The more I shoot this bow, the more I love it. I have shot many of the top custom brands and not a whole lot of them are memorable in traits like speed, dead in the hand feel, quiet and smooth. I've yet to install sting silencers of any kind, but the loudest part of the shot is still when I nock an arrow. The only downfall is I have been shooting a 58# bow regularly, so I can't shoot #65 with proper form for as long, yet. There is a forum on trad gang that addresses the serial number. It indicates the number of bow that you have in chronological production order of that series. That makes sense to me because I have a three digit serial number, indicating that my bow is older, probably from the mid to late 90's.