The title was meant to be taken in the best sense of humor I assure you.
Gentleman,
Let me start off by saying that there are only a few times in my life that I can honestly say that I have been "giddy as a school girl" to quote a friend's commonly used phrase....
. Example of this would include starting my career...spending time with my wife (before I married her..
), buying my first car, etc.... Now I can add another one to the list.
I received my 2004 Bowtech Mighty Mite VFT yesterday!!!
"Santa Claus" came early this year.
I was at home yesterday as my son came down with a wicked fever over the weekend. After leaving the doctor's office I stopped down at the local shop to pick it up. I proceeded to set the bow up (with my son's help...he is 19 months old I might add). Let me just say that I am in love with this bow. I know...I know...it sounds like a JeffB reaction but it is true.
I think the balance on it now, barebow, is perfect. Gone is the top-heaviness of some previous year models and yet the benefits of the long riser/short, parallel limb design could never be more evident.
The bow handles very well. It is light in weight but not super-light like the Parker Ultralite 31. The long riser definitely makes it feel like a longer axle to axle length bow and since the mass weight is distributed along a larger portion of the vertical plane it also shoots like a typical bow of much longer dimensions.
I don't want to get too detailed just yet as I want to save much of this for my full review of the bow however.....
- the new grip feels great. I have to put it side by side with my 2003 Patriot to check the angle but the composition and texture are different enough for anyone to notice the change.
- the attention to detail is exceptional. Other than the "small paint dots" evident on a few places on the riser I can really find no fault in it from a manufacturing standpoint.
- the new camo looks really cool. It does look a bit different than the Advantage Timber but not enough for me to worry about having the stabilizer "clash" with riser...
. It is a bit darker than the AT but this is really subjective as it is difficult to compare two camos of this nature on such a small area like a compound bow's riser or limbs.
- noise levels are moderate to low....vibration and recoil levels are on the low side....and accuracy was superb in my hands.
The only areas of concern for me at the moment are the overall width of the new riser and the stiffness of the draw cycle on the new Infinity cam. The bow came shipped at a 71.3 lb draw weight. At 71.3 lbs this bow feels like a bear to draw back. I have not been shooting for a couple weeks so I am sure that is contributing to it to some extent. I will see how it feels as time passes. For now I cranked the limb bolts back a turn and a half to where they feel comfortable. I did not check the draw weight at this point as I did not feel the need to. At this setting the bow felt much easier to draw and the pockets were only backed out about 1/8th of an inch.
Second, the new riser design is very wide so, as others have mentioned, some rests/sights might not work well on it as they do not offer enough horizontal adjustment. I had to ditch my favorite Toxonics Solotrak sight as it fit into this scenario. Luckily, I had a more recent version of the same sight that offers slightly more adjustment and does work well on the bow. I also tried a Copper John Deadnuts hunter and a PSE Apex sight just for ....s and giggles. Both offered enough adjustment.
However, there is also the rest adjustment issue. The GKF Golden Premier I was using did give me enough adjustment but I had to reposition the actual launcher arm as it enters the base of the rest to obtain it. By doing this I did not have to move the rest to its farthest left (right handed bow) setting via the microadjustment knobs. This gave me a little room to play with when I do any microtuning. I also tried the Standard GKF TM hunter rest on the bow and it also gave enough horizontal adjustment though a similar model Tiger Tuff rest did not. I am going to try one or two others on it, including the Whisker Biscuit, when I head down to the shop tomorrow morning.
I cannot wait to use this bow for the our late season bow hunt!!
Merry Christmas to all if I don't get a chance to get on after today.
Frank