I was reading through the ' 03 Darton catalouge, and noticed they mention that the reason for their silky smoothness is during the draw their CPS cams build quickly to peak, maintain it for several inches to maximize stored energy then gradually taper off to fall into a solid wall, versus others who build to peak late in the draw cycle to then fall off drastically into the wall.
This may be common knowledge, but the little bell went off inside my head and I finally got it.
If you hit peak early in the draw cycle, you are still using your big back muscles more than your shoulder muscle. This is probably why people feel they can draw more weight with a smoother drawing similar speed cam, as they actually can as they have more big muscle group upper body strength at their disposal, and why they perceive similar draw weighted bows as one being lessor weight than the other. For bows that hit peak late, you are relying much more on your much smaller and weaker shoulder to get the bow over the hump.
Given Darton' s speeds, it seems the location of sustained peak in the FDC has nothing to do with the attainable speed. They' ll do very near (draw for draw) what my bowtech PF cammed Hornet will do, which hits peak later in the cycle.
Based on this, I wonder why more high energy bow manufacturers don' t place peak draw sooner in the draw cycle? Perhaps they do, and I just don' t know it? If so, who are some of these guys? Is this how bowtech " smoothed out" their ' 04 FDCs?
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Genesis 27:3
"œNow then, get your weapons "” your quiver and bow "” and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me."
I know the FDC graph is printed in the ' 02 Diamond catalouge which can still be downloaded from their site, I have it printed here and am making some comparisons I' ll add later...
__________________
Genesis 27:3
"œNow then, get your weapons "” your quiver and bow "” and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me."
That isn' t what people want nowadays.For some reason people think for a bow to be accurate that you need an extremely short valley and extremely hard wall.I can' t understand why a bow needs to pull your shoulder out of socket on a letdown for it to shoot accurately.[X(]
A valley is really a superior design in terms of forgiveness.If you do creap,the bow will still shoot the same.Allowing the person shooting the bow to be much more relaxed and not so concerned about having the bow drawn into the wall so hard.
I myself like a mix of valley and wall.The Cam 1/2 on my Ultratec ,when set in the middle draw length slot provides this,along with the cables being set for it.
RB, Norb Mullaney writes about this all the time in his Bowhuntingworld bow reports. He often makes comments to the effect that he cannot understand why more companies do not use this approach.
I' ve compared the FDC graphs of the Bowtech (on a Diamond) 2000 PF Cam and the Darton Extreme linked above. Both are for a 30" draw, only the Diamond is with a 7" brace height and a 70# draw, the Darton for a 9" (as far as I can tell, the FDC starts at 9" ) brace height and a bow set at 60#s. Even at 70, imagine the tracking would be similar:
D= Distance
D from brace to peakD at peakDistance from peak to hold
Darton- 7" 6" 8"
Bowtech- 11" 6" 6"
What a difference. Both bows allow the same energy storage potential at maximum draw, but Darton maximizes your effort while you are using your strongest muscles, Bowtech the opposite.
I grabbed a tape meaure and played these scenarios out. It' s easy to see that the sooner in the FDC the bow ramps up to peak, the easier it would be perceived to draw.
T-Fox, I' m no longer one of that crowd. I want an early in the FDC peak on my next bow.
Pman, any idea if there is an archive of Norb' s reviews on the net someplace? I' ve read probably 5-6 of his reviews over the past few years, this either never jumped out at me, or I was never paying attention.
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Genesis 27:3
"œNow then, get your weapons "” your quiver and bow "” and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me."
Rangeball,I have also started moving away from the short valleys but I really like my cam 1/2.Even it has a very short valley when using the longest draw setting or if you have the top cam adjusted ahead of the bottom.
We are still in the minority but people are starting to change.
Parker has a bow out called the easy draw 33 if I remember right.It is basically a round wheel 1 cam.I was kinda interested but just don' t like a bow to have as much reflex as it does.They have to do that to try and get some speed out of it.I think the IBO on it is only 290 but should be fun to shoot.
FDC, What a difference it makes?
