Oh boy!

Oh boy it has been a while, I have only managed to shoot about 6 times this year and it shows. I finally got back to the club last Wednesday and I took along an old pair of winstar wood/carbon limbs that I have not used since I got my revolution, the idea was to use them just to get my form back as they are only 26lbs I can pretty much hold at full draw while I work out where everything is and really take my time over the draw, settle down and then release. Well it was a good job I took them as when after about six dozen I put my Tomcats back on and even though they are not madly heavy at 34lbs I could only shoot about a dozen and then had to stop (boy how quickly you lose condition), and I used to shoot an Albion and hardly feel it.
So it is back to the light limbs and  I must say I have enjoyed the last couple of times that I have got to the club. Even in just two sessions I can feel the rust falling away as the old habits come back, the only thing that I have really had to work on is keeping my elbow down.
So the plan now is to shoot these limbs over the autumn and winter and do a bit of training at home (yes I had stopped that as well ....bad Tony bad Tony!) and then early next year get the Tomcats back on and up to speed for the outdoor season.

So we'll see how that goes best laid plans and all that.   

I'm back.......

Hello all.

First sorry there has been so little going on here for the last couple of months but hey, life sometimes gets in the way.

Soooo... whats on for today, well I managed to get up to the club for a spot of shooting on Wednesday and wow what a day, after so much gloomy weather a nice sunny day with a gentle breeze was fab!
My shooting has deteriorated since I last shot and I was not back up to scratch on last year then, so I now have a lot of work to do if I am going to keep my new years resolution and improve my shooting with a view to getting my first class.  

First sorry that I have not updated for a while but as I have said things at home have been a bit up in the air.

Finally got back up to the club on Wednesday to say hi to some people, but did not shoot just wanted to see if I could make the round trip on my bike. I haven't missed much as the weather has been so awful since I was last up there. I am going to try to get up there again on Sunday if the weather holds and see how much my form has suffered.

Sorry things are a bit quiet here atm, I have been a bit unwell and unable to shoot and now we have had a Death in the family. But watch this space and I will be posting some more soon. 

Still not shooting that annoying cough turns out to be whooping cough (who knew adults got it too) and you cannot shoot if you keep coughing. So I am doing some training at home with the bands and waiting to get back to the club.

Ok here we are again and although I have not shot for a few days as the result of a filthy cough that I have picked up somewhere I have made a bit of progress on the clicker front.

As I said in my last post I have fitted a clicker to my Revolution in an attempt to keep my draw constent but I found it a bit weired shooting with it and although it incressed my consitency I was not really havppy with it well...

It turns out that I don't need to shoot with it all the time just now and then the re-check my draw, I have found that if I do this my draw stays much more constant than before and I am getting good results again. Then I was talking to one of the members at my club (who knows a bit about these things) and he told me that as far as he knew the clicker was originaly only intened as a traind aid to be used the way I am using mine. Interesting........

So that is what I will keep doing and I will keep you up to date oh and the next post will be about the arrows I think. 

Ha! Just got my first proper comment and it is just the type of thing I have been looking for:

This comment was posted by Anonymous

Hi there, 
I just found your blog. I once shot a revolution, but then I sold it and bought a Hoyt Nexus. That is, because (now I don´t want to frighten you) I know 2 guys who had the same riser, and theirs broke. The crack was located at the first long hole above the grip at the outer plate.

Before that, the screws which connect the rubber pieces and the three aluminium plates, cracked too and we replaced them with stronger ones.

Have you ever heard of problems like that?

Greetings from Germany


If you read the first post on this blog you will get some info and early problems with the Revolution. I will  try to get some more information as to when these risers were bought and if they were fiddled with.

Any questions or requests

Now I know people are reading this blog, but don't know if you are finding it helpful informative or just a load of tripe. So come on guys give me just a little bit of feed back, put me right if I have it wrong or if you want some more info on the Revolution I might be able to help or know a man who can. As I have said all comments will be posted as long as they are not offencive and I would be happy for my son to read them.  

I did it I went and put a clicker on...

Oh well I went and did it I put a clicker on my bow and my what a hateful beastie it is. But having been asked to be part of the league team I thought I better do all I can to improve my scores.

 I have seen lots of people struggling to get through the clicker but never appreciated just how bad it can be, well hello. 

I got my clicker setup with some help from another member at our club, never having used one before I needed a few tips. He then got me shooting with it and the first half dozen or so were fine and I was thinking 'what is all the fuss about', well yeah you can guess what happened next. I found out just how inconsistent my draw is, first I pulled one through the clicker then the next three or so I stopped short and just stood there straining to get though the clicker just like all those people I have watched in the pasted and thought 'what's all the fuss about'. 

So that was yesterday and today I have an aching shoulder and a stiff back from only shooting about five dozen arrows......oh the joys I have to come.

But in the long run I am sure it will improve my archery and as they say "what ever does not kill you makes you stronger"...to which my son always responds "what about farts dad?".

