Hotburn76

What Doe girls said is right on track! Sometimes I have wondered if the Stryker is not a way for bowtech to make money on both ends. Sell a few CB's and also still help maintain the bad CB image. As she said, why would any CB maker use that kind of image for a product you want to gain acceptance? Is the Stryker a wolf in sheep clothes???? Either way they win right? They either have a head start on the long bow makers as one starting to make the switch, or they help preserv the CB discrimination and secure long bow sales?

Gimphunter

I have one and can't tell you anything about it as I got it just a day before my shoulder surgery. I can tell you the company didn't win a happy customer with their extremely poor customer service in trying to right what should have been a very minor problem with my order. It'll all be great if it does what it appears to do. Not sure I buy the exploding rig claims. Not if it's second hand.

The workmanship on it appears to be top notch. We'll see after a few hundred arrows have been launched.

SwampCollie

I'm impressed.

I just moved back to VA after a 6 year stint in SC. In SC (especially where I lived in the Lowcountry), you bow hunt because you like to bow hunt. Rifle season opens on August 15th, so there is no special bow season in my part of the state. There are a few WMAs that are archery only opportunties, but that aside, you can gun hunt the whole season. Crossbows were legal, as they were part of firearms season.

When I just came back to VA, I learned that two years prior they had made crossbows legal during the archery season. Most of my archery buddies were mad as wet hens about it. Me personally, I don't really care...whatever gets people to hunt is a good thing, not to mention we have too many deer anyway. Lots of folks seem to think that crossbows are a "poachers weapon", and are capable of killing deer like a silent wind out to 100 yards. Since I work in the hunting/archery industry for a living (and have since studied the matter intensely now that I have to sell crossbows), I have learned this is not the case. As I have read on this forum, crossbows are good out to about 35 yards max. As I tell people in the shop, its about like #1 buckshot...30-35 yards and thats IT!

I honestly think that the whole reason VA bought into allowing crossbows during the early archery season is because of folks like you Randy, and the attitude your companies have. If your industry took the stance that Stryker has, I really don't think that crossbows would have become legal for use in VA. We are a state that still doesn't allow hunting on Sunday, and we still have blind laws and other blue laws left over from LONG LONG ago. We don't change our ways much. While there is certainly not as steep a learning curve with crossbows as there is with vertical archery (for lack of a better term), the fact that you can do more with a vertical bow with practice really evens out the playing field, espeically in the eyes of the law makers who saw fit to allow crossbows.

I really admire the stance y'all have taken. And I can totally see and understand why the Stryker is causing an uproar. I have shot the thing, and its down right impressive, but the fact that they are tooting that you can easily shoot and kill at 60 yards with it may very well end up being the undoing. Hopefully not.

I had always wondered why crossbow companies had not simply taken a compound bow with a long powerstroke, given it 150 lb limbs and attached it to a gun stock. It seems you likely have to technology to make an arrow go upwards of 500fps...if not closer to the sound barrier (and probably in 5 years you'll see the ability if its not there already). I suppose this is the answer. And I think its FANTASTIC insight on your part. You guys are much better off as an industry to restrict the speeds and abilities to that of a recurve vertical bow so that states will start allowing them during archery seasons. Lets face it, you cannot compete with a firearm, and if a regular bow cannot compete with you...then you are left without a season to hunt in, and subsequently, no customers to sell to. I'm just truely, honestly, impressed.

awshucks

SwampCollie: Good post!!

Dnk

Swampcollie, great post and a great attitude!