Initial thoughts on the KAP Winstar II bow

The Winstar II and all of the bits finally arrived from Lancaster Archery last week. I dropped it off to George for him to set it up and I had my first go with it at the range on Saturday. I also bought 10 used Easton ACC arrows off him for $75. The bow feels good but I will definately need to work on my arm strength as the 30# limbs are causing my arm to shake when I'm archored and trying to aim.

For some reason I was consistantly shooting to the upper left of the target no matter how much I adjusted the sight. I suspect that the sight needed some larger movement than the micro adjustment I was giving it. I moved it out some more when I got home and will be going back out to the range on Wednesday.

The foam in the carry case was not precut so I had to do it myself. I traced the outline of the riser, limbs, horizontal sight bar and sight aperture on the foam using chalk and then cut the foam using a sharp knife. It is a litle bit of a hack job but it will do for now.

I'll post some pictures soon.

Bow equipment for me

Here is the setup that I am looking at for my bow. The limbs and the sight are subject to change as I'm not sure what is going to be better to spend the money on. I want to get something that Adan can move up to once he outgrows the T-Rex. After that I may move to a compound bow.

KAP Winstar II 25" Black Riser
KAP 70" 30# Winstorm Craft Limbs
Sure-Loc Contender-X Target Sight or Shibuya Dual Click Standard
2 Dynaflight '97 70" 14 Strand bowstrings (one black, one white)
Spigarelli Bow Stringer
Aurora Techno Jazz Quiver
Aurora Dynamic Take-Down Recurve case
Win & Win 360 Perfect Finger Tab
Arco Sport Spigarelli Z/T (Zero Tolerance) Rest for W&W - Now that I look into things a bit more I'm seeing that there have been some people having problems with this rest on UK Archery Interchange
Cartel Midas Cushion Pressure Button

KAP T-Rex has arrived

Adan's bow and equipment arrived last week from Alternative Sports in the UK and we had George from the Victoria Bowmen club set it up for us. George had to make a few last minute substitutions for us as the arrow rest and cushion plunger I ordered weren't suitable for the T-Rex. This was my fault for not running it by George first but they should work fine with the KAP Winstar II riser that I want to get for me.

Adan used the bow for the first time on Saturday and seemed pleased with it. The weight of the bow and pull weight of the limbs is a bit heavier than the wooden recurves we had been using during the lessons and this is causing him to be a bit shakier. I'm sure after a few weeks of use he will be fine.

Basic Target Archery Setup

My oldest son and I are coming to the end of a set of 6 archery lessons with the Victoria Bowmen Club. We have both joined the club so that he can carry on doing lessons in the club's Junior Olympic Program (JOP). Up until now we have both been using basic wood bows that the club provides for lessons but to carry on we must get our own gear. Since my son will grow out of whatever we purchased him now I wanted to balance the cost against getting him a good setup that now hold him back from shooting well.

Unfortunately, there are only two shops (Island Outfitters and Bucky's in Duncan) that sell archery equipment on Vancouver Island and both of those mainly cater to the hunting side of archery instead of the target side. The are two online stores in Canada, The Bow Shop and The Archer's Nook as well as Lancaster Archery in the US. All of these have a good selection of equipment but their prices are kind of high. The best pricing I have found so far is Alternative Sports Services in the UK. Even with the shipping charges it is still cheaper than the North American stores. When I've order stuff from abroad in the past it has always been hit or miss if I got charged customs duty so we will see what happens with this order.

After some looking around on archery sites and forums we came up with the following setup:

KAP T-Rex 23" riser
KAP T-Rex 66in 22# limbs
Cartel Midas Cushion Pressure Button
Cartel K-Sight
Arco Sport Spigarelli Z/T (Zero Tolerance) Rest
2 Cartel Dacron Fast Strings
Cartel Bowstringer
Cartel Dynamic 501 Quiver
Cartel CR-3 Arm Guard

The only thing left to get are some aluminum arrows and a case. Both of these we should be able to get from the local suppliers without any problems.

As for myself, I'm going to wait awhile and try some club members bows out but I'm currently looking at a KAP Winstar II and Winstorm limbs but it depends on how much I want to spend.