Hi, I'm a bit late to this thread but I'll respond. I shoot a Dryad Orion, it has the 19" riser and and I have two sets of limbs, both ASC static recurve. 1st set are "long" and make a 64" bow, they are marked 45 lb but by my measurements 42.5 lb at 28", about 46 lb at my 30" draw. The second set are "medium" limbs and make a 62" bow, they are marked 50 lb but I think are more like 48 lb at 28" and are about 52 lb at my 30" draw. The actual string length is 2" shorter than the listed length, so for me these bows run a bit 'long', e.g. my 64" bow, when braced, is about the same length as my 66" Wes Wallace 'Mentor'. So just figure they run a bit long.
The bow is probably the noisiest recurve I've ever owned. Now, I think part of that is due to it being a high-performance bow, but part of it is I think the peculiar dynamics of the bow - I've come to the conclusion that the bow sounds 'loud' to the shooter, louder than it really is. The reason I say this is, I complain how loud it is, but people standing next to me says "...it just sounds like a regular recurve bow." When I hand the bow off to someone else to shoot, it doesn't sound nearly as loud as when I shoot it. Other people who shoot Dryads with ACS have noticed this as well, so I don't think I'm dreaming it.
As far as 'performance', i've done careful shooting over both a chronograph and my LabRadar, and I've come to the conclusion that yes, this is a very, very fast bow for a recurve. Compared to a 'classic' recurve like a Redwing Hunter or Super Kodiak or similar, with dacron string, YES, you can drop 8 lb and maintain the same cast, just as advertised. Compare it to my Wes Wallace with a FF string, the ACS limbs still beat it, but by a smaller margin. It's a very fast bow, the fastest I've ever owned. This is further demonstrated by the arrows I need to tune to the bow - I shoot arrows that are much stiffer than you'd expect considering the peak draw weight. Granted, the riser is cut way past center....
As far as 'smoothness', this is easily the smoothest bow I've ever drawn. By 'smooth', I mean the gain in weight per inch drawn is fairly low, something like 2 lb per inch, most of my recurves gain at least 2.5 lb between 28" and 30" and many gain 3 lb per inch. Now, this makes sense... a flat draw curve just means the area under the force-draw curve is larger, hence the faster arrow (the math makes sense).
I do kind of think the high-performance limbs do come at a cost - I think this bow is somewhat sensitive to poor release. This may, or may not be a problem for you.
Overall, the bow is well-made, good craftsmanship. It's not a blacktail to be sure, it has more of a utilitarian look and finish, but that's ok with me because I bought it to use and hunt with.
The grip shape is ok - I have the 'standard' or medium grip. I like the grip on my Wes Wallace much better. If I could do it again, I would have sent them one of my Mentors and had them replicate that grip on the Dryad, assuming that's something they were willing to do. Of course, grip shape is largely a subjective thing, you might love their standard grip (I'm sure many do).
One last thing - Mike suggested that with my 30" draw that a 64" bow would work best. Personally, I can't say the 62" configuration works better or worse than the 64" configuration, both work about the same for me.
Over all, I'm pretty happy with the bow, it's a solid shooter, albeit a bit noisy, but it really hammers those arrows down range, a very efficient bow, amazing really. If you want to shoot at an elk with a 45 lb bow, I think this is the one....
Topic: Dryas Orion (Read 996 times)
