Forgiveness Question

[markdeerhunter]

Would a bow with a 28in draw and a 6in brace height be as forgiving as a 30in draw and 7in brace height? The reason I am asking is I have looked at and shot the PSE Evo and was very impressed but worry the 6in brace height would make it difficult to be accurate. I have read that with my shorter draw length a 6in brace height isn't as problematic. I am dropping poundage from my old bow set at 70 lbs to a new probably 60 lb bow and want more speed than the 250 fps that I am currently getting out of my MQ1.

[archeryassasin]

i also have a shorter draw length and i shoot a 6 inch brace at 70lbs on my PSE Octane and it is very forgiving,no problems hitting x's consistently. GOODLUCK!

[bfisher]

Just a mention of this on my part, but if most people shot draw lengths in accordance with their stature there would be a lot more shooting closer to
28" than there are. Therefore I would not call 28" short by any means, but closer to average. Now that I've said that onto your question.

As for getting more than 250 fps out of a bow? With a 28" draw and 60# there are many bows on the market today that would approach or exceed 300fps. It depends a lot on the setup. But just for starters you have to pick a bow with a high IBO speed rating.

Keeping accessories off the string is one way to increase speed. Shooting near or at the recommended 5gr/lb minimum arrow weight is another. It really has little to do with the draw weight of the bow. In some cases replacing the factory strings with custom (BCY 8125) string can get as much as 10fps more, but not always. Peeps with tube aligners rob as much as 8fps based on my chrono results.

There is a tradeoff here. To get the most speed out of the bow you have to accept that the bow is going to produce more noise. Also a little more vibration (hand shock), although bows today have so little handshock to begin with you might not be able to tell the difference.

Now if it's a hunting setup I would give up some speed and settle for less noise and just a more smoothly shooting bow. Hunting distances aren't usually long enough to be worried about speed. Even 30 fps doesn't flatten trajectories enough to worry about inside 30 yards.

Just an example, but last year I was shooting a Martin FireCat, 27" draw and 42#. This was launching a 209gr arrow (3D setup) at 281fps. By comparison it also shot 315gr arrow at 254fps (hunting setup). Either is good enough for it's intended purpose. Point is I started with a bow IBO rated at 335 fps.

You start a building with a good base and then build on that.

[bfisher]

I forgot to touch on brace height, which was what your question was about. With a 28" draw I would be more inclined to stay around 7" brace height. With my sub 27" draw I have shot as low as 5 3/4", but about 6 1/4" works much better for forgiveness. 7" works even better. So what little I gained in speed was offset with less forgiveness.

There's a lot of debate about forgiveness and how to get it. It's never one thing such as brace height. It's a combination of several things such as brace height, a2a of the bow and size of the cam(s), riser geometry, rest type, balance of the bow, and even how well the bow fits your stature. Even too much draw weight enters into it. It's a lot of thing all balled into a complete system.