Yeah, I know this thread is about the Hostage Pro and my review was about the original Hostage, that's why I said I "hoped" the Pro was made from Alum. I'm glad it is.
Rob, I do like the idea if being able to adjust the bristles but it does not address the fact that the arrow can fall through the bristles if bumped. Obviously you haven't tried one out yet because if you did you will notice very quickly that it doesn't take much to bump it through even if you have all three bristles adjusted tight around the arrow shaft which I don't believe I'd like anyway. With the Whisker Biscuit there should be plenty of room around the arrow, the only part that is touching the bristles should be the arrow on the bottom.
Now as far as vane clearance, I wasn't talking about clearance to the ring I'm talking about any arrow with more than a 4 deg. offset to the fletching, either the front edge will make contact or the trailing edge will. Again it will only take a few seconds to see this once you guys get them in your hands.
The bristles are cut into a"V" shape to kinda cradle the arrow shaft. There is not a lot of room between the bristles for the vanes to pass and this becomes evenlessthe more you offset your fletch.Now, the bigger the shaft the more offset you can use. but with the standard carbon shafts this will be a problem and you can forget about it with the thin shafts like the Axis ST's.
Guys, thisis VERY easy to prove.....ANYBODY with a helical fletch look at your arrow from straight behind the nock. You don't even need to have a hostage rest, just look at your fletchings. You will notice that there is NO ROOM for the bristles to slide on the shaft and NOT hit the vanes......In fact I'll go one better and post a picture of what I mean.
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Straight Fletch ...Does Not Rotate in Flight[/align]
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4 Deg Fletch......Rotates Slightly in Flight[/align]
[align=center]
Helical Fletch.....Rotates Dramatically in Flight[/align]
Now look at the arrows above, thetop arrow(straight fletch) has an unobstructed path for the bristles to slide on the arrow shaft. Notice that there is no room for error as the distance between the vanes is about 5mm (I just measured my Axis ST). In themiddle photo there is a 4deg offset, there is still a path but because of the offset the distance between the leading edge of the left vane (in the photo) the the trailing edge of the right vane is only about 3mm. This is the absolute bare minimum and depending on the size of your shafts even a 4deg may be too much as I believe the width of the bristles is wider than that. You're gonna get vane contact but it's not a lot. This is why my arrows still flew ok but again not as good as they did with the W/B
The bottom arrowhowever is a completely different story. There is NO WAY that arrow will slide down the rest without the vanes hitting the bristles, just look for yourself, I'm not making this up. The front edge of the left vane and the rear edge of the right vane are almost directly in line with each other.
The difference between the Hostage and the Whisker Biscuit is the hostage doesn't have all the other bristles the Whisker Biscuit does to stabilize the arrow. That's why the Biscuit works so well, all contact is even, with this rest I believe I was getting erratic arrow flight because there was no consistency with the vane contact. What was happening was the front edge of one vane would hit the bristles then as it moved off of the bristle the back half of the
other vane would hit it!
Granted it wasn't like my arrows were flying all over the place but they sure weren't grouping well at all. Especially when I shot the helical fletch.
Hey I liked the idea enough to go out and buy one to test, and I was hoping it would perform at least as well as the W/B but for me it didn't. They can dress it up as much as they want but it still won't change the results until they can address the uneven and inconsistent vane contact. For those of you who don't like the Whisker Biscuit for that very reason (vane contact) you should be just cringing at the thought of this rest...but yet here are some of you singing it's praises when you slam theWhisker Biscuit FOR DOING THE SAMETHING only more consistently. If you don't likevanecontact don't get this rest becausethat's just what you will get!
I hope you guys will be honest with your reviews of this rest because I was. I have no ties to either the Whisker Biscuit nor the Hostage, I'm just an average bow hunter who tested two separate rests, that's all.
In my opinion the Whisker Biscuit out performs this rest hands down. The claim of no vane contact is pure bunk, unless you shoot a straight fletched arrow. So what exactly are you getting you ask? You will be getting what everyone was saying about this rest when it was called theCATAWBA.....and that is, a poor attempt to make a better Whisker Biscuit.
Only now it's got the backing of a big bow company and a new name....I have a sneaky feeling now it'sreviews will be somewhat kinder.
