# Cam lean, Shoot through risers, shoot through Harness vs cable guard



## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

I've shot both and personally I dislike shoot thru risers, but love shoot thru cable systems. Shoot thru risers are, for me, a nuisance to load, but the shoot thru cable are very easy. I'm sure others have different opinions on that, which is fine. Everybody is entitled to their own likes and dislikes.

I am surprised that so few international level archers have shoot thru cables. It may have to do with patents on the shoot thru systems, or that hunters don't like the systems because they think they will cut the cables while loading their broadheads.

When the Martin shoot thru cable systems were around about 10-15 years ago, one pretty good pro posted that he did not like them. He felt like the cable guard torque actually helped him hold steadier. 

I think that the main thing we get from shoot thru cables is ease of tuning, especially for less experienced archers.

JMHO,
Allen


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Ballistics said:


> I see a number of companies making shoot through risers, and these seem be the predominant riser from what I can see from the you tube videos of matches, so Target archers do not seem to mind threading the arrow through.


Darn few bow companies make them. At first, my Hoyt ProElite was kind of neat. I got use to "threading the arrow," I called "loading." I shot timed events with my ProElite, the ASA DAIR Indoor. "Loading" the arrow had little effect on the fastest end, 4 arrows in one minute and cleaned the one minute end every time.



Ballistics said:


> I also did not see any of the top shooters using a shoot through Harness system, so am guessing that the added stiffness of the shoot through riser is desired, but maybe for most target archers the shoot through Harness gets in the way of the arm holding the bow?


Added stiffness is a plus, I believe, and if you look at the older Hoyt UltraElites you'll see some years of build had a bit more speed than the UltraTec, the pattern for the UltraElite. Shoot through cable systems have been around for quite some time, but never popular with the masses and never proven to give much of anything beneficial. If they gave outstanding accuracy I'd think everyone would have them.... 



Ballistics said:


> I am also thinking that even with cam lean, and torque caused by the cable guard pulling the limbs to one side does not really matter that much, as long as the bow shoots the same way each time, the same arrow will go in the same hole at 100 yds if shot in still air using in a shooting machine, so it is really up to the archer, to match his or her arrows, and shoot the same exact way each time.


I believe cam lean has been overplayed in many areas. Long ata bows in general aren't effected by cam lean as are shorter ata bows. Look at most of anti cam lean devices. They aren't to correct cam lean, but eliminate or offset more cam lean in the draw cycle, keep it the same...

Now, I haven't read or seen "proof" of correcting cam lean at full draw. It's a trade off of sorts. For years we corrected cam lean with bow at rest. Cam straight and we draw the cam would lean some. Now, with cam straight at full draw and let down the cam is leaning. Every Hoyt (11 of them) I ever owned with the exception on my ProElite had floating yokes and ProElite started with a floating yoke. All were very accurate. The only reason my ProElite ended up with a static yoke was because I got the strings free, twice. I saw no better accuracy or better tuning using static yokes where I could correct cam lean, but then I've always had bows of more than 37" of ata. Another I bow I shot every so often was a 2008 Ben Pearson Z34 (34" ata) with factory floating yoke. I had it set up as a demonstrator for the shop. Shortly after setting it up a customer shot it and owned it before he left. 



Ballistics said:


> I will appreciate any and all insights knowledgeable and experienced target archers are willing to provide. I have been an archer for a long time, just never had any instruction, seems like there is so much hype from the companies it is hard to know what is important and what is not.
> Thanks much


I don't if there is anything about archery that hasn't been hyped.


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## bigHUN (Feb 5, 2006)

First we need to be clear with the fact that archery (all disciplines not just hunting or target and others) is a multi billion dollar business worldwide.
And as is a volume we can not even imagine easily it is well stuffed with any kind of patents covering everything, even what will happen (or not) in many years to come. 
For sure any of well known bow makers can make any style of bows, but stepping by accident to others swim lane would cost them a big pile of money. Paying royalties to an other brand is also sometimes out of consideration especially for "big and proud" companies . 

