# Is Shooting a Hinge Easier With High Letoff?



## bgviii (Feb 16, 2010)

Is it easier to shoot a hinge with a high let off bow or one with more holding weight? I recently made the switch from right hand to left hand. I currently shoot an Elite E35 because it was easy to hold when i made the switch. Now that I'm nearing my old form, I was thinking of going back to Hoyt with spirals..I'm just wondering if this will be more difficult to shoot than the high letoff with my hinge...or maybe it will help?


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## modern_outlaw76 (Jul 26, 2012)

I find it easier to shoot a hinge with lower let off. I get a much cleaner release


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I wish I could help, I have shot the same stinking specialist ever since I started hinge shooting in the 75% let off setting and I have in the last week changed the draw stops to the 65% setting but I really can't tell the difference. I did draw the bow the other day and it was only holding 16.5lbs in the 52lb setting that I am shooting which came out to 68% let off so I don't have a full 65.

I know that a lot of guys love their spirals and the high holding weight so it is hard to not take notice.


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## Huntinsker (Feb 9, 2012)

I like a hinge better from a bow with less let off. It keeps you honest so that while you rotate the release, you have to take up the slack with your back. If you don't the bow will take off on you.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

bgviii said:


> Is it easier to shoot a hinge with a high let off bow or one with more holding weight? I recently made the switch from right hand to left hand. I currently shoot an Elite E35 because it was easy to hold when i made the switch. Now that I'm nearing my old form, I was thinking of going back to Hoyt with spirals..I'm just wondering if this will be more difficult to shoot than the high letoff with my hinge...or maybe it will help?


I've shot a hinge for approximately 15 years. In that time I've had the opportunity to shoot bows between 65% and 80% let off, both left and right handed. I've always shot better with the lower let off but never really connected it with the hinge. My old Conquest 3 was a fine example. I shot it with the 65% max cam and shot very well with the bow. I also shot the same bow for a while with the 80% max cam and could not hit anything. Was it the hinge or was it simply me not being compatible with high let off bows, who knows?

Now to contradict everything I said above... I'm currently shooting a PSE Dominator Max at 45# with a 75% let off ME cam...Hmmm, I'm shooting it pretty good right now. Of course this may be due to my changing just about everything about my shot process since October. I am no longer fighting the "static" hand, "cheating the hinge" crap that has been the popular "guru" pitch around here since very early on. So maybe it wasn't the hinge, or the let off, maybe it was just a shot engine that didn't like high let off?


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## bgviii (Feb 16, 2010)

I did notice locally that all the 60x shooters with a hinge are shooting the lower let off. I wondered if there was a connection however, I definitely don't need more to worry about with my new shot. I like the simplicity of just pulling and aiming and thanks to Padgett I'm really starting to disconnect my mind with execution. So everyone seems to think that a lower let off might actually aid in this type of shooting without a increased conscious effort in pulling against the bow? I'm just breaking into the 300 50x range with my new (lefty) shot and don't want to go backwards ha ha.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I watched my buddy Sam pull a new hoyt pro edge elite out of a box last year on thursday and then sight it in on friday and win known 50 with it on sat and sunday. He then got rid of it and shot his spirals the rest of the season because it didn't have spirals. The funny thing was that the fact that it didn't have sprials didn't seem to cause him to lose because he totally smoked the course but to me the hoyt guys either see spiral printed on the cam or they won't shoot it. I noticed the new hoyt cams this year even have the word spiral even more bright and easy to read on the cams.

The main difference between a no valley shooter and a big valley shooter is no valley shooters use more back tension preload into the wall to keep from creeping because the cams will jerk the release out of their hand if they creep at all. I think those guys do this so much it becomes second nature to them and basically their style of shooting. With my specialist this winter I shortened the draw length a little in january and started working on preloading the system with some back tension and I really like the feeling compared to just sitting against the wall and just touching it. My float seems to be smaller and really solid and firing my hinge seems to be alittle different feeling but smooth so it is something that I may continue doing.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

If you are using one of Padgett's firing engines it probably doesn't matter. If you were using a PBT firing engine with little or no hand manipulation, the lower let off would probably be best.


