Some hunt-wa members have pm'd me and posted in other threads asking about the foregone locked thread and how things turned out.
- Now I had every intention just to immediately put the Rytera Alien Z(consolation from Martin for my refusal to shoot another Shadowcat even if they put Titanium/Carbon Fiber/NASA quality limbs on it
) up for sale as NIB, wash my hands clean of the crap that went down before and move on......but since I hadn't a chance to shoot very much for close to
4 MONTHS(hugs n' kisses to Martin)
....I couldn't resist leaving it in the box. I mean what could it hurt, even NIB a bow loses damn near an equal amount of value soon as it leaves the dealer NIB or not. MISTAKE
- So I shot the Z for a couple weeks. Immediately I was concerned about the draw length, nothing to do with the bow itself. I'm a 32" draw and the Z only goes to 31" but I'd heard its not necessarily a bad thing to have under draw, or least its better than over draw. True enough it is workable......I did get consistent accuracy out to about 50 yards. Even shot my first robinhood. 40 yards......but having that holding arm bent makes it so easy to torque the bow. If I wasn't spot on with my form I'd toss an arrow offline easily, which in retrospect considering I'm so new it forced me to learn really good form or I'd end up with a big shotgun spread of arrows on the target. So I put the Z up for sale.
- I kept shooting it though and at about week two things started going wrong. We noticed one of the cable servings was coming apart. My buddy Ryan did a band-aid job on it and got me back to shooting, though he said bluntly "those strings suck, it'll get you by for a bit". True nuff. Couple days later both cable servings were coming apart at the end where each wraps tight around the base of the cam. So I took it back in to have Ryan take a look at it. Well then we see the top limb has a very small splinter about mid limb on one edge.
Now its not a big splinter, but still. So back to Martin we go.....
- Needless to say my patience was shot, I wasn't too happy on the phone and Martin CS as nice and as responsive as ever, they wanted to try and work it out but I was done and demanded my money back 'so you better talk to the dealer or whoever so I get it back'. In response to this I was asked if I'd be willing to talk to some guy named Terry. Well I didn't know who Terry was but I said sure he can give me a call.
- Later that day I get a call from this Terry guy, but I was busy at work so I didn't get a chance to call back till a few hours later. Well when I call the # for this Terry guy it rings regular, no automated Martin message system. Kinda odd I thought. Well this guy answers and it sounds like I woke him up. So now I'm thinkin' wtf this is getting real odd. Well through the groggy response I figure out this is Terry that picked up the phone and once he shakes off the cobwebs we start discussing my rather interesting history with the Martin product. Still I haven't asked who I'm talking to exactly, I was rolling with assuming it was some department manager, well about midway through the conversation after I hear "...well I don't normally call customers, but in some cases I step in because we really pride ourselves on customer service......" and my response "I've plenty of experience with Martin CS and I'd have to say it is quite good, but I don't know who ya are sir so how often you talk to customers doesn't have much meaning to me"...."well I'm Terry.......Terry Martin"....
We talked for about an hour or so, good conversation and he had a lot of interesting things to say, what will come of it I don't know. I haven't heard back yet and we haven't received the replacement limbs and strings yet
In the meantime I found a good price on a used 2009 Elite XLR, which now has 2010 rev cams and #1 mods on it(32" draw), tomorrow the Winners Choice strings should arrive and I'll be all set. I hope something works out quick with Martin cuz I'm stretched for coin now but I had to bight the bullet on something because the clocks ticking towards opening day.
