# BowTech AIR RAID



## deadly

Has anyone been able to shoot this bow yet, I have heard that it is a sweet shooting machine. Looks sharp.


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## dbowhunter

*Not being produced yet*

The Air Raid is not in production yet but will be starting on the assembly line soon. There are many post about this bow if you do a search. Few people have shot it because it was at the ATA show. Can't wait to get mine in a few weeks.


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## mcherman

*One sweet bow*

I just got back from the WI Deer & Turkey Expo. Bowtech rep's were there with all their bows including a prototype Air Raid. That bow is SWEET. It feels & handles like an Admiral but with a much smoother draw. It is as quiet & as dead in your hands as the Admiral. 

I shot both the Admiral & the Air Raid side by side. The draw of an Admiral set at 58# was acceptable to my liking. However, cranking it to the max (~62#), it became a totally different beast. I found it very difficult to pull it through the last 2" of the draw. The Air Raid, on the other hand, was set at 64# & it was a breaze to pull back. The draw was much smoother & the valley was all but non-existant. The Air Raid was every bit as quiet & shock free as the Admiral as well. 

Weightwise, the Air Raid was an ounce or two heavier than the Admiral. The balance was good as well.

The rep said that they'll start shipping them on 4/15. Based on my experience with the prototype, I'm definately considering placing an order for an Air Raid.


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## introverted

looks like an itty bitty 82nd, i like it


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## iceman36

if you want smooth,quiet and shock free try a swat,at 71# it is smoother to draw than my guardian was at 58#,not to mention it's alot cheaper but not the fastest out there,just adding my 2 cents


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## camoman73

Agree with mcherman. I to shot the air raid at the wi expo ,and feelt exactly the same way as he did about this bow. Awesome draw great bow!


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## buck-n-nuts

Cant wait till mine gets here..
Seems that all who have shot it feel the same about it.
Reviews are pretty much the same from everyone.


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## Jwillman6

When you guys get this bow give us an unbiased review and real speeds ( I'm not interested in IBO speeds anymore). What really interest me about this bow is that the limbs are either 65 or 75 lbs. I would love to have a bow that maxes out at 65. I hope this bow sells and this concept catches on.


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## Gravy 31

does anyone own a 75# model yet? I shot one the other day @ a dealer here in VA, but it was turned down quite a bit, but it shot like a dream. best NEW bow i have shot all year. I think it was the 14th I shot, and by far my favorite. He would not crank it up though. Just wondering if it is bad at full weight????


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## SICARIO

I wonder why they started using a split harness system.


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## mjm3767

I just shot the Air Raid today.All I can say is OH MY GOD it is one sweeeet bow!Makes me wont to retire my 82nd and get that one.It was at 65# and it felt like a 50#!


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## joffutt1

SICARIO said:


> I wonder why they started using a split harness system.


reduce cam lean


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## ahcrap

The Air Raids you gents fired, were those bows setup with the smooth or speed cams? Just curious how much difference they make in the draw cycle of the bow. I agree, that is one sweet lookiing rig on the Bowtech web site. What is the MSRP on them?

Thanks!


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## WiQ

*Shot an Air RAID, not bad*

Shot it with speed cams, fast, dang fast, but it was spongey at the back wall. A little more hand shock than I was expecting. Not as solid as my sentinel.


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## Mr. Burns

WiQ said:


> Shot it with speed cams, fast, dang fast, but it was spongey at the back wall. A little more hand shock than I was expecting. Not as solid as my sentinel.


cool first post!


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## mt hunter22

anybody have any speeds to post yet?


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## OhioBowhunter78

*Air Raid*

I have a brand new one I started the testing on tonight. It is nicer then I expected, but I have been let down by the new lines since the Ally and Tribute got dropped. 

I will post a thread with all the specs and my thoughts after a few days of shooting.


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## Out West

*Air Raid*

My shop said they were having some tuning issues with the ones they received. One shop guy said he really liked the one he tested at the ATA show, but said he was disappointed with the ones he received in the shop.

I shot one, and nothing really floated my boat about it.