Very similarities with car makers, years ago it was cheaper/faster for GM to buy then find a way to go around Daewo's many 100's of thousands of patents...so they had to cash out a huge chunk of money (and bankrupted for this same reason running out with cash, the rest you know ) . Now back to Daewo they may made junk cars, BUT, they had one of the biggest patent collection in the world, not necessarily working patents or anything really valuable but that was a huge road block for GM anyway....Then they repeat with Saab ...instead of bringing smart to the table they move cash around, I wouldn't be surprised....

So back to archery, I believe we can speculate here as well, we may not seen products on the shelfs but somewhere in the background Mr. Diablo is waiting who is going to make a misstake farting around. 
So, this what we have, every bowmaker have its own style in shape/geometry/speed/precision ect....

Now getting back to speculations why we may not see high end pro's shooting "some latest wow technology" ? Well, as I just explained, Hoyt or PSE , or any other brand just won't pay for roadblock to be moved a bit aside instead they push forward with their marketing strategy - paying big names to wear their shirts ... but who is paying at the very end? You and me .
Othervise, I have had tonns of bows and somehow ended up with a shoot through riser + shoot through cables, and discovering a lot of advancements over a classical bow design (I dont want to say improvements because that would lead us into my science engineering swim lane).

BTW, I gave my bows to many people to try, I am pleased with their feedback, but have noticed all of them wanted to load the arrow between cables from rear. 
I am loading arrows from front, holding the bow in front of me slightly leaning forward and with other hand holding the arrow two fingers about half way (the nock is below my elbow) and leading it backwards through the riser opening and through cables, need less room (FITA shooting lane we have this much room only for myself, a double side rod and the tripod mounted scope and nobody complaints, 80 centimeters = 2 FT 7" total with between L and R guy beside me), loading faster from my field quiver (what is also pointing backwards so more room for my close proximity), and for broadheads just a perfect process.


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## Mahly (Dec 18, 2002)

Shoot through risers add stiffness....a good thing.
Most factory pros don't use shoot through systems for 2 reasons.
1) Their factory doesn't sell a bow with shoot through cables
2) Cable guard bows can be just as accurate in their hands (and most others)
Reducing torque or lean is a good thing, and there have been some advancements on this front. Flex guards, unique cam systems that help to reduce lean (Alpine, Prime), angled cable guards, and even angled cable sliders.
While I can't say a shoot through system is more accurate or not, it seems as though the gains are so minuscule as to not be worth the effort to convert or pay a fee for using a patent (Martin?). If there was a notice advantage, you would think someone would be lighting up the competition with one, or at least running side by side with the pros from Hoyt, Mathews, PSE, Elite, and Prime. Note: Of those last 2, 1 (Elite) has virtually no cam lean/torque reducing hardware, and their top shooter took 2nd at Vegas a year after making the shoot-off with a glorified hunting bow. and the other (Prime) has an innovative dual string track cam with a flexing cable guard to nearly eliminate cam lean/torque. Their top shooter had the highest X count at Vegas (was it last year? or this year?...I think last year) and just set a new record at Fresno (down 1 point down for 60 targets) and won Fort van Lier with a 21X lead over 2nd place (think he dropped like 2 point the first target and cleaned the rest).
Why would these guys change anything?


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## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

One other thing I thought about is that hybrid cam systems and single cam systems can't be set up for a neat shoot thru cable system. On both, the cable guard is still required. With the dual cam systems coming back, we may see them more frequently now .... or not.


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## Ballistics (Mar 23, 2011)

Thank you very much to all who have responded so far. 

I have a better understanding now. 

I am Still interested to hear more in response my first questions, but I have one question I would like to have answered by anyone that has shot a shoot thru Harness system: what was the clearance between the cables, and did the cable closest to your arm end up touching your arm at all ? Maybe this is the big downside of a shoot thru Harness system ? 

