my dad quit bowhunting about 10 years ago...i was wondering what a high speed about 10 years ago or so was shooting a decint compound?? anyone remember?? im just curious how much better thing have gotten...im sure when i let him shot my new bow when i get it he will just die...im just wondering how much bows changed?? anyone remember?? i think it will be kinda neat for him to remember his arrows lobbing at 25 yds and mine zinging flatly at high speeds compared to then....maybe he will like it more and get back into it with me...

Actually 10 years ago the bows were extremely fast.They may not have been as smooth,quiet,or shootable but they were fast.


There were many bows shooting over 300 fps.

You go on back 15-20 years and things slow down dramatically.

I have a Martin " Firecat" wheel bow that is 11 years old. I forget the average speed, but it is still shooting, totally reliable, sweet shooting, and has " lobbed-dropped" its share of whitetails. This bow even took down a side-running buck.

I also have a 9-year old Martin " Bengal" Sonic-Wheel that I do not know what the speed is, but it is built like a tank, reliable, very nice to pull, and will lob a shaft and knock the socks off any deer. This bow has dropped a very nice black bear.

My old American " Cheeta" recurve is about a 170fps bow. It lobbed several wood and glass shafts into several nice deer. Especially the 240lb 8-pointer in 1973.

My old PSE " Pacer" probably punches out at 180fps, maybe 190, I don' t really know. It has brought down several deer. Most impressive was the 250lb boar that wanted to punch my ticket. However, that old PSE lobbed a Savora through his chest and punched his ticket instead.

60 minutes earlier, my brother dropped a 300 lb boar with an same type " Pacer." He lobbed a shaft into that boar at 35 yards, and took the pig' s heart out.

Etc..............

I' ll take a slow hit over a fast miss!

My first bow, a Bear whitetail, was shooting the first Beman carbon arrows at a blistering 220 something fps.

Back 20 years ago, there was no such thing as IBO speed. (At least I never heard of it.) Everything was AMO which is measured a lot slower. I remember a really fast bow was anything over 200. The bows today are smoother and quieter with a solid wall when at full draw. The old bows were mushy but still dropped their share. Had a Jennings ArrowStar back then. Hell of a bow. Wish I still had it.[:' (]

thats kinda surprising that they were still pretty decint bows...and surprises me many of you either still have you old bows or wish you had them.....a slow hit is much better than a fast miss..thats not what i was really getting at...its been proven dead is dead....100fps will probally do a deer in at the right range..i was really wondering what the older bows good speeds were and how much they changed...i felt the draw diffrence between a new bow and a old bow...the old bow is set at 65 i think..the new one at 80..the new one was easier to draw because it was that much smoother...i mean i have no trouble with either..but i could tell the diffrence....only the round wheels of the old bow came back in one motion while the oval shaped wheels of the new one let you get back half way then it was kinda stoped then the rest came...i figured things changed alot more....kinda neat....

I' ve still got my PSE 2050Z that I bought new about ten years ago. I think the IBO was just under 300 FPS. It is quiet for a bow that old, but sounds like a .22 next to either of my new bows. I' ll tell you one thing though. I can go pick it up right now and it will shoot a bullet hole through paper and stack arrows like who' d a thunk it. I killed a deer with it the last day of the season last year and it performed flawlessly as always. It is now and probably always will be my back up bow. I won' t hesitate to take it to the deer stand.

As TFOX said, the newer bows haven' t gotten a whole lot faster, but they are definitely quieter and more shock free.