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## deerhr88

*deer hunter*

well just to leteveryone know i have a PSE DEER HUNTER i am pulling 67 pounds and shooting a 475 grain arrow at 29 in draw and it is comming of a a blazzing 317 FPS i have had it tuned by coveys archery in corinth he is the man with pse


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## sawtoothscream

deerhr88 said:


> well just to leteveryone know i have a PSE DEER HUNTER i am pulling 67 pounds and shooting a 475 grain arrow at 29 in draw and it is comming of a a blazzing 317 FPS i have had it tuned by coveys archery in corinth he is the man with pse


what????? how did u get it to shoot 56 fps over ibo with an arrow 175 gr over ibo and 3 lbs under ibo draw weight??? that guy must be one heck of a tuner.

do you mean 213 fps???????

if not i think that deer hunter is the most under rated bow in history.:darkbeer:


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## deerhr88

yeah idk what he did i thought is was a pile but we call him coach cove he has alot of tricks he has been doing it his whole life but if ay one want to unleash all the horse in the bow i would deff look him up post if u wan his number


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## sawtoothscream

deerhr88 said:


> yeah idk what he did i thought is was a pile but we call him coach cove he has alot of tricks he has been doing it his whole life but if ay one want to unleash all the horse in the bow i would deff look him up post if u wan his number


213 fps????


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## Breaksbulls

Just recieved my Air raid after having troubles tuning my captain. With out a doubt this thing is smooth and fast, shot noise will be great on limbsavers are installed. Draw cycle is smooth and liniar, but stiff (go figure its 77#s). Mine is set a 77#s and shoots a 502 grn FMJ @ 291fps @ 30". Supper stable to hold and isnt terribly jumpy for the agressiveness of the cams being in such a short ata bow. Best of all bowtech finnaly put a good set of limb pockets on a bow and more importantly a great set of limbs. Now if the stupid roller gaurd would go by the way side on all of their bows they would have it nailed.


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## geekster

amen brother on the roller cable . Did the Airraid tune easy for you.


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## Breaksbulls

geekster said:


> amen brother on the roller cable . Did the Airraid tune easy for you.


Ill keep you posted Im waiting for my Limb Driver and I hope to be off and running. Man did I ever like that Captain just couldnt get rid of my left tear no matter witch of the six rests I used or spine of arrows. WB was the only rest that kind of tuned. Im done now Ill let you know what I find.


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## completepassthru

Breaksbulls said:


> Ill keep you posted Im waiting for my Limb Driver and I hope to be off and running. Man did I ever like that Captain just couldnt get rid of my left tear no matter witch of the six rests I used or spine of arrows. WB was the only rest that kind of tuned. Im done now Ill let you know what I find.


I do not understand why people would get rid of a bow they really like just because they could not get it to paper tune. I have one always tears left and i have killed many, many deer with it. I can put the arrow where i want it with this bow and it will not paper well.


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## Breaksbulls

completepassthu said:


> I do not understand why people would get rid of a bow they really like just because they could not get it to paper tune. I have one always tears left and i have killed many, many deer with it. I can put the arrow where i want it with this bow and it will not paper well.


I understand that paper tuning us way over rated but when every rest I tried shot arrows completely different. Center shot was never the same rest to rest, groups would always end up top notch but I couldnt bring myself to screw broadheads in with a bow that was on the edge of being unacceptable. Something isnt quite right with the geometry of these bows and I fear the air raid will be the same beings both bows have the dang roller gaurd.


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## bow_hunter44

Breaksbulls said:


> I understand that paper tuning us way over rated but when every rest I tried shot arrows completely different. Center shot was never the same rest to rest, groups would always end up top notch but I couldnt bring myself to screw broadheads in with a bow that was on the edge of being unacceptable. Something isnt quite right with the geometry of these bows and I fear the air raid will be the same beings both bows have the dang roller gaurd.


Please do keep us posted on your findings. I have the same issues with my Captain and have been on the verge of trading it off on several occasions!


