Just received my new Vixen longnow from James Berry. Wow, what a bow! Of course anyone that knows James already knows what a craftsman he is. This bow is more than I expected. Bubinga (sp) with bamboo limbs under zebrawood laminated. The bow is superbly balanced and the grip just fits my hand perfectly. 51# @ 27.5".... I draw 27 and shoot 29 inch arrows. This bow absolutely fits me, my hand perfectly.
Didn't have any arrows made up for this bow yet but I couldn't wait so I strung her up grabbed a handful of bare shafts and started shooting.
This bow just shoots an arrow where I look. Shot it about 40 times to set the fast flight stretch, unstrung it and set the brace height to 6 3/4 inches and nock at 1/2 and started tuning. Noch high...moved bock down... continued until I was getting great flight... checked the nock it wound up at 1/4 inch so my shaft is almost parallel! I usually have to have it at 3/8''. Then I started experimenting with bare arrows shaft started with 35/55 gold tips and they flew great just a little weak with the FOC I want to shoot. Grabbed some 55/75 and bareshafted them.... perfect. Then I grabbed some old 55/75 golf tip arrows Fletcher with three 5'' feathers that I normally shoot out of my 70 pound recurves.... perfect! THEN I DECIDED TO GRAB SOME 2018 ALUMINUM AND SOME HEAVY ASH 70/75 SHAFTS.... ALL FLEW GREAT. It took me about 5 minutes to get the bow zipping arrows perfectly and exactly where I am looking..... tuning was easy.
This bow stores a lot of energy and likes heavy spine. Anyways I started shooting at 17 yards and was able to keep 80% of my shots in 3 inch groups! Now for me that is just awesome. Then I got a little confident and set up a dime... first shot 17 yards dead centered it!
Over the years I have shot a lot of bows but I have never had one shoot such a variety of spines and point weight this good. The bow is dead quiet and no vibration... and I haven't even put any string silencers on it.
Anyone looking for a very well made hunting weapon should give the J.D. Berry Vixen a hard look.... yes you can spend a lot more and opt for some carbon laminated wonder bow.... but I doubt you'd find one any easier to tune and certainly no better at placing a hunting weight arrow exactly where it needs to be
I am extremely well please.... great bow!
Will post pics soon.