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## Pete53 (Dec 5, 2011)

myself i perfer low letoff bow, i shoot a hoyt vantage with spirals with it set at 55% letoff.i shoot high letoff bows ok but have notice X count is better for me with low letoff.i shoot a hinge release always for target.when hunting i like a bow with higher letoff 75% but then i use a wrist strap index finger release or as some of us call it a punchmatic. good luck,Pete53


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## WhitBri (Jan 30, 2007)

I don't know it let off really affects my hinge shooting but it does affect my shooting overall. I shoot a hinge for everything including hunting so 65% - 80% letoff. Hinge seems to fire the same regardless. I will say I hold better with my target rig at 65%, is it the letoff, geometry of the bow, long stabilizers, who really knows. I think it depends on your style of shooting a hinge some. But I think the reason you see more target bows with lower letoff is for holding weight to steady the sight picture. More holding weight allows for a heavier rig so more stabilizer weight which equates to steadier hold. I also believe hold affects everything including your shot execution. 
You said you were at the 300 50x ability right now. I believe once you get to that level the more you see everything is interrelated and all leads back to shot execution. Just my .02


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Maybe something else...We've got some football size archery boys where 70 pounds feels like drawing a rubber band for us. So 65% let off is easy for them. Some of the Indoor boys have bows in the 40 to 50 pound realm so 65% let off is easy for them.

All my Hoyts were 75% let off and I didn't have issues when using a hinge. Same with my limb stop bows set to 80% let off, no problems that I'm aware of, but these are rock hard, hard walls, no give whatsoever.


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## bgviii (Feb 16, 2010)

I am not using one of his engines, and I am using PBT and feeling incredibly free. I just run a process from grip to follow through and I've worked hard to NOT think "pull with the 3rd finger" etc. I don't want to fight tension of the bow so that's why I was curious about the let off. I like my elite a lot but I've always been a Hoyt guy.


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## Rick! (Aug 10, 2008)

I like low letoff for better hold, not so much for hinge execution; about 19-20lbs with spirals on my target bow and my DNA hunting rig. I have no problems with creep or some of the other maladies associated with minimal valleys. I think that might be related how each person is set up at full draw or maybe a particular cam design. I can also shoot my wife's bow at 6lb holding weight but that needs finger diddling to fire my hinge (unless I use the dua lam pa 1" dl stretch technique


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## Ned250 (Aug 10, 2009)

Rick! said:


> unless I use the dua lam pa 1" dl stretch technique





I'm one of the rare ones, I guess, that prefers higher letoff. I'm shooting 70% mods on my OK and its much easier to shoot than it is with the 60% mods. I can execute the hinge just fine with both, but I'm way more comfortable with the higher letoff.


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## ArcherXXX300 (Apr 22, 2013)

I'll chime in I shot a bunch of bows with a hinge. PSE Dominator, E35's, Alpha Elite, Pro Edge Elite, Podium X Elite 40, Pro Comp Elite, Mathews C4, Phenom, my Carbon Spyder Turbo, CRX 32.

I can honestly say that the shot with the lower letoff bows that have more valley is a much easier shot to simply relax through just aim and continue to apply moderate pressure to the back wall while relaxing until the shot breaks.

The Spirals have made me into a very aggressive shooter, if I try to shoot the same shot I'd shoot with the Pro Edge Elite, that I timed 1 hole short and ran the FACTORY peg/also tried with a spiral X peg on to increase the holding weight it still feels nothing like spirals.

Holding weight is a very personal thing, I couldn't deal with the E35 with max let off, I had to go up in draw length mod sizes to get the holding weight I wanted out of the bow, the E35 terrified me to let down with max let off, thought I'd derail or have the release go off easily.


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## Lazarus (Sep 19, 2005)

How a hinge fires is pretty much a mental thing. What you have been told repeatedly you will believe unless you have proof otherwise. That kind of holds true to the letoff/hinge question. We have been told for years that to execute a hinge properly you need high hold weight. 