Based the replies, the idea that a quality bow may flex, Torque, wobble, shake, rattle and roll, and the arrow may come out looking like a fish swimming, ( some great slow motion video on You Tube ) but they do it the same way each time, so it is having arrows matched as close as possible, and the shooter repeating like a shooting machine, as did the Elite shooter Mahly described ???

Another question, how often does a top competitor adjust / check out their bow, for example during a day of shooting outdoors, and the temperature changes 40 degrees, do you adjust your sites or anything? 

Thanks much


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

You know last year I took a good look at the strothers prototype shoot through bow at the asa practice ranges and I really thought that it just looked right. I never actually shot one but when I looked at the cables and the cams and how things were put together things just made sense.


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## bigHUN (Feb 5, 2006)

I am shooting the OK bows fourth year in the row, they call these DST's, double shot through system.
I am fletching my arrows with low profile vanes, these are widely available from Flexfletch, AAE, ICEy and even with largest diameter shafts there is a plenty of clearance.
Adjusting a bow draw length so not holding the draw on "bone-on-bone" but with slight bent in your elbow (outward), this will also clear well between your arm and cables.
I


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## Rick! (Aug 10, 2008)

Ballistics said:


> Thank you very much to all who have responded so far.
> 
> I have a better understanding now.
> 
> ...


Look up World Cup Archery on Youtube. If you watch a few outdoors bronze to gold matches on a day with wind, you'll see sight changes sometimes after each end. As for a 40 degree change, I can't answer that. My target bow only sees indoors and I warm it up if it gets cold during transport in the winter.


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## Mahly (Dec 18, 2002)

I had an older bow that had a shoot through system, no arm clearance issues, but it has a longer brace than most bows today (9"+)


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## Fury90flier (Jun 27, 2012)

cable clearance? While I don't own a shoot through harness bow I've shot plenty of them. What I can say is that no shoot through harness bow has ever given me any issues...your arm is plenty far away. As Mahly mentions they have longer brace heights so that could be the reason.....no reason for short BH on a target bow as target shooters generally don't care about speed.

While I'm no pro shooter I can speak to the changing of sight setting as a result of changes in temps. If the temp change isn't much, say 10/15 degrees there isn't much of an issue but yea, on the 30*+ swing, there is a definite point of impact change. If I've got my bow sighted in and I've got an average humidity and say a 70* day in the morning then it heats up to say 95+, there is a definite change and requires a sight adjustment.


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## Ballistics (Mar 23, 2011)

Ok, I took another look at all the bows with shoot though risers and cables. I did not know about the Strother, was a able to find some pictures, so now have a pretty good idea of the different approaches. 

The Darton is unique in that they have only one cable per side, so that is less cable to deal with, not sure if there is a downside, seems like all forces are balanced, wonder why then all the others use two cable per side ? Some do not have any cable guard, and some do, including the Darton. I am thinking that the guards are so that they can widen the clearance at the arrow, and have more clearance for your arm, the cable form a V shape back to the cams. The only drawback to that may be slight bit of friction, but maybe worth it to maximize the clearance for ones arm. 

I like symmetry, so am drawn to the shoot through systems, though probably will not make a difference in my ability to hit the target !!


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Ballistics said:


> Thank you very much to all who have responded so far.
> 
> I have a better understanding now.
> 
> I am Still interested to hear more in response my first questions, but I have one question I would like to have answered by anyone that has shot a shoot thru Harness system: what was the clearance between the cables, and did the cable closest to your arm end up touching your arm at all ? Maybe this is the big downside of a shoot thru Harness system ?


From the shoot through cables I've seen there was adequate clearance for vanes/feathers. As for the bow arm I wish I could take a picture of my bow arm. I had my wife measure from my rubber band (about 1 1/2" thick) to my foreman where most have bow string slap. At full there 2" of clearance showing and figure another, say 1/2" for the rubber band. So maybe close, but not that I would think contact unless after the shot and this would be just touching, not interfering with the shot. Still, if you go back a ways there were devices to compress shoot through cables. See picture. 
I've also seen shoot through cables made up for other bows. These were made with the use of "quarter moons," 1 for each end. These gave closer together cables. How much clearance for vanes/feathers I dont't remember, but they worked. 



