T
timujin
Guest
Hi All
I bought one of these recently, have fitted it to my bow and tried it out. I thought it might be useful to share my findings with you for those who might be thinking of buying one.
Before I start talking about it, I'll post some factory pics of the rest so that you have an idea of what I am talking about:
A few general things about the rest first. If the design looks vaguely familiar, it's because it was designed and made by the guy who used to design and make the Golden Key Futura rests and who nows owns Spot-Hogg. The quality of the workmanship is excellent.
This is not like any other rest you have probably come in contact with. I'm still not completely sure how it works, but I'll try to describe it as best I can.
The rest stays upright when it is "at rest" (so to speak). The brass bit on the back of the rest with the piece of cord attached is the trigger. As you draw your bow the cord slackens completely (see bottom picture above). By the way, this was just a publicity shot - the arrow does not sit nose high on the rest when at full drawn.
When you release, the rest stays in the upright position until the string comes to about six inches from releasing the arrow. At this point the trigger is drawn very rapidly down and drops the rest to the horizontal, thereby giving clearance to the arrow fletchings.
Immediately after this, the rest springs back upright. The thing is on a trigger mechanism which operates as the rest drops to the full horizontal position. Don't ask me what the internal gubbins are like, I wouldn't have a clue, but it does work.
The guy who designed the rest did extensive testing of it using a Spot Hogg Shooting Machine and claims that it works perfectly all of the time, giving complete clearance and shooting "all of the arrows through the same hole".
I've no cause to believe otherwise, except that things aren't quite as simple as they appear. First up, the "timing" of the drop can be adjusted by adjusting the tightness of the rope through the brass trigger. The instructions cover this, but it isn't totally clear how things really operate in this regard.
When I tested this on my bow, a Mathews Prestige, 60# draw weight and bracing height of 6", I had massive amounts of vane contact, so much so that at 70m my arrows were going from the 1 ring on the left hand side of the 122cm target to the 1 ring on the right hand side. At 70m I normally keep the majority of my arrows in the 10/9 ring so it was clear that something was really wrong. I played around with the timing but from its very slowest to its very fastest, I could not improve on things.
Just for the record, I had set centre shot properly and adjusted the nocking point carefully and was using correctly spined arrows. When I reported on my tests of this rest on an Amercian Archery Forum, I was accused of not having done any of these things, so I thought I'd let you all know right now that I'm not a TOTAL klutz and did all of the usual necessary things when trialling a new rest.
Anyway, when I got back home, I decided to trim the prongs right back, so that the absolute minimum was protruding just above the arrow. I also did some further testing on my home 15m range and founf that the best nocking point was 1/16" above dead level. I reset the timing to the suggested factory setting and this combination proved a lot better. Powder testing, however, showed I was still getting the lightest of touches on one of my vanes and nothing I could do would remove it. Cabe, of Spot Hogg, suggested that i replace the supplied prongs with a spring blade launcher and try that.
Fortunately for me, I have several of these plus some spare GKF launcher rods so I was able to mount a .010" spring blade on the appropriate bearing rod, on which I had to grind a flat along one side. I tried the rest with this set up and arrow behaviour was perfect with no conatact whatsoever. However, I knew that this was going to be the case, because what I was shooting now, effectively was a GK Target Pro Spring Blade rest, (albeit with a drop away feature) which I already have anyway and which I know works perfectly well.
I carefully increased the size of the V in the spring blade so that the arrow would sit comfortably in it during the draw and the rest is now shooting perfectly. It also manages my X10s without any vane contact, which the Target Pro won't do, so I guess I'll keep the Whammy and continue to use it.
I am told by some of the other owners of these rests that they have had no problem with setting up the rest and getting perfect arrow flight with no clearance problems at all. It has been suggested to me that I don't know what I am doing and any problems I am having are my fault. At least Cabe from Spot Hogg doesn't believe this.
So, in summary, here is what I feel about the rest. It is beautifully made and should last forever. If you can get it set up properly on your bow so that you get no vane contact on firing, you should have a nearly perfect drop away rest which will give you maximum arrow support and no vane contact.
If like me you have some problems, you can resolve them by fitting a spring blade launcher in place of the prongs and these make the rest work perfectly.
However, and perhaps I am being unreasonable about this, when I buy something, I expect it to work as advertised without major work on my part. I have no problems with having to set the thing up properly to start with and to do some tweaking to get it to operate perfectly but I do not believe that I should have do major investigations to resolve problems nor have a range of other equipment available to replace parts of the commercial item to make it work as advertised. If I hadn't been lucky enough to have the spring blade launchers and a spare GK bearing arm available, the rest would be on its way back to Spot Hogg now for refund (which incidentally, they do offer).
I would say, in conclusion that it is going to be a great rest for some bows, in its factory guise. It can be made to work for all bows as proved to be the case with my rest. Whether you feel happy about having to do some major playing around with it if things don't work as they are supposed to, is a matter for you to resolve yourselves.
Would I recommend it? Yes - in its present form on my bow and also if you can get it to work perfectly right away. If not, then either send it back or do as I had to do.
Here's a photo of my final set up:
Hope this is of some use to you.
