I finally decided on my new setup on Monday. I went to lancaster archery to shoot and pick up a new bow for 09, it was time to give my Tribute some company. I shot quite a few bows over 2 + hours and will give you my thoughts on them and be as unbiased as possible. I will start out with the AM series from hoyt. I shot both models and was really impressed with this bow, it was the quietest right out of the box and was a nice shooter, was well balanced and did not show much reaction at the shot. The next bow up was the Monster, really wild looking bow, not as bad of a draw cycle as I expected but not the most pleasent either, didn't jump as much at the shot as I thought it would and was blazin fast. What i did not like about this bow, was that it was really top heavy, I never felt anything like it, the shot was off and BAM the top cam was streaking towards the floor. This brings me down to the last two bows I shot. The Air Raid, this was an awesome bow, drew very smooth, held on target well and was dead in the hand, what kept me from chosing this bow were two key features, one of which surprised me.....the grip. I have always liked Bowtech grips, but this felt to fat to me, seemed wider in the throat than previous models, the other complaint I had was the backwall, I did not like the way the draw stops hit the cables, I could pull into the cables which gave it a spongy feel......all bows were same specs, 28.5 in. draw at 65 lbs. This brings me down to the last bow and the one that came home with me. The Elite GT500. This is an awesome bow, probably showed more jump than the other bows except the monster but was easily corrected with a stabilizer. This bow had a solid mix of everything, it held on target the best, the draw was silky smooth, the back wall was solid as a rock ( dual draw stops) and it had what I felt was the best grip of the group along with factory Barnsdale limbs. I outfitted it with a Spot Hogg Hogg It sight, I Fuse stabilizer, QAD HD Pro and all the necessary dampeners. She is now whisper quiet and shoots lazers, very happy with my choice. Included a little eye candy! All in all there are some great bows out there, all these top companies are putting out some real nice products, fun time to be in the archery world.

Here is a pic.

Congrats and good luck

Congrats! you will love it! I love my Z28..

looks like fun! good luck with it this season!

Nice looking bow, good luck with it this season

Great looking bow, good luck with her this year!

I was going to look at the Elite series bows this year but there was not a dealer close to my area. Why did you choose the GT over the Z28? Just wondering how big a difference there was in the two bows. I know the Z28 has a shorter ATA so that might be one of the reasons.

Awesome! Congrats.

Cool deal. A buddy of mine recently got a GT500 from LAS as well, but in all black. He's using the same rest as you too. He had to get an extension bar for the QAD rest to get the proper centershot for tuning. Have you seen any issues yet? QAD sent it to him for free so they are aware of the issue.