Stabilizer set up

[sshin1980]

I’ve been tinkering a little with my bow stabilizer. Not sure what I like.

I heard from a guy at the shooting range that the weight should be greater on the back and from another that the weight should be in the front.

Any thoughts? Would appreciate why you have your stabilizer set a certain way.

Also I just bought a Hoyt Ventum Pro that has a short stabilizer in the front.

 

[dtrkyman]

100% preference and trial and error, look at pro's, most are using a completely different set than the other.

I do not use a back bar, I have some weight attached to the riser through the hole for a quiver to offset the weight from my sight and rest.

Have a 15 inch front bars with a couple ounces on the end, played with a lot of cinfigurations and landed where I am.

 

[Beendare]

Personally, I’m not gonna haul a stabilizer around in the woods so I don’t shoot with one

 

[sshin1980]

I’ve tinkered, and can’t figure out what’s best.

Thanks for the input

 

[sshin1980]

I guess weight is something to consider as well. Need to find the happy medium of stability and weight. Thanks for the inputs!

 

[4rcgoat]

It's all personal preference, try different combinations until you find what works best for YOUR form. I've been running a 15inch up front with 4 ounces for a few years. With a heavier sight on, an 8 inch back bar with 6 ounces balances things out.

 

[Billy Goat]

Stabilizers really have one purpose, to stabilize the bow at the shot. The increased mass will slow your pin float, but it shouldn't really alter how far your pin is moving. That's a function of fit and form.


The riser shape will tend to dictate if you have more on the front or back. Difference of a reflex or deflex riser. Most hunting bows will have a reflex riser which will generally have more on the front than the back. That's not more weight per say, but more inch/ounce. So say you have a 12" front and you have 4 ounces on it, that's 48 inch/ounce. On a neutral riser, take the 48 and divide it by the length of the rear to get a starting point. So if you had a 8" rear you would probably start around 6 ounce on the back. If the riser is reflex (grip behind the limb pivot) I'd likely go lighter on the rear bar to start. Then you need to play with it and figure out what works for you. But if you start to use weight to fix things, you are probably just covering up problems.

 

[N2TRKYS]

I quit using a stabilizer years ago.

 

[KneeDeep]

The following stabilizer setup technique changed my archery life...I have three bows, one of which held perfect balance and just felt great overall at draw, the others felt like a never ending quest of trial and error on stabilizers until...

...I found the center of mass for for the one I love, and used stabilizers and weights to replicate that on the other two. The way I found the center of mass was to hang the bow from a single point on the cam and let a weighted string drop down to create one "line". Then hung the bow from a a point on the string near the d-loop and let a weighted string drop down to get a second "line". The intersection is the center of mass. The exact placement of the hanging points doesn't matter any two points will do as long as you can find the intersection, which is nice because the weighted string needs to hang freely not affected by other accessories in the way.

Did the same on all three bows, and was surprized to see how different accessories and brands of bows create different balance points! But used stabilizer lengths and weights to get them all weighing the same total weight and balancing in the exact same spot relative to my bow hand, and suddenly they all felt exactly the same (within reason of course).

For me, since I shoot and compete BHFS, the balance point is about 1.5" below the shelf and about 0.25" into the riser (0.25" further away from my body that the point where my bowhand contacts the riser.

There are youtube videos on how to find center of mass of bow if not clear. Having a measureable way to characterize the stabilizer setup was amazing. Now if only there were a quantifiable way of seeing the effect of different stabilizer setups on precision without having to rely on "group tuning" or shooting every permutation of setup for a month before "feeling" if it seemed like it might have maybe improved my scores (or whether any one of the the 1000 other variables was responsible for my slightly better or worse score).

Hope this helps!