around for years and they try to treat everyone like family.

All of that was yesterday. Today the bow was ready so I went back and picked it up. The owner was there again today when I went to pick it up, but it was another one of his workers that helped me get set up with it. The guy who helped me today said he thought really highly of them, especially for someone like me. Outdoor Life has rated the Mission stuff pretty high, and I read the new Bowhunt America which gives it very high reviews too. I have no idea myself if that means anything, but it's better than reading that it's terrible I guess. :D

Good news = I got to shoot it today at the shop. It feels comfortable. The first two groups of six were all on the paper except one, and they were all a little left. We adjusted the sight after that and it was almost dead on. In the last two groups I hit dead on the X twice, and nothing was further than the second ring out. I was still an inch or inch and a half left, but that might've been me. The last group was almost all an inch or two high, but I think it was because I was compensating for getting tired.

Bad news = I got home and set the bow down in my garage on the target box I got and the sight fell completely off. :o Apparently when the guy adjusted it the last time he didn't tighten it down far enough. Fortunately it didn't fall off until then, and it just slid right off onto the foam so it didn't break or get scratched.

More good news = my basement is big enough that I was able to set up an archery range down there. I can get just under 20 yards away in a straight line. I was able to dial the sight back in that way.

Yes, there are 4 arrows in that pic:
http://lstwo.com/images/24656145253288797242.jpg

Now just lots of practice, practice, practice.




For those interested, it came with a QAD Ultra-Rest Hunter Fall-Away Arrow Rest exactly like this one.

The sight is a Copper John Dead Nuts Bull's Eye Gravedancer 5-pin sight, like this one.

It also came with a Mathews Dead End String Stop like this one, , an Alpine Archery Bear Claw quiver, and an Axiom Archery Harmonic Stabilizer. I couldn't find the exact one online. It measures at 3", but I can't find a link to anything exactly like it.

Did you get it for hunting? The range in the basement is a pretty cool idea, as long as your wife doesn't do the laundry downrange. :D I don't think I'll get into bows unless a vindictive ex takes out a restraining order, but a few of the gunshops I frequent have them.

Yes, the primary end use is to be for whitetail deer this fall. I bought it now so that I have plenty of time to practice.

What kind of release are you using?

Allen

It's adequate right now, but I want to borrow a few from a couple buddies I have that hunt to see if I like them better. I picked something low end so that I wouldn't feel like I've wasted $70-100 on something nice if I didn't like it.

that's a sweet looking bow!

I'd love to take up archery seriously, but there doesn't seem to be anything near me, sadly.

Im not into bow throwing too much, more into the "Black powder" firearms (real fire power) you know.

That is a very sweet looking bow! I've somewhat recently gotten back into shooting bows, at carp, but I really wouldn't mind eventually getting back into shooting on a regular basis for fun, and eventually for hunting.