I just got my hands on the review. I have a few observations. First, I am a bit confused on the scoring. Were all the raw numbers converted to the fair, good, very good, excellent system? Also, each rating(fair, good, etc.) has a 10 point range, but we are not shown the actual points to see if some were low within the range, while others high.

I was surprised by some of the speeds. For instance, the Parker Phoenix, which I looked at in person yesterday and am/was very interested in, has a similar design and cam(looks anyway) as the Outback and a little bit shorter brace, yet it shot at 224.6 while the OB was at 238.6. Not only that, the advertised speed of the Parker is 310 IBO while the OB is only 308.

Again on speed, and I realize not everyone wants the same thing out of a bow, but the winner of this test only received a fair speed rating, while 5 received excellent. To me, when a bow is that much slower, it would seem easier to reduce noise, vibration and shock. No?

No bow in the test got an excellent on fit/finish nor on balance/grip. Hmmm.

Although none of the bows received an overall fair rating, the Browning got 7 fairs. I was surprised to see a CSS bow receive 6 fair ratings.


The three highest scoring bows all got only fair on weight. Is mass weight one way or the other necessarily bad? Looking closely at this, I also am confused on this particular scoring. The Alpine weighed in at 3.9 and got an excellent. The Liberty was only 4.2, yet got a fair, which is the total opposite of the spectrum. Four bows weighed 4.1, and they all got very goods. No bow got a good. The two heaviest bows were 5.5 and 5.6 respectively and they too got fairs. Hmmm.

In the end, I am very glad this was done, if only for the raw numbers. I will totally forget the subjectives, and shoot several bows over the next two weeks before I buy.