Ballistics said:


> Based the replies, the idea that a quality bow may flex, Torque, wobble, shake, rattle and roll, and the arrow may come out looking like a fish swimming, ( some great slow motion video on You Tube ) but they do it the same way each time, so it is having arrows matched as close as possible, and the shooter repeating like a shooting machine, as did the Elite shooter Mahly described ???


Well, well tuned bows don't send arrows down range swimming like a fish or "playing" Flipper. Hey, bullet holes through paper at 8 feet, and bullet holes through paper out to 20 yards checked every yard says the arrow is behaving nicely.... 



Ballistics said:


> Another question, how often does a top competitor adjust / check out their bow, for example during a day of shooting outdoors, and the temperature changes 40 degrees, do you adjust your sites or anything?
> Thanks much


I've never seen the time I had to readjust anything do to weather, not with a compound that is. Humidity, rain, now this can effect stick and recurve bows. 2011 Illinois ASA State Championship. I was shooting with 2 recurve shooters. Warm, humid and pouring down rain all through the shoot. Carl and the other couldn't figure out why their arrows were coming up short. First Carl said I fired back his string was loaded up with water. I told him to twang his bow string a couple of times. Water vapor galore was seen for the 2 twangs. Scores noted on the target I had him shoot again as normal. Bang, he was dead on. So every couple of targets from there on Carl and other were "twanging" their strings before shooting the target.

Another, 2005 Illinois Archery Association State Field Championship. Beautiful all week and then Saturday and Sunday of the Championship, near water, and the humidity was horrible. We were soaking wet just walking to our first target. By target 3 sweat was dripping from the bill of my ball hat. 
I never had to correct one thing. I took 2nd in Senior FS Championship flight. 

Indoor shooters going outside for the first time of year. Oh yeah. All winter they shot Indoors, had their bows set for Indoors (warm, consistent). Outside, 30 degrees, their peeps were turning. Doesn't happen to everyone, but it does happen.


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## Garceau (Sep 3, 2010)

Padgett said:


> You know last year I took a good look at the strothers prototype shoot through bow at the asa practice ranges and I really thought that it just looked right. I never actually shot one but when I looked at the cables and the cams and how things were put together things just made sense.


Almost right - I had a lot of input in the design of that bow. A lot - but it needed one little thing yet to truly have been awesome. We requested it, then it got into production issues Darton copied it almost to a T and then it just kind of faded away.

It needed bent cable rods that could be rotated to provide minimal clearance for field type arrow set up, and then rotated back out for spot type arrow set up. Allowing it to do this would also allow you to put additional tension on one cable or another that could help with a set up, form, or possibly tuning issue.

The few I had at the house we played around with and really got it working good - the few that are still out there and being tweaked further have all had this added to it.

I will say when the rods were straight them damn cables hit my forearm and drove me nuts.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Bent or offset cable rods? I forget who, but maybe Jesse Broadwater. He had the offset cable rod and bent it to give even better results.


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## Garceau (Sep 3, 2010)

bent offset...same difference they cant be offset if they aren't bent......


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

I hope to get some free time between today and Tuesday and get to the old shop. If I can, I'm going through the back room one more time to see if I can find another older aluminum offset guide rod. I sold a bunch of them. The old rods would flex as you drew. Yep, set them as close as you could and when you drew they flexed the little more that you couldn't adjust for. Shoot and they got out of the way....


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## Lazarus (Sep 19, 2005)

Garceau said:


> Almost right - I had a lot of input in the design of that bow. A lot - but it needed one little thing yet to truly have been awesome. We requested it, then it got into production issues Darton copied it almost to a T and then it just kind of faded away.


Careful now. Darton's been around for how long? Maybe, a, let's see, a, 65 years? And Strother has been around, oh..........are they still in business? 

