A 2010 Hoyt Alphaburner Owners Review
08-30-2010, 06:30 AM
#1
Spike
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Corinth Mississippi
Posts: 1
A 2010 Hoyt Alphaburner Owners Review
Recently my dealer made me an offer on a 2010 Hoyt Alphaburner in 29"/60# brand new in the box at a price I could not turn down and this is my review of that bow.
I never pulled it back, I never shot it, as a matter of fact I didn't even much look at it until I got it home due to being overjoyed to have the darn thing at such a good price. I bought the bow to hunt with knowing it would do what Hoyt said it would or we would be having some serious conversations about it. As for the lowered poundage, I personally feel that it does not take a 70# bow to kill whitetails inside of 40 yards. Especially knowing that I killed them at 209fps with a full lenght aluminum 2113 gamegetter and an old bear whitetail II when I was a kid. After getting it home and tinkering with it for a bit, I began searching the internet for some solid information on it and came up empty handed. This particular bow does not seem to have the following that other bows do and I cant for the life of me figure out why. Some of you may not agree with the things in this review, but it is based on my own honest experiances with it and not what I have gathered from other sites or read on other threads. As a result of a lack of information, I set out to test and review it on my own and post my own results. Im no scientist, but then again, this aint no rocket! Please take into concideraton that I cut my teeth on Bowtech many years ago (as my name depicts) and it took alot for me to even pick up a Hoyt until a couple of years ago so I understand if you do not like the brand. However, hate the game, don't hate the players.
The first thing I noticed was the camo finish. To be honest, I expected a little more from Hoyt as compared to Bowtech and others, but hey, its camo right? Deer are not going to notice so what the hell, I got it at a good price. Apparently the people that apply the graphics must have been out fishing that day and had some replacements standing in for them cause it has its share of finish flaws.
The second thing I noticed was how much stiffer, but smoother the bow was to draw with the Spiral X cam than the XTR cam that comes on the Alphamax or Maxxis. I bought an Alphamax 35 last year and sold it after having it less than 6 months due to the "Hump" in draw cycle. I did not like it because no matter how smooth or slow I tried to draw the XTR cam, it fell hard against the back wall and the draw stop peg made a slight but noticeable "boink" as it hit the cable.
Last season, I blew a shot on a nice 8 point at about 10 yds due to the cable stop noise and almost sent the bow singing through the trees. That buck didn't even know I was there until he heard that noise, looked up at me and took off into the next county blowing like hell the whole way. I heard him blow with every stride till he was completly out of hearing distance. Needless to say, that was the last arrow I nocked on that bow.
I have read several threads that depict a "harsh" draw cycle on the spiral X cam. I would not classify this draw cycle as harsh at all. Stiff maybe, but definatley not harsh. The spiral X pulls firmly but smoothly all the way to the wall with NO HUMP WHAT SO EVER. There is simply no "Rollover" if you know what I mean. If you are a newby, or are looking to buy a Hoyt, you need to draw this bow for yourself instead of taking someone else's words into account. It could be depriving you of a good thing. To me, a harsh draw means, the further you pull it back the harder it is to pull, somewhat like climbing a hill. The Mathews Monster and the XTR cam feel that way to me but people dont call them harsh, so whats the deal? what is harsh about it? The spirals are not that way at all. That is why I say smoother than the XTR. I really dont care that both cams have a shallow valley, just stay on the wall and dont creep like you are supposed to and everything will be fine. That is why they say "Spirals keep you honest".
The next thing I came across was the factory FUSE strings that came on the bow. your gonna laugh, but dont, it might happen to you. While temporarily tying in a peep sight with dental floss, and burning the ends down, the string somehow caught fire and burnt one strand of each color. In all my years of working on bows this has never happened to me and it was very nausiating to say the least and really pissed me off. However, it gave me a great excuse to put another set of strings on it and disect the ones that came off of it. Im sure FUSE makes a good string, but unfortunatley, I will never know. I have no idea what material they are made from, but they are definatley alot more flammable than BCY 452X which is what she is wearing now. This stuff burns like loop material if you get a flame too close to it. BE WARNED! The factory strings also had only 12 fat strands which puzzled me. I looked on the BCY website and they recommend 12 strands for only one type of material which is 450+ which is not something I would want my string made of anyhow, so I don't know if I did myself a favor or not. One interesting thing is, I failed to replace the speed nocks on the new string. After speaking with Mike Carter (Crackers) whom I respect highly for his advice, I found that it was important to replace them in order to maintain rated IBO speed. However, after weighing them I found that they weighed exaclty the same as the new everlast string leeches made for crossbows. As a result, I got within 1fps of the speed nocks and now I have string silencers instead. Trust me, I spent a whole day playing with the friggin speed nock thing, Its time consuming tring to find the sweet spot but I found it. I just dont think that it is fair to Mike to devulge just how much speed I gained through playing with them so I wont.
