I prefer to have both smooth and fast . Along with quiet, shooability, dead in hand and tack driving accurate.
A bit OT here, but a valid question.
I"m not going to argue that speed is good if it can be quiet and manageable, but how much difference does X amount of speed really make?
You will never come close to being super sonic, so there will always be noise to give away whats happened, and time to try to move.
Ever watch the deer when a bird swoops in or a hawk or such.
I used to think that 180-200 was just about to slow. If you could gain a bit on that its a better deal, but in reality how many FPS makes what? difference?
Drop wise doesn't matter anymore, we have rangefinders for those that feel comfortable beyond the close range only shots I feel comfortable with.
On a good custom recurve, and I don't have a clue what my speeds were/are at all, there seemed to be a realistic difference running a full on cedar shaft and head vs a carbon shaft and same head.
Granted the carbon was lighter AND smaller in diameter so had to to be faster. By ear, impact was quicker. And the key there, it seemed to make a difference, IE you could hit where you should instead of the deer moving.
I'd be curious to what others think.
I had a fast bow, supposedly 280ish IIRC many moons ago when cams were big and new, shot with light arrows. But sounded like a 22 going off so it was of no use. Obviously the noise gets there before the arrow, but where is the magical mark?
