So I'll start out by saying that the two pieces I'm talking about aren't going to be for everyone, or even for most on here since many of you are from the wet side of the Cascades and hunt in the thick brush over there. Now that being said, for you out there that hunt more open country you might have been eye balling these and wondering how much is hype and how much is fact.
I picked up a new bow this year (I'm not one that goes through a lot of bows) and in the spirit of getting a new bow I wanted to get accessories different from my last bow (now backup bow). So I opted to get stuff that hasn't been out all that long and has mixed opinions about whether they are gimmicks or not. With talking at the shop I like to spend my money with (not here in the Tri-cities) I settled on getting a Trophy Taker option sight (I was originally planning on an Accustat 5 pin slider). I had them order an Option 6 but had them get it in the 8 pin housing so I could get more vertical travel with the floating pin. Unlike the Accustat the "Option" sights only have the single pin that moves and not the whole housing. The sight was ordered on a Monday and was in by Thursday. When I went in and picked it up I couldn't help myself and had to try one of those god awful ugly looking Quivalizer's. Well as ugly as it is I liked it so with a swipe of the card the bank account got a little smaller (ok, a lot smaller).
So my views on these after shooting these for a few weeks:
The Option sight:
There's tons of adjustments you can do on this things. Just about anything you could ever want to adjust on sight you can with these sights. The travel of the single floating does not interfere with the other pins since they are set just back behind it. The dial works smoothly and I have had no issues with it moving when it shouldn't. Now since the single floating pin is forward of the fixed pins, depending on how you hold your bow, the single pin may to be to the outside or inside of the fixed pins. That was already thought of as an issue and with one allen screw you can adjust the single pin to be exactly inline with the fixed pins. All the gang adjustments are micro adjustable with positive, crisp, clicks, but the individual fixed pins you have to loosen and slide (my 5 pin Axcel had a knob to use for adjusting the individual pins that I like more) . It's a very well thought out sight. Hopefully the pictures will come through showing the sight with the fixed pins out of the way and what it looks like them in the sight window. Ignore my athletic tape on the sight since I was just playing with it and haven't decided what arrows I'll be using.
The Quivalizer:
This thing is ugly and not cheap, there I said it and it's out of the way. Even being ugly I like it, but it's not for every one. I'm not a pro staffer or promoter of any sort so I have no problem saying, that if you don't hunt with a stabilizer of any sort this is just a more expensive, slightly more adjustable (in some ways), heavier, detachable quiver and it's not for you. I myself hunt with a stabilizer and quiver on my bow. Where I hunt I can get away with walking around with an arrow nocked most of the time (I can but I don't) and not have it get hung up every 10 seconds. When this is mounted as a stabilizer, it doesn't hang out any further than a nocked arrow. Mounted as a normal detachable quiver, well, it's mounts pretty much like a Tight Spot. My main gripe about this product is when you get it out of the tube and put it on your bow like a stabilizer it puts the arrows on the wrong side of the bow (for me anyway) so for a right handed shooter the arrows are on the left hand side of the bow but mounted in the traditional quiver position all is good and arrows are on the right. I tinkered with it to where the arrows are where I want them in the stabilizer position but this may not work on other setups so definitely try before you buy to make sure arrows on the left hand side is something you can live with if you can't switch it (speaking for RH shooters). The benefits when you use it as a stabilizer are, for me, is two fold. The fisrt and most obvious is that like with any other long stabilizer with weight on the end of it, this thing really slows down your pin movement a ton. The other benefit that I really enjoy is that I don't have all that weight just hanging off the side of my bow. When I shoot with my quiver on my other bow I have all the weight of the quiver plus 4 arrows (I always practice with 4 arrows in a 5 arrow quiver) hanging off the side of my bow. I have to intentionally think about it and force the bow to the left to keep it level. With the Quivalizer there's not nearly the amount of weight to the side, the hood, rod and broad heads are inline with the center line of the bow and helping to slow that pin float down instead of just hanging there trying to tip the bow one direction or the other. Price wise, if you have something like a Tight Spot quiver and a $100.00 stabilizer to help provide some effect on slowing your pin down, than it's cheaper to get the Quivalizer. If you hunt with a quiver and cheaper stabilizer that just reduces some vibration the Quivalizer is probably more expensive. Weight wise I have no idea but could see how just having the Quivalizer COULD be lighter. As for shooting in the wind, I've shot it in a little breeze and didn't have much of a problem but honestly I'm a pretty poor standard to go buy, with 4 fletch arrows in any quiver the wind will push me around a lot. The Quivalizer doesn't have any plastic parts to it just aluminum and carbon (if you get the carbon version). Nothing is permanently attached so you can tinker with it to your hearts content. Hopefully the picture loads and you can see the attachment points I circled in red so you get a good idea of how easy it is to go from quiver (on the side of the bow) to stabilizer like it's shown.
Just food for thought for any of you guys that might be considering them. If You're around my neck of the woods and want to look at them feel free to send me a PM or if you see a guy shooting that bow (a blacked out long ATA bow with pink and white arrows stands out) at the range you can check out my setup to your hearts content. Both the sight and Quivalizer are expensive and it's nice to check them out before you order them (I don't know of anyone in the Tri-cities that stock these on the shelf).
