Well my JD Berry Vixen came today! There's two parts to this story, the bow, and the man. I'll start first with the man. I don't want to cover old ground so if you want to catch up to speed you can see my previous posts about how the bow came to be. I just want to take a quick second and recognize Brianlocal3. While there are numerous great folks here on tradgang, Brian I can speak about personally. He sold this bow to me at what I can imagine to be considerable loss both fiscally and emotionally. There is no secret that Brian loves Berry bows, but his enthusiasm and friendliness over the past few days has been inspiring to say the least. We have communicated considerably, not only about the specific bow i question but about other bows, shooting methods, and a host of other archery topics and I honestly feel like I have known him for quite a long time! Again, no doubt many others here are cut of the same cloth, but brian is the first I have ever known personally who has offered so much help to me simply out of his love of archery, and JD Berry hill bows of course! Haha. Now, onto the bow..
So, as some know I started with recurves, then found R/D longbows, and always was afraid of the HH style bows. Dunno, just seemed like something the "old timey masters" used and was beyond my ability. But when she arrived today it wasn't intimidation that I felt holding her the first time, more like excitement. I wish I could tell you "I strung her up and we were hitting where we were lookin'", but alas she didn't give up the prize so easy. First, the push pull method was a learning curve. Whew! But I got the hang of it. Luckily I ran my doug firs through the spine calculator and it came out 54 to 54.1. Though I did have to raise the brace up a but from where brian had it. In the end I think I will add some point weight to get it perfect but flight was good on the shots I managed to control my form. Being 50# @ 27" it was a small bump in weight for me but a totally new grip. With the shaped grip on my curves or R/D, the bow settles into draw. With the Vixen it is "go" right out the gate, but I can see and feel the advantage of it. Torque was also an issue at first as I was grilling the handle as if it were a venomous snakes neck. Again, a little intimidating to me at first. Once I got how to keep just my fingers controlling the back of the bow grip things went easier. I definitely felt how snap shooting comes to be - some shots, when I got to anchor it just went - poof! Haha. I still have some tweaking to do, but first will come my form. I will break my body of its old ways and re-teach it the hill bow ways. One thing, Brian was absolutely correct, this Vixen is mild mannered to the core. No jumping, no odd humps in the draw, no weird post-shot rocking or kicking, just like cutting butter with a draw. I will contribute more down the road as I fully understand that a guy who has shot one hill bow for 2 hours of his life doesn't get to make too many claims, haha. Thank you all for your posts of wisdom and if you get a chance to "chat" with Brianlocal3, take it. A+ type fella.
Topic: HH BUG GOT ME - Part Two! (Read 473698 times)
