New A&H Performance Results

[Precurve]

Recently received an ACS CX from A&H after having been on OL's standby list for almost two years.  The limbs are 64", marked 61lb @ 28", the riser is a very beautiful, heavy grained dark Cocobolo.  I pull it to 30-1/2", and it scales 67 at this draw length.  A camo wrapped 55/75 GT with a 200 grain head and a 100 grain brass insert gives great bareshaft results out to 30 yards.  Cut to 31" bop these weigh in at 600 grains with a 4-fletch.  There was a local indoor 3-d traditional shoot this weekend so thought I'd try it out.  While I shot it well, it was embarrassing as I needed help getting the arrows out of the targets on almost every round.  The bow was almost too hot as I had trouble tracking the arrows on anything under 20 yards.  Curious as to how fast it was, I stopped at our local archery shop on the way home to shoot through their chrono.  Shooting fingers here are my 6 shots:  208, 211, 212, 211, 212, 210.  Speed aside, this is the best mannered bow I've ever shot; buttery smooth and with a pair of catwhiskers cut into 4 pieces, almost silent.  The last compound I shot was in 1990 and it wasn't this fast.

[Lefty]

Love those ACS CX's!!  I am most surprised that you got a 55/75 to shoot with that much weight up front amd that much poundage.  I had to go to a 350 to get a shaft stiff enough for my heavier limbs.  You should be able to shoot through about anything with that!  Enjoy!

[Bjorn]

You can't talk about it if you don't show us a pic. Rules are rules!

[kawika b]

what Bjorn said  

[Precurve]

I'll get my son to help me put some pics on here later today.

Lefty;  One of the things I do to all my bows as soon as I get them is to lift up the rug and side plate and glue down a 1" piece of leather boot string that I've cut in half length-ways.  I put this in a L shape just above the deepest part of the grip.  I believe this gives me a more forgiving bow and a cleaner release.  Building out the side plate like that also reduces the spine requirements of the shaft.

Dave

[Mr.Chuck]

You must of had a real slow compound, or you were shooting a real low draw weight!  LOL  

[Precurve]

I still have the compound, although I haven't shot it in years.  It's a 70lb Peason Grey Ghost.  I always shot heavy arrows with fingers out of it..31" 2219's with a 160 grain broadhead.  I just weighed one of them at 625 grains.  Most of the compound shooters now boasting the high speeds are shooting a release and arrows in the 350 to 450 grain range.  Now you've got me thinking (oh oh)  I'm going to get one of my buddies to shoot my arrows out of his 65lb Mathews and see what he gets.  I know he said he's getting 266 with his CE200's which he said weigh just under 400.  Curious what it shoots with traditional weight gear.

[kawika b]

I'd guess somewhere between 170-200.

[ROB TAYLOR]

Wow, I never got anything close to those speeds with mine at 9ish GPP and 29 1/2" AMO draw...especially with four silencers on the string!!  Is your stated draw AMO or the "true draw" so many of us trad types are fond of quoting?  If it's true draw, those speeds would check better with my experience (that'd be 33 1/4" AMO draw).  

At any rate, you're doing darn well to get performance like that...don't ever sell that one!!

-Rob

[kawika b]

"Cut to 31" bop"

Unless there's a overdraw built into it I think it's safe to say 30 1/2" AMO Rob.

[ROB TAYLOR]

Well, not really...I shoot 29 1/2 AMO, with arrows cut to 29" and have plenty left out front...remember that AMO is deepest part of the grip PLUS 1 3/4".  

But yeah...I'd probably agree in this case...

And especially if that is the case...he should NEVER sell it, it is an exceptional bow...or a bad chrono.  Remember that Mullaney's test is 30" AMO (or ATA as they call it now), 9GPP, 60# corrected draw weight.  His results, with a shooting machine and NOTHING on the string was 210 point something.   So this would be an outstanding specimen shot with fingers (usually minus at least 10 fps), catwhiskers (take a few more fps off), and drawn only 1/2" further.  

Just an observation.  Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great bow, kinda an arm slapper due to the grip design, but a great all around bow.  Just not for me, really....so I sold it.

-Rob

[Gordon martiniuk]

A&H makes some of the fastest trad bows but a slow coumpound will still be faster than the fastest trad bow this is just the way it is if you were looking for the fastest bow buy a coumpound if not just enjoy your A&h BOW AS THEY are fine Bows some say the Best  

[ROB TAYLOR]

Too late, Gord...sold it.    

And you can keep the "get a compound" stuff to yourself, thanks anyway.

