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PRODUCT
REVIEW
QAD Ultra Rest Series Arrow Rests
by the Hunter's Friend Gear Review
Board
 Just
five or six short years ago, the arrow rest market was oddly fragmented
- with order and unity on one side, virtual chaos on the other. On
the orderly side, new equipment buyers were embracing their love affairs
with containment rests, specifically with one model, the infamous
Whisker Biscuit. By 2004, Whisker Biscuit had practically unified
the containment rest buyers into one camp. But on the other side
stood the non-believers - veterans of the annual fletching contact
battle who just weren't convinced that a full contact arrow rest made
sense. For them, the remainder of the arrow rest market was a
chaotic and gobbled mash of declining prong rest designs and emerging
technologies in drop-away (AKA, fall-away) arrow rest designs.
Sure, the basic idea of a drop-away arrow rest is decades old.
Archers have been drop-away-rigging prong rests with inverted
springs and rubber tubes since Jimmy Carter was in office. But the
mainstream drop-away arrow rest movement didn't peak until after the
millennium. By 2004, drop-away arrow rests had literally
come out of the woodwork - in all sorts and types. Some were
activated by cords and cables, some by mechanical arms, some by inertia,
some by plungers and springs - surely the electronic eye and microchip
model wasn't far behind. Everybody was trying to make the
Whisker Biscuit of drop-aways - the one design that might endure.
And for the most part, archers did their part, trying the new drop-away
designs by the thousands, albeit with a skeptical eagerness. Ahh!
Those were the days! It was an archer's buffet of creative
mechanology and a design engineer's paradise. But like in every
battle, there are winners, and there are losers.
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 No
matter how much a product is advertised, or how cleverly it is marketed,
it ultimately has to live up to customer expectations or it is destined
for the bargain bin. And when it came to their drop-away arrow
rests, it didn't take customers very long to figure out which designs
really worked, and which ones didn't. When the smoke from the
drop-away arrow rest wars began to clear, the battlefield was littered
with the fallen. Some designs retreated in obscurity, some
manufacturers flatlined into Chapter 11, and the bargain bins were full
of the casualties. Indeed, there were losers.
But there were winners, too. My Mother often said, "The cream
always rises to the top." As a child, I thought this had something
to do with butter. But what she really meant was that if you're
the best, you'll eventually be recognized and rewarded, and you'll
prevail. It's been a half decade since the drop-away wars.
So who is the cream at the top today? Who is the king of
Drop-Away Hill in 2009? Well, we have a pretty good idea.
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 Quality
Archery Designs (QAD) Ultra Rest Series
The
archery industry is a relatively small niche
market, only $500M wide from Apple Bow Presses to Zebra Bow Strings.
So outside of the major bow and arrow manufacturers, the
archery market
is chocked full of sub-$5M private manufacturing companies who don't
eagerly share their sales data.
Nonetheless, our pro-shop has outfitted well over 10,000 compound bows
since the drop-away wars, and our internal data shows an undeniable
trend. The once-obscure QAD Ultra Rest Series arrow rests are
steadily rising to the top. They may already be at the top.
In 2008, the QAD rests represented 84.7% of all drop-away arrow rests
purchased by our customers. So what's the deal? Are we
somehow skewing the distribution in our store? Or are the QAD
rests becoming one of those enduring designs, could they be the
proverbial Whisker Biscuit of drop-away's? Absolutely
maybe! So we decided to investigate. |
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Email Mike |
What QAD has to say about it...
Knowing full well that asking a manufacturer for sales data is like
asking a weathered mother of five for her age and weight, I decided to
call Quality Archery Designs and shake the tree anyway. I
explained to the receptionist that our company was writing an interest
article on QAD, and was promptly patched-through to QAD's Director of
Marketing and Sales, Mr. Kevin Fry.