It's my observation that how fast/easy you get your hinge to go off has a lot more to do with attitude and execution than hold weight. However, personally I like a higher hold weight, but it has nothing to do with getting my hinge to go off. It's more about a crisp (not sloppy) hold. .02


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## Mahly (Dec 18, 2002)

I agree with that.
I have been playing with moving my let off peg from 80-70%
at 80%, the draw length is right, but the holding weight is so low, I don't need to maintain much tension to hold the bow.
at 70% The draw length is too short, and I get a very nervous hold, but I produce a stronger shot.
Either way, the hinge goes off quite easily...I suppose the 80% takes such a light effort to fire, I actually "stop" (bad) my engine if I don't concentrate on keeping the tension up against the stops to increase the holding weight.
Next step for me is different DL mods so I can run the lower let off and keep my DL.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I really liked that post by lazarus, it was a good one. I read it twice.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

most of the difficulty in getting a hinge to go off is developed from excessive load against the stops, which dynamically negates our attempts to produce the rotation needed. ideally, you should get on the stops and just meet them with enough pull, to ensure no creep. more than that is just not necessary and is in fact, detrimental to consistent rotation and follow through.


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## jim p (Oct 29, 2003)

You can take a bow that has a holding weight of 5 lbs and pull into the wall until you are holding 20 lbs. You can decide how hard you want to pull into the wall. You will never know how much holding weight you have unless you creep.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

well, not necessarily creep, but just stay at the stops, instead of pulling hard into them. the bow doesn't shoot any different whether you are trying to pull the stops off the bow, or just sitting on the stops. the only difference is perceived difficulty in producing rotation because of the increased sear pressure that you induce by trying to pull the bow apart against the stops. 
that said, it really doesn't make any difference which way you do it,....either pulling into the stops hard, or just sitting on them,.....other than the difficulty in producing rotation and the resultant fatigue that being hard into the stops produces.
that is....IF....the bow is properly creep tuned.
essentially, if a bow produces 20 lbs. of holding weight, there's no reason to increase it more than the few lbs. it takes to ensure you don't creep. the closer you can run your execution to the holding weight of the bow, the easier it will be to shoot physically.

so bottom line is,.... that creep tuning makes the bow relatively insensitive to variations in pull against the wall.......which is just one more aspect of a nicely "forgiving" bow,.... which also happens to be, by definition, "a well tuned bow".
I have always considered "creep tuning" one of the fundamentally required processes in tuning a bow. with out it, there is no proof that you have the cams timed not necessarily "exactly" but "correctly" for the condition of your shot execution.


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## Lazarus (Sep 19, 2005)

ron w said:


> the bow doesn't shoot any different whether you are trying to pull the stops off the bow, or just sitting on the stops.


This is incorrect information. The bow does by all means shoot differently if you are sitting on the stops vs. trying to pull the stops off. That's another reason that it's a bad idea to try to increase hold weight *significantly* by pulling into the stops to get your hinge to fire more easily. (Topic)


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## unclejane (Jul 22, 2012)

I don't shoot a hinge anymore, but when I did I didn't really find holding weight to make much difference in terms of making it go off. I will say that a higher holding weight tends to penalize me a little less when I make a mistake. That's probably more true with a finger release, but even with a release aid, the more weight ripping the string away, the less the penalty there is if I goof up a little bit on the back end.

LS


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## unclejane (Jul 22, 2012)

Lazarus said:


> This is incorrect information. The bow does by all means shoot differently if you are sitting on the stops vs. trying to pull the stops off. That's another reason that it's a bad idea to try to increase hold weight *significantly* by pulling into the stops to get your hinge to fire more easily. (Topic)


Disagree; ron is correct and this is not. The bow *should *shoot the same or very close to it in both situations. If it doesn't, at least to a degree that it really affects your shot, you have a tuning problem. That's what a creep tune is for.

LS


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

eliminating what makes a bow shoot differently in the two(or varying) conditions mentioned, is precisely and exactly functionally why creep tuning is necessary. when a bow is creep tuned well, it does not shoot differently pulled hard into the stops or not pulled hard into the stops. the functional process of creep tuning is done to eliminate that specific sensitivity to the two (or varying) conditions of pull, so that the bow shoots the same in either condition of being on the stops. if the bow shoots differently in the varying conditions, it is not creep tuned.
the whole intent of creep tuning, is to desensitize the bow to varying amounts of tension against the stops.


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