Best Bow Stabilizer

Bow Stabilizers come in many sizes and configurations yet they all serve the same purpose—to reduce vibration when the archer releases an arrow—and stabilize the bow by increasing its inertia. Stabilizers place the weights out front to counterbalance your draw and to help negate the effects of wind while you hold for release.

Without stabilizers, bows can feel unstable while you aim. This problem might make it difficult to hold your bow stationary which reduces accuracy.

There have been quite a few tests with and without stabilizers archers have done lately, and have posted their videos on YouTube. Many have found no actual change in accuracy without a bow stabilizer.

This may not be true for every archer as it depends on the person and the bow itself. It’s certainly known that a bow stabilizer reduces twitching for most people while in the full drawn position. For this simple reason alone, we recommend using one. But which one?

The second point when looking for the best bow stabilizer for hunting is the amount of shock reduction gained because of a having a good bow stabilizer installed on your bow. If target practicing, for even ten minutes, the amount of fatigue to the arm and shoulder can be dramatic.

Any reduction in vibration and shock that results after the release of an arrow is surely welcome. Also, a good stabilizer setup will allow you to fix onto the target much quicker as well as centering your bubble. If in the field you benefit also from reduced after shock noise and quietness in the woods is always a welcome thing.

Whether a good compound bow needs a bow stabilizer or not really can run into a long discussion. We’ve got to keep in mind that not everyone can afford a premium bow that has less shock and extreme balance.

This brings the question of why not do a small investment to improve the feeling and accuracy of your bow? Therefore, I decided to show you which is the best bow stabilizer setup for hunting, give you some great options to choose from, and further explain the beneficial features you’ll get when out in the field.

Click Image to check out the latest price on the Bee Stinger Sport Hunter Xtreme Stabilizer. First lets explain the mechanics of how one affects the bow and you typically would want to use one. Understanding this will help imprint in your mind the reason you may or may not want to look into purchasing the best archery stabilizer for your situation.

How A Bow Stabilizer Works

Bow stabilization does three things. First, it increases rotational inertia. This makes it so the bow is harder to move, twist, or torque during the draw and arrow-launch phase while keeping the bow more stable for improved consistency.

Second, bow stabilization allows the sight pin to settle on to the target faster, and to move in a smaller pattern on the bull’s-eye.

Third, a quality stabilizer will come with some sort of dampening system or coupler, which reduces residual shot vibration and noise. This of course allows for a smoother, more comfortable and consistently on target arrow release.

Most modern hunting bows won’t aim well and have too much weight at the front of the riser. Their extreme parallel limbs and a reflexed-riser geometry are the cause. This promotes a downward-tipping setup that forces the archer to use shoulder and arm muscle tension to keep the sight pin from drifting out of the bottom of the target.

This makes relaxed aiming and excellent mechanics very hard to achieve and brings us into a scenario of not only having a bow stabilizer on the front of our bow, but also needing a back bar stabilizer.

The Need For A Backbar Stabilizer

Click Image to check out the latest price on the CBE Torx Hunting Stabilizer Kit. Bows nowadays are so quiet and so accurate that if you get a little six-inch stabilizer with no weight on it that’s really not going to change the accuracy of your bow. In theory and from what I’ve seen, the heavier your bow the more accurate it’s going to be. If all you want to do with hunting is aiming at deer only 20 yards away, and you don’t really want to have a heavy weight out front by not using a long bow stabilizer, that’s totally fine.

If you want to extend your range a little, look into getting a 10-15 inch bow stabilizer that puts the weight out front. This makes your bow heavier but by having the weight farther away and out front at the end you immediately make the bow more stable and your pin is going to be quicker and easier to put exactly on the target.

If in tight woods this length may be a problem but if in open fields like typically in the mid-west this is a great option.

Since the bow is now front heavy, the back stabilizer is actually just as important if not more important than your front stabilizer. The reason is that it’s all about your bubble.

When getting ready for bow season and target practicing, I’m sure that everybody reading this has drawn their bow back and noticed that the bubble isn’t level. Anytime you have to self-correct that bubble to be center you just added torque to your grip, and that causes left and right issues downrange.

So the whole point of the back stabilizer is the ability to adjust how much weight you put on the backbar, as well as adjusting the way the bar sits on the bow. You achieve this by moving it in all the way or by moving it outward.

What you really want to happen is when you draw the bow back you want to set your back stabilizer up to where the bubble sits perfectly level with no effort.

When you achieve this, you’re going to have the least amount of torque possible, and that’s really going to increase your accuracy downrange.

I’ve talked to many people after they’ve put the back stabilizer on their bow and every single person has thanked me or they agree with me that their bow has much more accuracy and is quicker to aim.

Again if your goal is just to aim at a deer at 15-20 yards and you don’t want the extra weight, that’s totally fine. This advice is for the archer or hunter that wants to extend their range to 30-35-40 yards and wants that pin to stay rock-solid while making a clean release spot on the target.

What’s The Best Length And Weight For a Backbar And Stabilizer Combo?

There is no simple answer to this, because it depends on the archer’s preference and the physical characteristics of the bow. You simply must work with backbar position and counterweight, as well as front stabilizer length and counterweight, until you find the right arrangement.

There is a simple process you can follow. First, look at the horizontal position of the bow. Does it tip to the right or left? To ensure a well-balanced setup, it’s best to draw the bow with an arrow on the string, close your eyes, then settle into anchor and open your eyes.

Next you want to look at the sight’s bubble. Is it in the center or is it off to one side? Ideally, the sight level should be perfectly level and if it’s not, then add counterweight to one side of the bow equalizing any awkward tilt allowing the bow to center itself.

Performing this test at full draw is critical because your shooting form will exert small amounts of torque on the bow. This torque can cause the bow to balance differently than when not fully drawn.

Second, practice with the bow for several days and take notes specifically monitoring the sight pin’s movement pattern. Does it want to roll around the spot in an equal up-and-down or side-to-side motion, or does it tend to float up, down, or to one side of the spot each time?

If the sight pattern seems to dip down consistently, reduce stabilizer weight or add backbar weight to bring the pattern up. If it pushes up too much, add weight to the front stabilizer or reduce backbar weight.

You can also lower or raise the height of the backbar—if the mount allows—in order to change the up and down pattern of the sight pin. Experiment with adding and or subtracting counterweight until the sight pin holds super-steady and in the center.

Becoming a better archer comes down to going through the smallest details. Outfitting your bow with the right stabilizer will not only improve accuracy and consistency, but it will minimize noise in the woods, vibration, and allow much faster and steadier centering of the target. Precision with draw speed to target point is what we’re all after in the field right?

What Size Is The Best Stabilizer For Bow Hunting?

Bow hunting in the woods requires a mid-sized stabilizer. For the best bow hunting stabilizer choose something from 5” to 8” in length, and a weight of 4 to 7 ounces seems to work best. These sizes will give you the performance needed for hunting with a bow and the ability to maneuver between trees, bushes, and brush and ease of climbing into a tree stand.

Keep in mind you don’t need a bow stabilizer to hunt, yet it could be the missing piece to your bow setup. Adding this simple piece can tighten your groupings, steady your aim in windier conditions, and absorb those little vibrations in your bow that can scare a deer during that split second arrow travel from release to the deer.