But you're right...they're a great bow.  I just don't want one anymore.

-Rob

[Precurve]

Gordon; I'm sure my buddy's 65lb Mathews will still be much faster, I'm curious though as to how far the ACS has closed the gap, given both bows are shooting the same weight arrow.  This is just for discussion anyway; for me speed is number 3 on the most important features of a bow after Quiet and Shootability.

Rob; Yes you're right this isn't a controlled test like Norm's, only an observation.  The chrono could be off I suppose, and the scale too for that matter.  I think penalizing 10fps for fingers is a bit much.  I looked back on a number of Blacky's bow reviews in TBM and found the difference in speed is usually 4fps with no test being greater than 5.  That 67lb (or 68 or 69) string comes off my fingers pretty easy so I'm going to say the difference is under 5. I tie the half sections of cat whisker off parallel to the string with some waxed serving thread, and keep them tight to the limb tips (5" + 3" for the other half) so they don't travel far.  This works great for silencing the bow but doesn't seem to change speed much.  That your model was an arm slapper really surprises me.  There doesn't seem to be that much play in those ridgid ACS limbs to account for this.  It took me longer than usual to tune this bow and even when I was playing with the brace height down around 6-1/4" it didn't hit my arm.  Maybe it was the way you were holding the bow.  I always shoot my bows with the deepest part of the riser under my second thumb joint, so I get pretty good string clearance from my bow arm.  I've seen many shooters get that riser down into the deep web of their hand and I've always thought this gave a greater tendency to torque the bow.  My ACS has a leather grip and measures exactly 1-3/4" from the deepest part of the grip to the back of the riser, so I believe my draw is 30-1/2" AMO.  All in all I'm shooting 7lbs more than Norb's test model plus an extra 1/2" of draw, and at 600gr I'm just a little shy of 9gr/lb.  Given that, I believe my results are close enough to Norm's to be considered normal for this bow.

Dave

[James Wrenn]

If you can hit anything with it I would do like Rob says and hold on to that one because you are not going to upgrade. ;)The average speed on todays compounds is 320 IBO which is about 230 AMO so you are not far behind.  

[jon]

Precurve,

That is a very fast ACS. I'm sure that your long draw really helps. What I wouldn't give for a 30" draw:)
The thing I noticed about my ACS is that it is even better with heavy grain per pound arrows. My 45@28" limbs are just a couple of FPS faster than my 52 pound recurve with arrows around 9gpp. However, when you get to 13-14gpp is where the limbs really shine. Over many shots, I'm getting 163-166FPS with a 645gr arrow. I'm drawing 27.5 inches with woolie puffs on a 12 strand endless loop string shot with a tab. The 52 pound recurve will shoot the same arrow 156-158FPS. With performance like this, I think the recurve might get lonely this fall:) Good hunting.

[ROB TAYLOR]

Yeah, you might be a little closer on the loss of speed due to finger release than I was.

There's an explanation for why the ACS grip induces string slap, but I don't remember the physics right now.  Same reason that a few other designs do, too.

Could be my grip, but I doubt it...based on shooting literally dozens of other designs without trouble.  But could be.

[Precurve]

Jim;  The bow's pretty forgiving.  Not quite as much as my old Jim Brackenbury Legend with it's 2" wide limbs, but right there with the 50's style Ancient Spirits I've been shooting for the last couple of years.  One thing I don't like on this bow is the ultra short sight window.  They don't really talk about it on their website, and it's hard to notice until you're holding one, but the sight window can't be more than 1-3/4 to 2".  I've never shot a bow with that short of an opening before.  My recurves are all 4-1/2 to 5".  I just started shooting it full time and maybe I'll get used to it, but for now it blocks my vision from the right eye on some shots and I don't like to have to think of canting the bow more to be able to see past it.  Other than that it shoots fine.

Dave

[swampbuck]

LOL some guys are funny.I've got a pair of the old Bear whitetails with the criss cross cables and I put my money on the ACS in the speed department

Their nice bows congrads!!I'm about done waiting(over 5 yrs now) kinda BS if ya ask me it's just a stick,granted a nice stick but still.....

Congrads again enjoy your new toy

[swampbuck]

I'd like to point out that my wait was had nothing to do with the fine folks at A&H they have been very good folks to deal with and do get back to ya when ya talk to them,Their wait(A&H) has NOTHING to do with mine.

Sorry of there may have been any confusion the folks at A&H are good to deal with and there's no way folks will hafta wait as long as I have.

I had the pleasure of tring the new 16" riser this past weekend and she was a very nice shooter