After I put the new strings on it, I set the nock height and center shot and began paper tuning it. The bow had the worst left tear that I have ever seen. I moved the rest right and left with no effect on the tear at all. After carefully looking things over, I noticed that the cam lean was awful on the top cam. Luckily, it was as simple as twisting up one side of the "static" yoke to correct it. Once that was done it paper tuned a bullet hole with a bare shaft all the way to 30 feet (10yds). That got my attention.
As far as hand shock, the Alphaburner has no more shock than the Alphamax that I had and I can not tell that it is any louder either. If it is, its only by a decible or so, I doubt the deer will pay much attention to it. I know I didn't and Im pretty picky about things.
The next thing I did was to try and get it sighted in. Lucky for me, the sight I took off of my old Alphamax was set pretty close and it took no time at all to get it sighted in from 0-50yds. I then walk back tuned it making sure the centershot was ok. That was about the time that the friggin heat wave set in and I had to put her up for a few weeks. Today, It finally cooled off enough for me to get her out again and I was able to finish walk back tuning it. I only had to move the rest to the right 1/16th of an inch to get a straight line vertical group with field tips all the way out to 60 yards. The next and final test was going to be fixed blade broadheads. Here again, shoot what you like but dont poke me in the eye for what I like. I have been a muzzy fan for years and have been shooting the same 6 heads that I bought in 2000. I just put new blades on them every year and have killed numerous animals with them with no problems. They still spin true. Anywho, I made a 3 shot group at 30 yards with field tips. I then simply spun the muzzy's on and made another 3 shot group. To my surprise, they hit about 3" to the right of my field points, but they grouped tight and now I only had 2 arrows with vanes left on them so I put a FT on one and a BH on the other and kept shooting. I made one small correction moving my rest to the left about 1/32" and shot both arrows one after the other until I was possitive that they were hitting in the same place.
Now, here is the performance part. This little bow packs a big punch. The bow's IBO is stated at 340fps and she is shooting @ 310fps with a 27.5"/350gr arrow. To me, thats smoking out of a bow that only draws to 60#. and its completley silent due to the fact that I can smoothly draw to the wall without the "Boink"!
Something is going to die this year for sure...
Thanks for reading!
Thad
__________________
I never pulled it back, I never shot it, as a matter of fact I didn't even much look at it until I got it home due to being overjoyed to have the darn thing at such a good price. I bought the bow to hunt with knowing it would do what Hoyt said it would or we would be having some serious conversations about it. As for the lowered poundage, I personally feel that it does not take a 70# bow to kill whitetails inside of 40 yards. Especially knowing that I killed them at 209fps with a full lenght aluminum 2113 gamegetter and an old bear whitetail II when I was a kid. After getting it home and tinkering with it for a bit, I began searching the internet for some solid information on it and came up empty handed. This particular bow does not seem to have the following that other bows do and I cant for the life of me figure out why. Some of you may not agree with the things in this review, but it is based on my own honest experiances with it and not what I have gathered from other sites or read on other threads. As a result of a lack of information, I set out to test and review it on my own and post my own results. Im no scientist, but then again, this aint no rocket! Please take into concideraton that I cut my teeth on Bowtech many years ago (as my name depicts) and it took alot for me to even pick up a Hoyt until a couple of years ago so I understand if you do not like the brand. However, hate the game, don't hate the players.
The first thing I noticed was the camo finish. To be honest, I expected a little more from Hoyt as compared to Bowtech and others, but hey, its camo right? Deer are not going to notice so what the hell, I got it at a good price. Apparently the people that apply the graphics must have been out fishing that day and had some replacements standing in for them cause it has its share of finish flaws.
The second thing I noticed was how much stiffer, but smoother the bow was to draw with the Spiral X cam than the XTR cam that comes on the Alphamax or Maxxis. I bought an Alphamax 35 last year and sold it after having it less than 6 months due to the "Hump" in draw cycle. I did not like it because no matter how smooth or slow I tried to draw the XTR cam, it fell hard against the back wall and the draw stop peg made a slight but noticeable "boink" as it hit the cable.
Last season, I blew a shot on a nice 8 point at about 10 yds due to the cable stop noise and almost sent the bow singing through the trees. That buck didn't even know I was there until he heard that noise, looked up at me and took off into the next county blowing like hell the whole way. I heard him blow with every stride till he was completly out of hearing distance. Needless to say, that was the last arrow I nocked on that bow.
I have read several threads that depict a "harsh" draw cycle on the spiral X cam. I would not classify this draw cycle as harsh at all. Stiff maybe, but definatley not harsh. The spiral X pulls firmly but smoothly all the way to the wall with NO HUMP WHAT SO EVER. There is simply no "Rollover" if you know what I mean. If you are a newby, or are looking to buy a Hoyt, you need to draw this bow for yourself instead of taking someone else's words into account. It could be depriving you of a good thing. To me, a harsh draw means, the further you pull it back the harder it is to pull, somewhat like climbing a hill. The Mathews Monster and the XTR cam feel that way to me but people dont call them harsh, so whats the deal? what is harsh about it? The spirals are not that way at all. That is why I say smoother than the XTR. I really dont care that both cams have a shallow valley, just stay on the wall and dont creep like you are supposed to and everything will be fine. That is why they say "Spirals keep you honest".