To be very candid, we saw a painted Darton shoot through long before we saw a painted mysterious "Moxie 14." Or did we ever see a Moxie 14 painted? Not sure on that one. 

It's pretty interesting to think that Darton designed, tooled up, finished, and marketed a bow before the "inventor" even had one painted. Copied it? I don't think so. Furthermore, it appears the only thing the Darton and the strother had in common is a shoot through riser.


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## Ballistics (Mar 23, 2011)

Say, you guys are great, Thanks for the replies. Looks like I need to learn more about arrows; they can settle down pretty quickly and be flying straight, makes sense if you are getting perfect holes in paper, the slow mo videos I saw must have arrows way under spined for the bow they were using. 

So, it looks like maybe for some the cables can be in the way. That was interesting info about the development of the Strother shoot thru. Appreciate all the info about temperature and humidity changes, actually I appreciate all the info provided.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

Well to me what really sucks about technology and patents is that it hampers someone going out and doing something right the first time because they don't hold the patent so they have to try and find a alternative way to do it and live with its negative issues and still try and produce something that works. If they could just use the one method that they knew would work but they don't own the patent. 

The beautiful thing is sooner or later there will be breakthroughs just like in motor cross, Back in 1998 when I was riding my dirt bike every weekend and watching super cross on the weekends if you would have told me that 4-strokes would take over I would have called you a idiot and it happened. So in time the same things will happen with our bows and they will keep evolving.


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## Garceau (Sep 3, 2010)

Lazarus said:


> Careful now. Darton's been around for how long? Maybe, a, let's see, a, 65 years? And Strother has been around, oh..........are they still in business?
> 
> To be very candid, we saw a painted Darton shoot through long before we saw a painted mysterious "Moxie 14." Or did we ever see a Moxie 14 painted? Not sure on that one.
> 
> It's pretty interesting to think that Darton designed, tooled up, finished, and marketed a bow before the "inventor" even had one painted. Copied it? I don't think so. Furthermore, it appears the only thing the Darton and the strother had in common is a shoot through riser.


Strother had one completed at the ATA show of 2014 - Darton released theirs mid summer of 2014.

There is a lot of back story I can share in person at ASA KY if you are there how it all stalled out and everything else. The Darton is so similar, minus the cut outs....

Yes there were completed 14s that were painted, had one - might still have one  but there were some legal issues and agreements that had to be completed that stalled it out.

with all that said - I personally shot the standard moxie better than the 14 - the Moxie was the winningest bow on ASA tour last year in the amateur ranks. The 14 was so close but with the agreements, approvals, permissions and everything else it just faded away. Then you saw glimpses of the Vegas mid summer at an IBO.


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## Garceau (Sep 3, 2010)

Padgett said:


> Well to me what really sucks about technology and patents is that it hampers someone going out and doing something right the first time because they don't hold the patent so they have to try and find a alternative way to do it and live with its negative issues and still try and produce something that works. If they could just use the one method that they knew would work but they don't own the patent.
> 
> The beautiful thing is sooner or later there will be breakthroughs just like in motor cross, Back in 1998 when I was riding my dirt bike every weekend and watching super cross on the weekends if you would have told me that 4-strokes would take over I would have called you a idiot and it happened. So in time the same things will happen with our bows and they will keep evolving.


this in reality is what snuck up - I wasn't involved in any of those issues/talks/discussions/agreements - who am I when it comes to that.

But a small amount of us, put together a wish list of a shooter bow - we looked at the great things on the OK bow, the great things on the PSE's, Hoyts, and tried to incorporate all the great things into one. As was told to me, unbeknownst to the world is there was an older patent on that type of cam already out there. Actually a few people came forward - then all the talks and everything stalled out.

But that is why you have patents, and protections for them - I get it.

Heck Obsession was really interested in the 14, now they have one very similar as well....but seeing they bought the name Strother - not sure if there was other stuff involved in the sale or not. Again , I wasn't in any of them talks, not my business.

http://www.obsessionbows.com/reaper.html

For hunting I like the binary, for 3D I am liking my new Hoyt and hybrid.


