After shooting a couple of indoor tournaments with the
Brigadier, I have concluded that this bow doesn’t suit me and I am going
to pass it on. I am a bit disappointed because I put a lot of money, time and effort into setting this bow up and I really wanted to like it, but it just doesn’t
‘feel’ right to me. I think a large part of this is because of the
bow that I learned to shoot with.
My first compound was a Guardian, which is a hunting bow. It
is short, has parallel limbs for high speed and is very quiet –
all features you want for hunting. Target bows are generally much taller, have
regular limbs and are usually louder because noise levels aren’t a
concern - I’ve never seen a paper target jump and run away because it
heard a bow go off!!
This makes dedicated Target bows feel totally different and
after spending so long shooting the Guardian, and then a year and a half with
my Insanity CPXL (also technically a hunting bow) I find that I don’t get
on with Target bows and don’t like how they feel and react. They shoot
very well, but I don’t shoot them well.
I shot the Brigadier at the Indoor Nationals and was
disappointed compared to the previous year when I shot the Insanity. Last year
I shot a 569 and made the cut, this year with the Brigadier I only scored 560
and it was a struggle. I was losing faith in the Brigadier at this stage so
after that result I decided to shoot my Insanity, still set up for Field for
the WFAA indoor champs after the new year. I did this and came in 2nd
place, very close to a perfect score.
The final nail in the coffin came last week when I decided
that for the Welsh Senior Indoor Champs (a FITA 18) I wanted fat arrows to get
as many line cutters as possible. I didn’t want to change anything on the
Insanity, so I dug out the Guardian and stripped the BowHunter setup off it,
and fitted it with the Indoor Target equipment off the Brigadier.
I only had one night at the club, 2 days before the
competition to set it up. I couldn’t do a walkback as it was dark and
raining outside, so I set centreshot by eye and paper tuned to get it more or
less right. I shot a few dozen to sight it in and set the stabilizers up. By
now I only had time to shoot 2 scored dozens, but I scored a 114 & 115
which was better than I was getting with the Brigadier so I decided to take this
one with me.
The day came and I drove down to the National Sports
Institute at Sophia Gardens where the tournament was being hosted and got
everything set up and signed in. We started on the morning session and right
from the off, the Guardian felt nice to shoot and I soon settled down to shoot
consistently. I had a nice run of 10’s, with most shots falling inside
the recurve 10 and the bow felt like a dream to shoot. I realized I had missed
shooting my Guardian!
The scores were totalled up and I finished on a new
tournament PB of 572! I have never shot higher than 569 in competition, hitting
that score several times previously so I was very happy with that result. A
group of us from Pentref went to the pub across the road for a Sunday roast
dinner, and then came back over in the afternoon for the results and it turns
out that I had taken 2nd place and won the silver medal!
There I was, holding the silver with a new PB using my
original bow that was hurriedly set up in one evening. That sealed it for me
that the Brigadier is not for me and it is time to let it go. I am going to be
listing it for sale and haven’t decided what to use the proceeds for.
After losing out on points (and possibly first place) at the UK & Ireland
champs because my bow was knocked in transit, I’ve been tempted to get an
SKB hard case but they are around £200. If the Brigadier sells I will have the
money so I may treat myself. The bow’s cost a lot of money and a lot of
time is spent setting them up, so it makes sense to invest in a quality case
that will protect them properly. We’ll see!
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