The next thing I came across was the factory FUSE strings that came on the bow. your gonna laugh, but dont, it might happen to you. While temporarily tying in a peep sight with dental floss, and burning the ends down, the string somehow caught fire and burnt one strand of each color. In all my years of working on bows this has never happened to me and it was very nausiating to say the least and really pissed me off. However, it gave me a great excuse to put another set of strings on it and disect the ones that came off of it. Im sure FUSE makes a good string, but unfortunatley, I will never know. I have no idea what material they are made from, but they are definatley alot more flammable than BCY 452X which is what she is wearing now. This stuff burns like loop material if you get a flame too close to it. BE WARNED! The factory strings also had only 12 fat strands which puzzled me. I looked on the BCY website and they recommend 12 strands for only one type of material which is 450+ which is not something I would want my string made of anyhow, so I don't know if I did myself a favor or not. One interesting thing is, I failed to replace the speed nocks on the new string. After speaking with Mike Carter (Crackers) whom I respect highly for his advice, I found that it was important to replace them in order to maintain rated IBO speed. However, after weighing them I found that they weighed exaclty the same as the new everlast string leeches made for crossbows. As a result, I got within 1fps of the speed nocks and now I have string silencers instead. Trust me, I spent a whole day playing with the friggin speed nock thing, Its time consuming tring to find the sweet spot but I found it. I just dont think that it is fair to Mike to devulge just how much speed I gained through playing with them so I wont.
After I put the new strings on it, I set the nock height and center shot and began paper tuning it. The bow had the worst left tear that I have ever seen. I moved the rest right and left with no effect on the tear at all. After carefully looking things over, I noticed that the cam lean was awful on the top cam. Luckily, it was as simple as twisting up one side of the "static" yoke to correct it. Once that was done it paper tuned a bullet hole with a bare shaft all the way to 30 feet (10yds). That got my attention.
As far as hand shock, the Alphaburner has no more shock than the Alphamax that I had and I can not tell that it is any louder either. If it is, its only by a decible or so, I doubt the deer will pay much attention to it. I know I didn't and Im pretty picky about things.
The next thing I did was to try and get it sighted in. Lucky for me, the sight I took off of my old Alphamax was set pretty close and it took no time at all to get it sighted in from 0-50yds. I then walk back tuned it making sure the centershot was ok. That was about the time that the friggin heat wave set in and I had to put her up for a few weeks. Today, It finally cooled off enough for me to get her out again and I was able to finish walk back tuning it. I only had to move the rest to the right 1/16th of an inch to get a straight line vertical group with field tips all the way out to 60 yards. The next and final test was going to be fixed blade broadheads. Here again, shoot what you like but dont poke me in the eye for what I like. I have been a muzzy fan for years and have been shooting the same 6 heads that I bought in 2000. I just put new blades on them every year and have killed numerous animals with them with no problems. They still spin true. Anywho, I made a 3 shot group at 30 yards with field tips. I then simply spun the muzzy's on and made another 3 shot group. To my surprise, they hit about 3" to the right of my field points, but they grouped tight and now I only had 2 arrows with vanes left on them so I put a FT on one and a BH on the other and kept shooting. I made one small correction moving my rest to the left about 1/32" and shot both arrows one after the other until I was possitive that they were hitting in the same place.
Now, here is the performance part. This little bow packs a big punch. The bow's IBO is stated at 340fps and she is shooting @ 310fps with a 27.5"/350gr arrow. To me, thats smoking out of a bow that only draws to 60#. and its completley silent due to the fact that I can smoothly draw to the wall without the "Boink"!
Something is going to die this year for sure...
Thanks for reading!
Thad
__________________
Last edited by PatriotVFT; 08-30-2010 at 06:48 AM.
09-04-2010, 10:04 PM
#2
Spike
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Meeker, Colorado
Posts: 83
Thanks for your honest review of this bow. I recently purchased a Alhpamax 35 and am loving it. I shot the Alphaburner and it was a tie on which one i liked better. It boiled down to price this time, but theres always next year 
09-05-2010, 05:44 AM
#3
Spike
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Cedar Bluff
Posts: 14
Alphaburner
Good post. I just traded a Vectrix XL for an Alphaburner. I have always shot between 65-70 lbs on my bows but the Alphaburner was the last one in stock and I got a deal on it. 29 inch 60 lb model...bottoms out at 59 lb and shoots my 390 grain shaft at 287 with factory strings. 3 inch gropups at 50 yards on the 3rd day of owning it. I love it and cant wait to shoot "at" some deer with it.
