Red Lion

1. Mathews Drenalin - "fast and light with great design" Excellent overall rating.

2. PSE Mach X-Force - "Great performance, value for price and fast" Excellent overall rating.

3. Diamond Black Ice - "Great designed, lack of vibration, value for price and craftsmanship" Just below excellent/Very Good overall rating.

4. Bowtech Guardian - "Great noise reduction, lack of vibration and value for price" Very Good overall rating/with leanings toward excellent.

5. Elite Archery Envy - Solid overall and just a tad bit short of the Guardian in overall rating.

Red Lion

Myself i was a little surprised with the outcome. Anyone else? You have to read the article to get more specifics, but I kind think it was a shoot and rate type of test. I am really surpirsed by the Black Ice, as every test I have seen it has been rated very high. Anyone else got any comments?

treboryerf

Wonder which one spent the most advertising dollars with outdoor life latley?

Red Lion

Could be a money thing, but could also be that different folks like different features/things about bows.

YooperMike

I agree, so hard to rate these bows objectively. I shoot a Commander so I think the Guardian should be #1 and PSE X-Farse should be last based on the one I shot, so who knows.

On a separate note, the new issue has the shotgun test, and I thought it was terrible. All of the guns in there are ridiculous in price, and the gun that won costs like $6,000...for that price, it should shoot for you!

Mike from Texas

You know, I try not to raise the brand loyalty flag but these guys were apparently smoking crack that day. Let's take a look:

Guardian is rated IBO 321-329 but they could only muster 309.5 yet the Drenalin managed to shoot 319.5 out of 320? Hmmmmm.

Diamond Black Ice rated 309-317 and they only got 308.5 out of it?

Elite Envy is rated 350+ adn they could only muster 329 out of it?

Anybody see a pattern here? If it's a Bowtech (or a spinoff thereof) they say they won't shoot what they advertise. IME with all of these bows they have shot within 1 fps of advertise IBO every time.

monster10rackstack

good call treboryerf and i think red lion is right to everybody doesnt like the same thing

dannyMT1985

You know, I think we've heard this so many times, what feels good and shoots good for you, someone else may not have the same opinion or agree with the same results on a different bow. Grant it, the people who shot these bows give these results, but if another group of people shot the same bows, we may get completely different results. Me personally, I prefer the PSE X-force, just because it felt good to me, I shot almost every other bow on the market and I absolutely loved this one. You see all these bad posts about the bow, but these are just people who are bent on what they shoot and nothing else is better, me personally if you can out shoot me with your dren or your black ice, more power to you, but like i said before, if it doesn't feel right, you wont like it.

Greg / MO

Funny thata lot of otherindependent tests I've seen has rated the Guardian #1 and the Black Ice #2... And good point, Mike. What the bow will do is printed right on the Birth Certificate, and that's after being shot through a Custom Chrono, Heavy Duty ProShop Meter and verified using digital scales. As far as I know, Bowtech is the only manufacturer which actually shoots each bow and prints out how each one actually performed, and with the factory installed brass nock and Hush Kit.

davepjr71

I'd read some early articles that the Drenalin was actually slower than the Switchbacks. Then all of a sudden they are faster. They're smeared all over every magazine from front to back.

Yet, whenever someone shoots my Allegiance they say how much they like it.Even the Matthews guys. Not that the Switchbacks aren't bad bows. If they didn't ahve the big honking grip I might have bought one.

I know my bow is plenty fast, smooth and quiet and that's all that counts to me.
Greg,

How much speed do you think I'd pick-up going to the Speed mods? Not that it's not cooking along already. And, does the draw feel that much different?