How quiet is quiet?

[Karebru]

A newbie's questions that may be hard to answer.
With all the tuning, silencers and such, at what point are you (should I be) satisfied? I'm playing around with brace height... Hush Puppies turned the twang to a "thunk"... Is it a loud thunk, or a soft thunk? How do you tell? I'm not asking what bow, string, silencers, etc. are the quietest. That debate could go on forever.
Just... How quiet is quiet?

[Rob DiStefano]

answering your question is like trying to describe a color.

you'll know when yer bow's as quiet as it can be without sacrificing much in performance.

[Covey]

If your comfortable with the sound of it... shoot it! Get somebody to stand beside ya, and see what they think. I just get mine where it sounds good to me, and go with it! JMHO! Jason

[DEAN]

A TREADWAY BLACK SWAMP with the brace set @ 8 inches shooting a 5575 gold tip!!NEVER KNOW IT WENT OFF

[PEARL DRUMS]

I think all my bows are loud, unitl I let somebody else shoot them and cant hear a thing. Being in the drivers seat seems louder to my ears, always has.

[Bowwild]

Yep, this sound thing is tough to evaluate. Different bows have different sounds.  I'm wondering if a video camera set up and then shooting a few of my bows my be enlightening. We always think of the pictures on the video helping with form. Should help evaluate what it's like from a non-shooter's perspective hearing the bow?

[neargeezer]

I'll try any little gadget to make my bows quieter, but my shooting form makes the biggest differance for a quiet bow. If my quiet bow is louder today, I need to pay attention to the basics of my shot. Some bows are more touchy about form and will "scold" you until you shoot them with good form. When the tension is in the back and not in the hands and arms, even my danged recurves shoot with just a small thump.

[Bill Carlsen]

The real test is a missed shot at a deer or bear. I have had killed a number of deer with my second shot after missing with the first. However, what I do is bare shaft tune my equipment and get it as quiet as I can without any silencers installed. Then I use Bow Hush and Hush puppy type of silencers and have had my best results. Since I have used this type of set up I have not had a deer run off more than 10 or 20 yards at the miss and if the food source they were feeding on is nearby a second shot is almost always in order. Clothing noise in hunting situations are another consideration. Wool and fleece are hard to beat if you need to get a second arrow out of a quiver.

[xtrema312]

I work with them to get them as quiet as possible.  I then compare to one of my known real quiet bows to see how I am doing.  In the end I like to have someone else shoot my bow while I stand around the area.  That tells me the most.  I think vibration through your body from the bow and sound that reflects off the limbs makes bows sound louder to the shooter than they are to the people around or game out front.  The best example of this to me was last summer at a shoot.  I was shooting a light arrow and had very little on a new string  for silencers  on my LB.  It was sounding a little louder than normal to me.  I had about 20 people comment on how whisper quiet my bow was.  It didn’t sound all that quiet to me, but obviously it was to anyone not holding the bow.  So for hunting I didn’t bother with anything more for quieting the bow and just shot my heavier arrows without worrying about bow nose.

[tak2]

Everyone will have a different feeling on this, my two cents. Have someone  shoot your setup, and listen to it. Arrow weight has the greatest effect on my bows.

[awishanew]

Another part of the quietness thing is your clothing. Try to get in a very quiet place and have someone with young ears listen to you pull the bow to full draw. I found my arrow was playing a tune as it was drawn and my whisper fleece jacket gave a rustling noise and both alerted deer at close range. Now wool all the way.

[Eugene Slagle]

Originally posted by PEARL DRUMS:
I think all my bows are loud, unitl I let somebody else shoot them and cant hear a thing. Being in the drivers seat seems louder to my ears, always has.

Exactly, I used to be so anal with my search of that sound of silence till a friend shot my bow, Some of my friends hate that I can still hear stuff they can not.
I now will take a video of me shooting to let me hear the sound that I think a Deer will hear.