Little update

Not shot for a while, I have been asked to captain our league team this year, but because of a clerical cock up...not my fault we are not in it this year. So we will use this year to get our team sorted and hopefully bring a few new faces into it for next year. Also in June we will be having an open western that normally has a good turn out so that should be fun.

Getting more views but still no comments, I will approve all comments good or bad but will make sure there is nothing I would not want my son to read.

What to do....

Hmm... struggling for consistency my biggest problem is height, a clicker would solve the problem I am sure but I really don't want to go down that road, I have seen too many archers up at full draw struggling to get through the clicker. But it would help with my consistency so what to do what to do. 

Hello again,

I went out and shot an Albion round on Wednesday my second long round of the year so far and I was quite pleased, my score was 607. Last season I had managed to get to a personal best of 701 but then I did not shoot for about eight weeks and that put me back a bit and the winter set in and well you know how it goes. But now it is a new season and I am going to get my first class classification this year ( I think). I managed to get some groups of three four and on one end five arrows out at 80 yards, which is nice because now I can start to get my sight setup properly. I see so many people adjusting  their sight almost every end and sometimes every arrow, what is that about?

You cannot get you sight adjusted unless you have a group, otherwise it just does not work and all you do is chase your arrows around the boss. Once you have a group (all your arrows don't need to so close that they are touching as long as they are all in an area maybe a foot in diameter that's a group) you are shooting consistently and  then you can adjust your sight so that they are centred around the gold.   

One week later

Wow the difference a week makes, last week the whole field was snow bound and this Sunday it looks like spring. Still a bit chilly and the ride up on my bike was with a head wind all the way (and all the way home again you would have thought it would be a tail wind on the way back)>

Brace Height?

Here's a little thought does brace height really effect  how the bow shoots, or is it more a case of a noisy bow distracts you from your shot and the anticipation of the noise is enough to make you tense up?

 I don't know the answer all I do know is I like my bow to be as quiet as possible and this seems to help with my groups. Changing the brace  height will only alter the tension on the string at rest not at full draw, so it can be compared to tuning a guitar string by increasing or decreasing the tension on it and therefore it's 'tune'. I find that is the brace height is too low I get a 'buzzing' sound from the bow, which I think is the top and bottom of the string vibrating against the limbs, if the brace height is too high the bow seems to make more of a 'thunk' or 'slap' and this I think is down to the tension on the string being so high that the limbs are almost pulled to a stop. At the 'best' brace height for me (about 9.25 inches) the bow 'thrums' and just feels nice to shoot.

The other problem I have is how people say brace height effects groups, other than what I have said about being distracted by a noisy bow I cannot see the vibration of the string effecting the arrow. After release you get the power stroke as the string pushes the arrow forward this whole movement from the release point until the string reaches it brace height again is part of one oscillation (so at this point the only vibration will from a poor release see a little release in the snow), the string will continue past the it's brace height and as it does will start to slow down at which point the arrow will leave the string and from watching high speed videos of releases it would seem that the arrow leaves the bow before the string has started it's return journey, so again I wonder if the only effect the brace height has on the shot is the anticipation of the noise. Of course changing the brace height will slightly alter the nocking height and this will have a small effect on the arrows flight.    

Snowy Weather

I was up at the club again on Sunday and it is still a winter wonder land.

A little bit of release in the snow.

 I think it is time for a more general archery post, getting away from the specifics of the revolution for a change. On Sunday I was up at the club shooting in the snow, there was nobody else there when I arrived and it was just so peaceful really perfect for some nice quiet practise time.
I just shot 10 ends of nine arrows in groups of three trying to get my release right, I have been having a little issue where most of the time I either release well, or keep my bow hand still, but not both at the same time. On the few occasions when I get both right it feels better and the arrow goes just where I want it, if I move my bow hand ( my fingers not my whole hand) the arrow goes left a little (torquing the bow) and if it is my release (it keeps going dead) then they tend to go right. I have sort of got it sorted and it really is a case of not thinking about it too much, if I think about my bow hand then my release suffers and vice-verse , the bow hand is just resisting the urge to grip when pressure is applied to the palm (we all do it when we catch a ball or grab onto a rope swing, it's what saved us from falling out of the trees, so only a few million years of instinct to over come there). The release is if anything more important to me, I do not use a clicker and my draw is normally a continuous motion with my anchor point being more of a transition point, so as I draw and the weight on the string increases I have to increase the tension on my fingers by a corresponding amount to keep the string on my fingers but as I pass my anchor/transition point and start to roll my shoulder back I stop increasing the tension on my fingers and they are then 'pulled' off the string. This gives a nice clean and almost 'suprise' release and as there is no conscious decision to release there should be no build up of tension ( that's the theory any way).

Getting a few more views now and it would be nice to get a little bit of feedback. Go on just a little comment even one word, like/dislike interesting/boring informative/dross. You get the idea.

Just a thought

Just a little thought I found that the arrow rest was hitting the riser and damaging the finish so I just put a small piece of electrical tape on the riser where the rest hits.