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## [email protected] (Feb 23, 2004)

> I also did not see any of the top shooters using a shoot through Harness system, so am guessing that the added stiffness of the shoot through riser is desired,


Probably won't see many Pro shooters using the shoot-thru harness until one of the major archery companies (other than Martin) breaks down and decides to pay the royalty to uses the 3-track cam design. There are a number of royalties being paid by the bow mfgs and you'd think that one more wouldn't break the bank so to speak. So the profit margins either aren't there or the companies have a "not invented here" mentality. If the shoot-thru system to eliminate cam lean were not a good idea, you would not see so many attempts to emulate the design in order to avoid paying the royalty. 



> but maybe for most target archers the shoot through Harness gets in the way of the arm holding the bow?


If you have hyper-mobile joint issues (elbow bends inward) at full draw, then contact would be a problem..but string contact likely would be, too.

So not really an issue..at least it hasn't been for me. I've shot bows with the Barnsdale Tri-Stars at a BH of 8.5" and currently shoot an OK Smoke at 7". Never had an issue with the cables touching my arm. I hunt with the Smoke and even when wearing a bulky jacket I don't have a contact problem.



> I am also thinking that even with cam lean, and torque caused by the cable guard pulling the limbs to one side does not really matter that much, as long as the bow shoots the same way each time..


IDK..I'm not a fan of lean. From a mechanical standpoint, the lean is putting pressure where it shouldn't be. I could be that the average shooter doesn't put enough arrows through a bow with a lot of cam lean to cause a cam bearing failure. Pro shooters who shoot bows with lean don't have to worry about replacing something that fails.

From the lean not affecting arrow flight, it might not IF the lean is the same at full draw and at brace. If you have lean at brace and none at full draw or lean at full draw and none at brace, the string is moving in a lateral motion on release. The nock end of the arrow is being pitched in the direction of the string motion. 

Shooting a bow with cam lean might not be an issue when tuning and shooting field points, but it makes tuning broad heads much more difficult. After struggling to tune a bow with lean at brace and none at full draw, a friend of mine jokingly referred to the lateral string motion as "Cam Paradox". The bow would shoot lights-out with field points, but put a BH on the same arrow and it was 6" right at 20yds. It took shooting an shaft 0.140 stiffer than the one capable of crazy accuracy with FPs to get BH and FP hitting with the same POI.



> ..so it is really up to the archer, to match his or her arrows, and shoot the same exact way each time.


Yep. The more you are like a shooting machine the better.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Cam/wheel lean? Like I noted above, overplayed.... My Ole War Horse. 2000 Hoyt UltraTec with Red Line cam. Two rests over it's shooting life, a Bullet Bodoodle and a NAP QuikTune 3000. Both rests set far back. Shot off the string (one brass nock and cushion button). Arrows used; Carbon Express CX300 Selects, matched CX200s, and last were CXL 250s (original 250s). Arrows were not spine checked at all and later fletched to the blemish line in the CXL 250s. Bow has been French tuned since 2001(?).
I can fill a book of what this bow did in club events and state sanctioned events, 3D, Indoor, Outdoor, Field. 

I haven't shot a bow any more accurate.....Pics; Cam lean (floating yoke). Hoyt overdraw riser and arrow rest set back. Groups it shot.


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## Pete53 (Dec 5, 2011)

i purchased my son a new dst 40 ok bow this 2015 year and at league he average 300 55x with this double shoot thru ok bow and yes it shot well,last year 2014 he used his old 2006 hoyt prolite with 3000 limbs and had old strings on this old hoyt bow his average scores were 300 55x and that hoyt bow only had the shoot thru riser. he did tell me the ok bow had less recoil than the hoyt but really both boths shot equally well. so in the hands of a good archer really not alot of difference in age of bow or shoot thru system probably either. this year at Vegas proved that with a solo cam with no shoot thru anything winning, its the archer more than the bow.


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## Pete53 (Dec 5, 2011)

"should have type`d both bows shot equally well "


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