Doug Burns is back in town and brought his Safari Shrew home from Colorado so I could test it. We met for several hours today so I could shoot it along side my Buffalo Bow to compare the two.
I only had my phone camera along, so I didn't take many pictures. Ron took nice ones, so everyone has already seen that the Shrew Safari looks great. In fact, it is the best looking Shrew I have ever seen, and I have seen many of them!
I shot a few arrows from a couple of my lighter poundage Shrews to warm up, then shot my first arrow from the Safari at about 15 yards away from the target. Here is where it hit.
Ignore the other holes that were made by those wheelie bow shooters with the tiny little light arrows. :rolleyes:
You can see the Safari was shooting well. Almost all of them ended up in the white area of the center two rings. In fact, it was rare that any of my shots were more than two or three inches apart, with most being centered at or just left of the middle of the bulls-eye. I had almost 20 guys come up during the several hour shooting session and tell me that the Safari was the best and coolest looking bow they had ever seen. Some of them used to shoot trad bows, but most of them shot compounds now. Several told me they would like to get a bow like the Safari. Besides commenting on how great the Safari looked, the other statements that always seemed to come from the guys who watched us shoot were how incredibly quiet the Safari was and how accurately it shot for a trad bow with no sights. The comments on the quiet shooting were particularly significant since the Safari bow had absolutely no silencers on it at all and had carbon and other modern materials in the limbs. It was easily as quiet, and I think even quieter, than the Buffalo Bow that was equipped with Cat Whisker string silencers and is one of the quietest bows I own. I cannot imagine how silent the Safari will be when it gets a set of Cat Whiskers, but it will be scary quiet!
As to the accuracy, there are several factors that really helped. One is that I have basically not shot my bows since returning from Oz because of the extreme heat we have had. As a result, my muscles are very fresh and were in good shape from getting prepared for the buffalo hunt. I warmed up well with the lighter bows before shooting the heavier ones, so everything was good on my body to shoot my best. Second, the Safari is incredibly smooth in the draw. The thinner (belly to back) profile of the limbs and the higher modulus materials that allow the limbs to be thinner also seem to allow it to flex very evenly throughout the draw and to rebound (unload) very smoothly upon release. Of course, the bow design is outstanding and is the most important factor, but that design is common to both bows. Third, the vibration of the bow (including "hand shock") is not particularly noticeable, so the bow is easy to keep still during the shot sequence. Fourth, the higher draw weight really helps to produce a nice release, plus the draw weight, for some reason, simply does not feel as heavy as it actually is. I attribute that feel to a very substantial preload and a smooth, progressive, non-stacking draw. Even the wheelie guys who did not think they could draw a trad bow that was around 70 pounds found it much easier to draw than they expected. The good release was aided by my use of a Bateman cordovan tab that works very well with any bow, and especially one as heavy as the Safari. Fifth, the Safari is among the heaviest in mass of any of the Shrews at around 29 ounces, so it has additional heft to stabilize it in the archer's hands, but it is still relatively light compared to typical three piece bows. The lighter weight is especially important when a bow quiver and four or five very heavy arrows are added to the total. Carrying a bow for 10 plus miles a day can become tiring, as Doug can tell you after carrying the Brackenbury with a bow quiver and arrows for days on end.
There are definitely faster bows on the market. A forward, highly deflexed riser that has its limbs set back to accommodate long draw lengths on a fairly short AMO bow is, by virtue of that design, going to be slower than a straighter, lower angle limb pad bow. But the forward, deflexed riser is also more stable, and the Shrews, with their marvelously shaped grip and thumbrest, and their swept limbs that have the grace of a bird in flight, point as well as any bow made and feel wonderful in the shooter's hand. It is the rare archer who does not fall in love with the feel of the Shrew grip once he has held and shot the bow. Then there is the long, stack-free draw that is great for everyone, and especially for the tall, long-armed guys who draw their bows to 30 inches and beyond. The feel and "shoot-ability" of the Shrews more than make up for the compromise in speed that accompanies their well appreciated design. From the fastest bows that may be a few feet per second quicker, to slower bows that could give up a like degree of speed, the Shrews are somewhere in the middle, and certainly are not slouches, even if they are not the speed kings. I certainly like all the velocity I can get, but I will gladly give up a little for the other qualities I found in the Shrew Safari (as well as in the rest of the Shrew line).
Some people would give up just about any other shooting characteristics in a bow in order to have it super quiet, and I surely can't blame them. Fortunately, with the Shrew Safari, that is not necessary. There may be some other design tradeoffs, but silent shooting is not one of them. Nor is beauty, stability, smoothness, light weight, short length, or long, stack-free draws. Those are the reasons I like Shrews so well, and the Shrew Safari is the prettiest, smoothest, quietest and most stable Shrew I have ever shot.
Allan
Topic: Shrew Safari is here (Read 2661 times)
