Save Yourself Time and Money: Your Top 10 Questions Answered
Our customers are a curious bunch. They ask us a lot of questions and our techs are happy to answer each one of them, of course. At Texas Archery, our mission is simple: to provide the best customer service in the industry. Here are a few of your most common questions. We believe we can serve you better if you have a bit of information when you come in or call. While not an exhaustive list, we hope they help.
Our Top 10 most common customer questions:
Choosing a bow is an individual experience. You need to research and test shoot (Texas Archery has a tuning/testing range so you can take a few bows out for a test drive) a variety of brands and pick the bow that feels right for you. Factors to consider include the size of the bow (and the shooter) and your budget.
The best arrow depends on what kind of shooting you’re doing, so your selection is determined by your purpose. Your arrows will be different if you’re shooting target archery or hunting game. And it’ll change again for the different kinds and size of game you’re hunting.
All of our techs agree on this. The arrow rest is definitely a key accessory. It’s what makes the arrow fly true. And you should invest in good quality broadheads.
Low poundage bows produce smaller amounts of kinetic energy so there will be less force when it hits the target.
Broadheads come in three styles: chisel tips, mechanical and cut-on-contact. The mechanical style needs more power for it to open and deploy when penetrating your target. The cut-on-contact cuts as soon as it hits your target. Any quality cut-on-contact broadhead is best for low poundage bows. Chisel tips can be used as a medium-poundage tool.
In our opinion, with the proper broadhead, 35 pounds is the minimum weight, when you’re hunting game. And, of course, it depends on the size of the game you’re looking to take down. Obviously, for larger game, you increase the weight on your bow.
Our technical answer is whenever there are any broken, damaged or frayed areas in the string. When the strings are damaged or stretched, this affects the timing of the bow - which means one or more of the cams will be out of sync, which affects your shot.
There are generally (there may be a combination of the two but this is a general description) two different types of archers: the seasonal bow hunter who only shoots during the season and the regular, weekly competitor. We recommend every three years (for the seasonal people) and 7000 shots (not that you need to count or anything) for the regular shooter.
Waxing prolongs string life by keeping them supple and preventing them from drying out. Our rule of thumb is that if it’s tacky to the touch, there is enough wax on the string.
Depending on the type of hunting situation you are in, both single and fixed pins have pros and cons. If you have a fixed pin, you can go to the next pin if the animal moves suddenly. On a single pin, you can call up the exact yardage - down to 1-yard increments.
The index finger release is a bit more affordable and user-friendly and will get you out to 50 yards. The thumb release requires more practice to get right and there is less movement in the arrow but you have to have more shot discipline. However, they are more accurate at farther differences (50 yards and beyond).
For hunters, we always recommend you pre-plan to get your bow maintenance done before the season begins to avoid backups at the shop. We don’t want anyone to be disappointed by potentially not having your bow ready for opening day.
Now, this is our disclaimer. We have a few techs. And together, they have several decades of experience. But they don’t always agree on everything; a lot about archery is a personal preference. So, these answers are a consensus of what our techs believe. And, as you can see, many of the answers are very dependent on individual style, preferences, and opinions.
Your best bet is to come on in (we’d love to see you!) and talk to us so we can give you a more personalized answer.