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## ge superhawk

breaksbulls, 


what kind of guard do you prefer???? I want to get an Admiral, Captain, Sentinel, SWAT or Sniper. Are you saying the SWAT or Sniper would be better because it has the teflon friction guard? Why? I appretiate all info then sort through it to make a decission.


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## Breaksbulls

ge superhawk said:


> breaksbulls,
> 
> 
> what kind of guard do you prefer???? I want to get an Admiral, Captain, Sentinel, SWAT or Sniper. Are you saying the SWAT or Sniper would be better because it has the teflon friction guard? Why? I appretiate all info then sort through it to make a decission.


I prefer a good old standard carbon, not painted cable slide. The roller gaurd is nice and clean to look at and in theory is more efficient. When looked at closer the roller gaurd puts a pile of on due stress on things. The risers, although strong get a bunch of tortional side load put on them, enough to flex at full draw and cause the bow to have a poor center shoot due to the bow recovering from preload at full draw when fired. The effect is increased when draw lenghts increase and bow weight are increased. 
The cable slide on a bow still can cause a bow to have cam lean and some side load on the riser and cables, but the effect is way less. When at full draw you contol cables are able to slide backwards as the bow is draw and slightly flex the cable gaurd inward. To fully understand my point of why I feel this is the only real problem any of these roller gaurd bows have, have someone you trust, draw a bow with the roller gaurd. Pull on a control cable and see how much pull it takes to move a cable, act like you want to pull a cable off the roller, these babies are and dont pull on the bow or cams in a natural way. Now do the same thing to a simmilar poundage bow and notice how tight the cables are, you should notice that there is noticably less stress on the system and the cables arent pulled in towards the riser at full draw. If these bow would go back to a cable slide, I feel the center shot of these bows would be more consistant and a lot closer to an actual center shot. By the way my 101st, tuned through paper, was quite a ways to the right as well. Just my take on the some of the issues at hand with roller gaurds in general, this also goes for the mathews that Ive been around, they seem to find thier center shot to the right as well, not as bad possibly because of cam agressivness and the fact that they are a solo cam. 
Later Zack


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## ge superhawk

thanks for the info. makes sense. will do some research.


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## Breaksbulls

I recieved my Limb Driver yesterday for my Air Raid and set it up, here is what Ive discovered so far. Set rest up and set center shot up through the center of the bow where all bows if designed properly should tune if the correct spine of arrow is seleted. My bow is set at 30" and sits at right around 77-78#s. I grabbed a 340 fmj with a 125grn tip and fired an arrow at 7yrds and recieved an 1 to 1.25 inch left tear. I then proceeded to move rest to the right to the point I was beggining to crowd the cables with vane clearance and shot again, my tear was now down to 3/4", not bad. I then grabbed a 400 fmj with a 100grn tip with the rest set in the same spot and fired once again, this time getting a 1/4" right tear with a weaker spined arrow so for the heck of it I put a 125grn tip in and shot again I now had a right tear of 3/4". I then moved the rest back to the left and bingo a perfect hole only slightly right of the ideal center shot. I then stepped back to 30yrds and fired 4 400 spined fmjs with 125s weighing in at 466, if my memory is correct, shooting at 301fps. The result was perfect arrow flight and fantastic groups, with an arrow that makes me nervous to shoot as soft as it is for that bow. Will I live and hunt with set up, dang straight!


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## sdavis

*air raid*

alright here goes a few questions how does it stack up to the 82nd at 50 to 60 pounds and is the 82nd at 50 smoothe enough and easy to pull back for a beginner my dad is interested in one of these he just started this year shooting and wants a little more speed than what his justice will give him so he doesnt have the arc he also wants a smooth bow but a good bow because he is only a 26.5 dl has problems with lobbing the arrow at the targets any pointers on these 2 bows would be appreciated he has shot the air raid but no one has a 82nd to try what should we do thanks


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## Breaksbulls

sdavis said:


