Faster than that. I watched a video where an alert deer jumped the string. A study by more than one video crew has said a deer can jump the string a full body length in 1/5 second.

A basic rule has always been recognized by most that a quieter bow is a more efficient bow and gives the bowhunter an advantage over a loud bow. Its always worked for me and I continue to try to get my hunting bow as quiet as possible. In fact it allowed me to make a double lung shot on a nice 9 pt. buck after missing the first shot.

A deer can probably drop it's body weight faster than 1/5 of a second (0.2 seconds) because of the natural pull of gravity. I believe the natural pull of gravity is around 32 feet per second, so a deer could drop 16 inches in .04 seconds.

By the way 1/5 of a second is about how long it would take a 300 fps arrow to travel 20 yards.

The question is reaction time. The deer has to hear the sound, process it and THEN react to it. Whether a deer could do that in 1/5 second I don't know. My experience has been that deer usually freeze when they hear a sound, not drop and bolt.

I have seen video where it looked as if deer were ducking the shot from a muzzle loader and rifles. I highly doubt they can react that fast, but the video sure made it seem that way. That would mean they were ducking bullets before they could actually hear them, which would mean they could sense what was happening before it actually happened.

Pretty scary huh.

Paul

I don t know if anyone touched on this or if it just such common knowledge that it was not mentioned I stopped reading when they started making love to a certain brand of bow.I suppose it is how I talked about my gi joes ,anyway there not ducking they are going down so that they can spring away just thought I would add somthing.Another good part of having a quiet bow is when you do hit them and they hear nothing they don t seem to run as fast or as far SOMTIMES

Finally somebody gets down to the basics.

A quiet bow is a happy bow.

Another reason is I have had many opportunities for the second shot and see no reason not to take advantage of a quiet bow.

I hate to admit it but years ago I emptied the quiver (5 arrows) and had to climb down and fetch them up.

Got a nice 6 point after reloading.

Another thing to think about is buggering up your spot.

If you miss and spook the deer from the sound of the arrow hitting the ground - no big deal

If you spook him cause a .22 went off in a tree thats a different issue for him.

Quiet anything is always better when bow hunting

As far as the deer jumping the string I don't think it is always a matter of noise causing them to jump.

I think some of it is the movement that occurs as the shot is fired.

The bow moves, the release hand moves, the arrow moves, your head moves a bunch of things move - maybe only an inch or so but there is a lot of sudden movement.

I think the deer see this out of theirperipheral vision and instinct takes overand they jump.

I base this on the fact that seem to try and jump the string a bunch more on true broadside shots (based on my observations and many videos) than they do on quartering away shots where they cannot see the archer at all.

Take alook at the videos and i think you might agree.


IMHO

I have a Tomkat with a MeanV stringsuppressor, the hush kit that came with the bow and a teflon cableguard from saunders.
This makes 9 out of 10 shooters finding myless noisythan the guy with the general at my local target range.....
Big reason is to get in, take one down and get out without making orleaving any trace.....

Frank

i didnt have a problem taking deer with a pearson spoiler many years ago on public land,this bow was very loud right up there with an old proline i had,the only benefits going to a quiet and easier drawing bow are to my hearing and shoulders.
ever watch deer just freeze and look for the noise not all deer bolt unless they see something bad like us.

I have always strived to have my bows whisper quiet - the less noisy your bow makes the less disturbance to an area - another plus is we can take two deer a day - I have doubled up 4 or 5 times - shooting a deer and a few minutes later taking another -