[amar911]

One of the sources of noise is your arrow, often a more disturbing sound than the bow. Try getting down range in a safe spot where the shooter can't hit you with an arrow, and have him shoot at a target that is near you (or put a good sound recorder near the target). You will be amazed at how much noise you hear from most oncoming sub-sonic arrows as their sound will get to you well before the arrows arrive. Deer and other animals can hear the arrow coming and try to get out of its way. Quiet fletching could be as important as a quiet bow, or even more so. Here are a couple of YouTube videos that let you hear the arrows in flight. Not the best recordings, as you can tell when the guy is speaking and you can barely hear him, but it will give you a better idea of the noise I am talking about. You can hear the arrows better in the parts where the video is played at half speed and best where the video is played at quarter speed.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZvjYS646y4&feature=related        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kv4OO5KUFE&feature=related  

Allan

[Burnsie]

I have pretty good ears and tend to go a little overboard when trying to silence my bow.  Others look at me like "what you talking about, that's super quiet" but I think it sounds like a bomb going off.  Usually if I stand back and let them shoot it I realize it is actually pretty good.

[HATCHCHASER]

Shoot a toelke super d or whip or a Mohawk and compare to that.

[Huntschool]

I have had the same experience.  I am franticly trying to quiet a bow...  Then someone says, Damn, thats quiet....

Now, I just have my wife stand around and tell me.  She hunts so its not like she is just guessing...  She can also hear better than me...

[Karebru]

answering your question is like trying to describe a color.

I know, but I had to ask.    
 
 

Originally posted by PEARL DRUMS:
I think all my bows are loud, unitl I let somebody else shoot them and cant hear a thing. Being in the drivers seat seems louder to my ears, always has.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exactly, I used to be so anal with my search of that sound of silence till a friend shot my bow, Some of my friends hate that I can still hear stuff they can not.
I now will take a video of me shooting to let me hear the sound that I think a Deer will hear.

Kinda what I was thinking... When you're holding the bow, you feel vibrations that you think are sound. That close to the string, you probably even  feel  them in the air.
My bows are left handed, so I'll have to be doing the shooting. and I'll get someone with better than my half-deaf ears to stand back and listen... I'll also look into arrow weight.
At the clinic, Rod Jenkins pointed out the affect of form on bow sound... Always something to work on there!
Interesting videos, Allen.
Thanks, All!
And Happy New Year.  

How important is a quiet bow, October 27 1999

It was the last 5 minutes of a 7 day hunt in Iowa
November 27 1999 -- 10:25 AM  a full moon week---
After a week of passing up some nice bucks--
this was it--
Suddenly I herd something coming, sounded like someone walking, then there he was the buck of a life time. If he goes straight up the hill, I will have no shot, if he makes a left, he will come right under my tree.Down the old tractor path
Here he comes, walking with the big buck gate, tired from a night of having fun.
I can't wait,he is point blank, I miss, my arrow goes under his belly.
He continues to walk never hearing the shot, I pull out another arrow from my old 65#  Jerry Pierce bow,
as I pull the arrow from my old quiver--it makes a little squeek,  he looks up-- I am frozen in time,what seems like minutes pass--  the game is up,he takes a giant leap,  I knock another arrow, looking for an opening where I never expected to shoot,through a crotch of the tree I was in-- there he is walking away,
IN an instant the arrow is gone--
At the end of the trail lies a 194" not typical
with only a 14" inside spread - but 22" to the outside-- he is a deer of a life time of hunting--having taken about 40 years to accomplish-- what's a quiet bow worth --
you deside--- the score on this deer isn't important-- he has never been entered in the record books-- it was the moment as deer hunters we all pray for--- Thanks Jerry---

[Bjorn]

The quieter the better just an inaudible little 'pffttt'-like passing wind at the dinner table!          

[Bowwild]

Bjorn,
Either my wife has a prescient nose or I'm making a pre-emptive face -- she knows when I'm about to make that sound before I do.