I always judged my bows on accuracy, consistency, forgiveness, tunablility, reliability and quietness, with arrow speed way back in the pack as something I wanted. The #1 thrust of bow advancements over the past 15 years has been toward arrow speed, so I feel advancements have come along way, but down the wrong path. Arrow speed is nice, but they've forfieted way too many other things to get it.

Today's bows, judging from what I've seen on the field archery range where consistent accuracy and forgiveness are paramount, fall way short. My field archery scores drop a solid 50-75 points with a modern bow vs what I shoot with my old ProVantages or SuperSlams... even my old 84 model ProHunter could shoot rings around these new ones on the field archery course. Only 4 years ago, I won a 3D shoot with my old SuperSlam Legacy vs a lot of guys with the latest Mathews bows.

Judging from my own experience with the later model bows, it takes some serious time and effort to tune the ^%&!s and they won't hold a proper tune for more than a month of serious shooting. I love tinkering with bows when I WANT to, but I hate tinkering with them when I HAVE to, and I 'have to' far too often with modern bows. It flat pisses me off when I want to go out and enjoy a few relaxing hours of shooting, but have to spend those few hours pressing my bow, twisting up stings and cables....

Even the new and improved strings and cables don't eliminate creep.

Well, to make a long story at least a bit shorter, I won't be buying another compound. Too much time and effort goes into keeping them up and running, time I'd rather spend shooting arrows. Traditional equipment gives me everything I'm looking for. Effective range is a third of what I can do with a compound, and the compounders laugh when I miss a target that's further than I'm comfortable with, but that's okay. I can laugh when their releases pre-fire, dropaways don't drop, when they pick the wrong pin...
[8D]