I bought one of these recently, have fitted it to my bow and tried it out. I thought it might be useful to share my findings with you for those who might be thinking of buying one.
Before I start talking about it, I'll post some factory pics of the rest so that you have an idea of what I am talking about:
A few general things about the rest first. If the design looks vaguely familiar, it's because it was designed and made by the guy who used to design and make the Golden Key Futura rests and who nows owns Spot-Hogg. The quality of the workmanship is excellent.
This is not like any other rest you have probably come in contact with. I'm still not completely sure how it works, but I'll try to describe it as best I can.
The rest stays upright when it is "at rest" (so to speak). The brass bit on the back of the rest with the piece of cord attached is the trigger. As you draw your bow the cord slackens completely (see bottom picture above). By the way, this was just a publicity shot - the arrow does not sit nose high on the rest when at full drawn.
When you release, the rest stays in the upright position until the string comes to about six inches from releasing the arrow. At this point the trigger is drawn very rapidly down and drops the rest to the horizontal, thereby giving clearance to the arrow fletchings.
Immediately after this, the rest springs back upright. The thing is on a trigger mechanism which operates as the rest drops to the full horizontal position. Don't ask me what the internal gubbins are like, I wouldn't have a clue, but it does work.
The guy who designed the rest did extensive testing of it using a Spot Hogg Shooting Machine and claims that it works perfectly all of the time, giving complete clearance and shooting "all of the arrows through the same hole".
I've no cause to believe otherwise, except that things aren't quite as simple as they appear. First up, the "timing" of the drop can be adjusted by adjusting the tightness of the rope through the brass trigger. The instructions cover this, but it isn't totally clear how things really operate in this regard.
When I tested this on my bow, a Mathews Prestige, 60# draw weight and bracing height of 6", I had massive amounts of vane contact, so much so that at 70m my arrows were going from the 1 ring on the left hand side of the 122cm target to the 1 ring on the right hand side. At 70m I normally keep the majority of my arrows in the 10/9 ring so it was clear that something was really wrong. I played around with the timing but from its very slowest to its very fastest, I could not improve on things.
Just for the record, I had set centre shot properly and adjusted the nocking point carefully and was using correctly spined arrows. When I reported on my tests of this rest on an Amercian Archery Forum, I was accused of not having done any of these things, so I thought I'd let you all know right now that I'm not a TOTAL klutz and did all of the usual necessary things when trialling a new rest.
Anyway, when I got back home, I decided to trim the prongs right back, so that the absolute minimum was protruding just above the arrow. I also did some further testing on my home 15m range and founf that the best nocking point was 1/16" above dead level. I reset the timing to the suggested factory setting and this combination proved a lot better. Powder testing, however, showed I was still getting the lightest of touches on one of my vanes and nothing I could do would remove it. Cabe, of Spot Hogg, suggested that i replace the supplied prongs with a spring blade launcher and try that.
Fortunately for me, I have several of these plus some spare GKF launcher rods so I was able to mount a .010" spring blade on the appropriate bearing rod, on which I had to grind a flat along one side. I tried the rest with this set up and arrow behaviour was perfect with no conatact whatsoever. However, I knew that this was going to be the case, because what I was shooting now, effectively was a GK Target Pro Spring Blade rest, (albeit with a drop away feature) which I already have anyway and which I know works perfectly well.
I carefully increased the size of the V in the spring blade so that the arrow would sit comfortably in it during the draw and the rest is now shooting perfectly. It also manages my X10s without any vane contact, which the Target Pro won't do, so I guess I'll keep the Whammy and continue to use it.
I am told by some of the other owners of these rests that they have had no problem with setting up the rest and getting perfect arrow flight with no clearance problems at all. It has been suggested to me that I don't know what I am doing and any problems I am having are my fault. At least Cabe from Spot Hogg doesn't believe this.
So, in summary, here is what I feel about the rest. It is beautifully made and should last forever. If you can get it set up properly on your bow so that you get no vane contact on firing, you should have a nearly perfect drop away rest which will give you maximum arrow support and no vane contact.
If like me you have some problems, you can resolve them by fitting a spring blade launcher in place of the prongs and these make the rest work perfectly.
However, and perhaps I am being unreasonable about this, when I buy something, I expect it to work as advertised without major work on my part. I have no problems with having to set the thing up properly to start with and to do some tweaking to get it to operate perfectly but I do not believe that I should have do major investigations to resolve problems nor have a range of other equipment available to replace parts of the commercial item to make it work as advertised. If I hadn't been lucky enough to have the spring blade launchers and a spare GK bearing arm available, the rest would be on its way back to Spot Hogg now for refund (which incidentally, they do offer).
I would say, in conclusion that it is going to be a great rest for some bows, in its factory guise. It can be made to work for all bows as proved to be the case with my rest. Whether you feel happy about having to do some major playing around with it if things don't work as they are supposed to, is a matter for you to resolve yourselves.
Would I recommend it? Yes - in its present form on my bow and also if you can get it to work perfectly right away. If not, then either send it back or do as I had to do.
Here's a photo of my final set up:
Hope this is of some use to you.