> alright here goes a few questions how does it stack up to the 82nd at 50 to 60 pounds and is the 82nd at 50 smoothe enough and easy to pull back for a beginner
> 
> I would be more apt to push him towards the Air Raid before the 82nd and if you could find a last years 101st I would choose the 101st over the 82nd. The 82nd while being 10-14fps faster than either the A R or the 101st is a lot more agressive bow both in feel and in forgivness. I have shot many bows and I have come to the conclusion that 7-7.25" of brace height is as low as Im willing to go. When shooting brace heights of around 7" you still maintain near top speeds while have a very forgiving bow. Another reason to lean towards the Air Raid would be the ATA configuration compaired to your dads draw lenght. When choosing a bow for hunting, by this I mean newer style bow with long riser, short limbs in general, start by choosing a bow that has an ATA of 4-6" longer than the draw lenght that he or she is shooting. For compeditive 3D the ideal ATA is more like 6-8" and target more like 8-10". So idealy if I were to choose a bow and I was 26-27 inches of draw a bow with an ATA of 32-33" would prove to be more than sufficient. Also keep in mind that when draw lenght comes down substantually a bow can have less brace height and still maintain is ability to be forgiving, so in all actuality a 6.5 brace height would be just as forgiving to him as a 7 would be to me.
> As for the draw of the 82nd to the Air Raid, the AR wins, smoother and darn near as fast. Also a few other factors to consider is the fact that the 101 and the 82nd suffered from cam lean at full draw, the Air Raid addresses this and has gotten rid of most of the lean. Yet one last bennifit to the AR is that it is dead quiet once string silencers and a set of limbsavers are added, along with a quiet rest, I highly highly recomend the Limb Driver. As a side note the limb pocket are an improvement over the airbornes and BowTech finnaly put Laminated limbs on a bow, so limb failure should be a thing of the past. Happy hunting and hope this helps.
> 
> And yet another side note the AR at 65# will draw and hold the same if not nicer than the 82nd at 58-60lbs. Food for thought, the speeds when set to the shooters comfort level may be closer than the apear on paper. Im now done.


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## bowtechbreed

*air raid*

Well I bought an air raid I really love the bow It is set on 75lbs 29in draw shooting a 415grain arrow and getting an amazing 92lbs kinetic energy. UNFORTUNATELY I had a small problem with cam wearing on my bus cable at full draw and took it to where I bought it and low and behold cracked limb the bow is only 3 weeks old this is the 3rd one I have heard of that the limbs cracked. I am having new limbs and string put on next week hopefully that will take care of the problem.


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## x-it

I shot one for a while today. Very nice smooth draw. Very quite alittle hand shock not much. Nice roll over into the valley didnt feel like the string was gonna take off on me. The wall not as solid as my tribute. Im a 28in draw this bow was at 29in. I shot 4in groups at 20 yards with it it wasnt even set up for me. I could get real confident in this bow. Overall great bow. I loved it.


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## RISKYB

I have been shooting Ty's down at the shop and at 65# 28.5 or 29" draw and 343gr arrows we did a respectable 318 on the crono


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## iceman36

shot it,didn't like it,wants to jump out of your hand at the shot but it is fast


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## mwfscotth

If it wants to jump out of your hand at the shot, then something is amiss with the setup (timing, stock sts or something). The reason I got one a few weeks back is because of how close it was in the hand shock dept. to my old General, but much faster. Granted it is not as shock free as the General, but it is mighty close, and a lot better than a majority of what I've shot at shops this year. I'm not a tournament archer, just a hunter, but the Air Raid is the first bow I've had that I can group arrows in a pie plate out to 80 yds in practice (wouldn't attempt anything near that hunting) Usually I feel good just to hit the target at that distance. Certainly makes the 20 and 30 yard shots seem a sure thing.


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## 3Dobsessed

group shot at 55 yds by Travis Lunsford with pins and hostage pro rest.


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## baldyhunter

I just got a good deal on one from the classifieds. Should be here at the end of this week so I'll let you all know how it tunes and if it's going through cables or not. I'm pretty excited. I'm thinking this is going to be a great hunting bow.


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## crewpsu

Thinking about getting one of these. Any thoughts after using it for a few months?


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## asubowhunter

Great Bow! and you can get them for a good price too!


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