Warning: this is long, and conatins a lot of information that I hope you will find useful (you may even want to print it for reference when shoping).
I don't think "buying by brand" is the best place to start honestly. Pretty much all bowmakers these days make good stuff.
I'm relatively new to bowhunting (1 1/12 years), but here are the things I considered when I looked for a bow:
I didn't want to buy a "beginner's" bow because I didn't want to "outgrow" it and have to buy another one next year. In a similar fashion, I didn't want to buy a "pro" model either. I wanted something that I could hunt with for a few years and not feel like I needed an upgrade, but I wanted something hat was "easy" to shoot.
When I started looking for a bow, I did a ton of reseach so that I had at
least some idea of what was what when it came to bows.
The first misconception I had was that you needed a "heavy" draw weight to deer hunt. Not necessarily true - a 50 pound draw weight will kill deer just as dead as an 80 pounder. The 50# draw weight is a lot easier to draw - and easier to draw quietly and quickly - both very important factors when hunting. The downside is that a 50# bow is slower. But speed doesn't kill - aim does, and a lower draw weight equates to a lower hold weight (in most cases), and the lower the hold weight, the easier to hold accurately.
I also thought that speed was critical. Again, not necessarily true. While
speed does have advantages - most notably speed can make up for errors in judging distance (a really fast bow shoots pretty much the same at 20 yards as it does at 30 yards), and the arrow spends less time in the air, which means the deer has less time to "jump" the string.
My bow shoots about 280 feet per second (fps) at 65#. Sound travels at about 1100 fps (no bow shoots that fast - the fastest I've read about is just above 350 fps). In other words a deer will definitely hear the bow shoot before the arrow gets there (if they're close enough and the woods are quiet).
At 280 fps, and a range of 30 yards - or 90 feet, an arrow is in the air for
roughly 1/3 of a second, and believe it or not, that's plenty of time for a
deer to react.
This brins up a factor that I've never seen rated anywhere - the "loudness" of a bow. Obviously the quieter the bow is, the better off you are. My bow is much quieter than most, but it's louder than others. Of course you can add things to make the bow quieter, but a bow that starts off quieter needs less additions (cheaper).
There's also "axle to axle" length. This is the overall length of the bow,
not counting the inch or so where the cams extend past the center point of the cams. Shorter is easier to get into the woods with and easier to shoot from a stand. Shorter also means that it's HARDER to shoot accurately, although this can be overcome with a lot of regular practice.
"Brace height" and "reflex geometry" are possibly the biggest
considerations for new or returning shooters. Brace height is the distance from the center point of the riser (that "main" part of the bow also sometimes called the grip) to the string.
A shorter brace height generally equates to a faster arrow speed - but it's
also harder to shoot well than a longer brace height. Shorter brace heights tend to want to "twist" or "roll" in your hand - which means that you need a firmer grip - but you don't want to grip too much, or you'll "torque" the bow and throw the arrow off. Not a big deal at 10 yards, but it's accentuated at 30 yards.
Reflex geometry is the distance between the limb pockets (where the limbs mount to the riser/grip) and the centerline of the grip itself. A higher reflex geometry equals a faster bow - but it also means a harder to shoot bow.
Another consideration is "let-off" - rated in percentage. A 60 pound draw
weight with a 75% let-off means that you're "holding" 15 pounds at full
draw. This is an important consideration for hunnting, but almost all bows
have a let-off of 60 to 75%.
Here's a website that explains most of what I've written above:
http://www.huntersfriend.com/newbowhelp3.htmOne subject on the site that you should read about is the "Forgiveness
Factor" - an "unorthodox" rating of how easy a bow is to shoot fairly well.
They also have a side by side bow comparison chart that lists all current
year model bows for a number of manufacturers:
http://www.huntersfriend.com/bowspecs1.htmHere's some GREAT information about bows from a different page at the same site - you might even want to read this first:
http://www.huntersfriend.com/bowselection.htmYou can sort the bows listed by any of the categories by clicking on the
topic heading at the top of the page so that you can compare bows by
different criteria.
Here's a link to Hoyt bows:
http://www.hoytusa.com/products/xtec.tpl?cart=109398452117675730And here's alink to my Hoyt "Dyna-Tech":
http://www.hoytusa.com/products/dynatec.tpl?cart=109398452117675730My bow is much easier to shoot than most of the "advanced" models, and yet it's still plenty fast (and super quiet, lke I said above).
I've been shooting an average of at least 50 arrows a day for over 3 months now. I average 2 1/2 inch 3-shot groups @ 30 yards.
Even with that much practice - which a lot of people
think is "excessive" - there are a lot of bows that I can't shoot very well at all, and others that I shoot just as good.
Like I said, most manufacturers make great bows, and most brands have everything from "beginner" to "expert", in price ranges from what I can afford to somewhere up in the "gold-plated" range. There are some brands you couldn't give me - strictly because of personal preference. Well, you could give it to me, but I'd probably sell it.
You don't want to buy a bow that you "outgrow" in a year, - that can get
pretty expensive. But you don't want to buy a bow that you can't shoot well either - you'll get frustrated and discouraged.
Hoyt and Mathews seem like the most "popular" brands, with several other brands coming in a close second, but don't buy into the manufacturer "hype". BUY A BOW THAT FITS YOU - ONE THAT YOU LIKE.
Do more world archery champions shoot Mathews because Mathews
sponsors more of them than any other manufacturer, or are Mathews bows really the best ?
Only YOU can decide what's best for you.
My belief was that by gathering as much information as I possibly could, I'd make a more informed decision when I finally bought my bow.
I hope this helps (especially after you took all that time to read it)