Shooting the revolution

Not having spent much time shooting other bows I cannot make any real comparisons,  but I can tell you what it is like to shoot the revolution. The first thing you notice is how quiet the bow is when tuned, I have found that quite a high brace height gives the best result with the Kaya Tomcat Carbon limbs I usually have it set at between 9" and 9.125" and would be interested in hearing what bracing height  other people use.The revolution's internal damping means that it shoots very smoothly even with no extra damping and very little vibration reaches the bow hand. This where it shows it's bare bow credentials and I can imagine lots of archers would be pleasently suprised if they were to try it out. I  find that I prefer the feel of the bow without a long rod and that out to 40m I can shoot almost as well without one as with. It is also, as one of the members at Noak Hill observed 'ridiculosly well balanced' with no extras fitted. But there is a trade off between accuracy/consistency and 'feel' at longer distances, yes the bow feels much better without the long rod but the groups are much tighter with one at anything past 40m. I also feel that shooting with out any stabilisation will be increasing my basic stability, which in the long run will lead to a more stable form.

What are we going to do now?

So now I had my dream riser it was time to set it up and get it tuned. At home I took some time and made sure the centre shot was right and set a knocking height about 5mm above the rest and set the rest so that my nice new Easton Lightspeeds sat nicely with the button touching the centre of the shaft. So the first thing I did was to get one of the other members down at my club to check out that I had set up the bow correctly and had not done anything silly. Then I got all set up and put a boss out at 10m and then got to shoot my first arrow, I was rewarded with a nice thrumm-thunk and wow that was so cool I was grinning like a village idiot, it made my winstar feel like a bucking bronco by comparison. Once I had got over the initial excitement it was time to look at what it was doing and do some fine tuning. The big issue was my groups had gotten much too big in fact they were only groups in the widest sence and I mean widest. After a bit of testing it turned out that the lightspeeds were quite a bit too stiff and I changed to a set of Sky Art Sapphires with a weaker spine and that was that sorted. The only other inital problem I had was an issue with clearance, with the fletchings catching on the top of the handel and the bottom of the sight window. I had thought that the Sky Arts being thinner than the Lightspeeds would solve the problem but they did not and I almost resorted to bending up the arrow rest the increase clearance (NEVER DO THAT!), it was then that I found out you can loosen off the two screws that hold the rest in position get about 5mm of vertical movment, once again job done.

 At this point I will point out the biggest weakness of the Spigarelli......the manual, it was I am sure originally written in Italian and then I think an early 90s translation  program was let loose on it, it really is abysmal and if  you are novice you really do not stand a chance . So that was that one Spigarelli Revolution all set up and ready to shoot.

If you are reading this blog and have any questions or hints and tips about the Revolution or archery in general please do post them in the comments and I will include them in the blog.

Tony G

My own personal Revoultion

I have been shooting with my Revolution since February 2011 and was hooked from the first arrow I shot with it. I had seen it on line and read all the information I could find on it and people  really seemed to either love it or hate it. But as I have said before most of the people posting were repeating things they had heard second or third hand. So there I was looking at this riser that looked totally different to any thing else on the market and unable to find out if it was really any good, so I did the only thing I could and bought one. Now at this time I was shooting a second hand Winstar II and had just been bought a pair of Kaya Tomcat carbon limbs for Christmas by my very understanding and totally wonderful (is that too much) wife Ruth. The difference between the two bows is huge, the Winstar was fairly quiet with no too much vibration, but when I shot the Revolution it was so quiet I got looks from the other archers on the shooting line and there was almost no vibration.  So that was it love at first shot and I haven't looked back since.

 I would still advise anyone looking to buy any new riser to try and have a go with one before you buy, I got lucky but lot of archers at my club say they really don't  like the way the Revolution feels.

The Revolution

There seems to be a lot of IMHO and AFAIK posts on various  forums about the Spigarelli Revolution but very little actual information or real advice from people who use them., so I thought it was time for a change.

Of all the things people say about the Revolution, the one that they all agree on it that it is unique among risers being the only one of laminar construction. It is formed of three segments held together by seven bolts forming a triple layer sandwich, with each bolt holding two nylon bushes between the centre and outer segments.This construction is what gives the Revolution its unique internal dampening system.

 When the Revolution was first launched in the 90s it seems to have suffered two main setbacks, the first was when it was ruled to be illegal for bare bow use as it had moldings in the sight window that could be used as sight marks, this took away what could have been it's biggest market. The second  blow was from a series of failures of segments (mostly the centre one). I was not into archery at the time so I cannot comment on all the accounts, but several of them seem to be the same bow or people who by their own account had 'fiddled' with the bolts. Thus the Revolution gained a reputation as unusable (for bare bow) and unreliable riser, which does not seem to have been able to shake off.

 Both these 'problems' seem to have been dealt with now, first there was a bare bow version with a flat sight window (now the only version), and they now seem to use some sort of 'snap off bolt at the top and bottom of the riser that cannot be undone.