I have both a Morningstar and Northstar, and I slightly prefer the Morningstar. To me, the Morningstar has a more consistent feel to the draw; with the slightly reflexed limbs, there's more weight at the beginning of the draw, and it builds smoothly and consistently throughout the draw.
To me, the string follow bow has too little weight in the beginning of the draw, and builds at a higher rate throughout the draw (it has to, since its draw starts out with less weight than the Morningstar). Because of this, to me the string follow bow gives the sensation of stacking at/near the end of the draw (even though it's not really stacking in the sense of hitting a wall).
That being said, I spoke with James Berry just the other day, and he said that the Northstar that I've got (just picked it up used from another tradganger) was built in November 2013, and the ones he's currently building have less string follow than mine (mine has more than 1" of string follow).
Could be my imagination, but although both bows are very quiet, the Northstar does seem slightly quieter and seems to have a slightly softer "shot feel". My Morningstar is just a few pounds lighter than the Northstar, but it seems just as fast or even faster than the Northstar. I haven't had much time with the Northstar yet, but I seem to shoot them both with similar accuracy.
I believe one of the supposed benefits of string-follow bows is that they are believed to be more accurate than reflexed (backset) or straight-limbed ASLs (all other things being equal, of course), but the reverse-handle design of these bows seems to have more influence on the accuracy than whether the limbs are backset or string-follow.
I don't mean to speak for James, but from our conversation it seemed to me that his personal preference is for the Morningstar. I feel the same, but both are very nice bows.
Topic: JD Berry Moring Star vs North Star ... Any opinions? (Read 596 times)
