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Wringing Out ‘The Truth’

Posted on: November 27, 2007

Wringing Out ‘The Truth’
Dave Boyd

At the Western States Sportman, we recently had the opportunity to shoot Bear Archery’s ‘The Truth’ bow extensively. To put it simply, I loved this bow. At 4.2 pounds, it not the lightest bow on the market, but it’s also not the heaviest – and it balances well. This is a big point with me as I find that I just shoot better if a bow balances naturally in my support hand.

This bow measures 33” axle-to-axle and had a generous 7” brace height. Bear sent this bow to us equipped to hunt with a ‘Whisper Biscuit’ arrow rest and integrated Simms vibration dampeners as well as an attached quiver and a bowsight with a built in level. I equipped it with some quality carbon arrows and headed for the range.

This is an easy bow to shoot well. The draw is smooth, reaching peak weight at about 17-18 inches and dropping off at to its holding weight at around 25 inches. At full draw the wall was solid as a rock. With the 7” brace height, it’s also forgiving of minor glitches in hold or release. My first three arrow group at the 20 yard line clustered into less than an inch and I managed to shatter the nock of my first arrow with my third. My group was about three inches right and six inches low. After corrections – easy because the sight is adjustable without tools – my groups were well centered and consistent. I was able to set the pins for 20, 30, 40, and 50 yards and easily hold my shots in the 10-ring all the way out. With a little ‘Kentucky-windage,’ I was able to consistently hit the vitals of a 3-D whitetail target consistently out to 70 yards. Set up with a 30” draw module at a 60 pound draw weight and shooting arrows that weighed in at just under 400 grains with a 100 grain field point, I clocked the average arrow speed at 270 fps.

This was the most impressive thing about shooting The Truth. It took no time at all to become accustomed to it and shoot it accurately. Between its superb balance, smooth draw, and the fact that releases are quiet and practically vibration free, I was able to shoot it well from the first. Other bows have frequently taken me awhile to feel comfortable with – The Truth seemed to fit me at once. This undoubtedly contributed to my tight groups. We shot the bow across the course at the Rinehart 100 (you can see the video of our shoot on our website at www.westernstatessportsman.com) with great success. If you’re not familiar with Rinehart, they make a great line of 3-D archery targets, including dinosaurs and aliens as well as more traditional earthly game animals, which you can see at www.rinehart3-d.com . They travel around the country with these great targets giving archers everywhere a chance to shoot them.

I’d like to be able to say that we shot this Truth bow with no problems and that we had nothing but good things to report, but unfortunately that just didn’t happen. After shooting the bow for some time, we found that there was an abnormal wear pattern on the cable serving where it pulled across the cam module during the draw and it began to skip past the stop at full draw. On contacting Bear Archery, we were told that we had gotten one of the very first bows to come off the assembly line and that there had been a problem identified with that batch. One side of the limb was weaker than the other, allowing the limb to twist slightly during the draw. Bear assures us that this problem was corrected on later production runs and that they are fixing those bows that had the problem under their warranty program.

The Truth is, I was very impressed with this bow – especially given that it is priced $200 less than its closest competitors. I’m hoping that soon we’ll be able to get our hands on a Truth 2 to test and report on.