While I'm sure Kevin and I have probably spoken before at trade shows,
the nature of my unexpected cold-call demanded some basic courtesy
protocol. So I introduced myself and explained the purpose of my
call. Now, keep in mind that I would usually ask about the weather
in situations like this, and try to get the person chatted-up a
bit first. That usually works. But I was excited to get down
to the nitty gritty. So I skipped the slick-talker weather bit,
cleared my throat, and got right down to explaining how our internal
data had shown a steady five-year march, ending with QAD's Ultra Rests
in statistical domination at our store. Kevin warmly thanked me
for being such a loyal QAD customer, for promoting their products, and
went on to mention some of the highlights of their product line.
But oddly, he didn't really seem surprised by my 84.7% statistic.
And that was my big line! That was supposed to soften him up.
Hmmm....
OK, I figured, no sense in beating around the bush. So I went
ahead and dropped my CNBC financial question. I asked Kevin if our
store's experience (data) is representative of QAD's actual share of the
drop-away arrow rest market. As Kevin began to answer my question,
I could only think one thing: "Dang it! I should have
chatted him up about the weather first."
While he didn't offer any direct numbers and percentages, I must admit
that I found Kevin Fry to be amazingly sincere. Kevin is a man who
truly loves and believes in his company and his product line, yet he
tempers that with a humble thankfulness - rather than the typical
arrogance we encounter at most successful companies. Kevin went on
to explain that QAD started as a hopeful, small operation, with little
money for advertising. So much of their early marketing was simple
word-of-mouth. But as time passed, their product line began to
take roots, and over the last five years his company has been blessed by
tremendous growth and success.
Kevin also explained that QAD products are designed and produced totally
in-house (Madison Heights, VA). They make all of their parts right
here in the USA so they can keep their quality high and their jobs at
home. Most bowhunters and archery enthusiasts probably don't know
this, but MANY of our best-known archery accessory manufacturers are now
farming-out their production to China - an issue that has us all greatly
concerned. But that's a topic for another article.
So.....talking to Kevin taught me that QAD is a strong and growing
company. But it also taught me something else. I'm
apparently not much of an investigative reporter. The question I
totally forgot to ask was, "Are QAD rests number one in the market?"
In my defense, I was rather touched by Kevin's sincerity - plus I'm
very patriotic - so that "jobs at home" thing really got to me.
But next time - he won't get away so easily - I'll give him the full Lou Dobbs press!
OK. Maybe I won't. But are QAD Ultra Rests really the best
selling drop-away rests on the market today? Probably, yes.
Sources inside the industry confirm our internal data, QAD clearly
commands a lion's share of the drop-away arrow rest market.
Perhaps we may never know the exact numbers. But it's pretty clear
that something special is happening at Quality Archery Designs, and
perhaps it's best to just leave it at that.
But the real question we haven't addressed ... WHY??? What makes
the QAD rests better than any other drop-away? Why are they
special? What's behind the success? Our Gear Review Board
takes a closer look at that in a moment. But I suspect the answer
has something to do with butter & cream.
Mike Blanton
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Email Joe |
Perspective from the Front Office
 The QAD Ultra Rests are by far the best-selling drop-away rests in
our shop, and they're one of the more common upgrade requests on
packages that don’t already come equipped with one. Feedback from
our customers indicates why: no fletching damage, simple
installation, relatively foolproof operation, and virtually no
operational failures -- out of the thousands of QADs we’ve sold in
my time at Hunter’s Friend, I’ve seen exactly one come back
due to product failure. The price doesn’t hurt, either: the base
model, the QAD Ultra Rest Hunter is under FIFTY BUCKS. So the
QAD Ultra Rest Hunter is among the least-expensive drop-away rests
in our shop.
A customer from New England wanted to shoot right helical feathers
without giving up the containment feature of his capture rest.
Thanks to the QAD Hunter, he’s now doing that. One hunter from
Colorado, who was just getting started in archery, opted for a QAD
because he wanted to shoot a drop-away from the beginning of his
time in archery; when he called back a few months later to order
more arrows, he said the QAD Ultra Rest was one of the best things
about his bow. A gentleman from the Southwest told me about the
novel way in which a QAD Hunter has turned him into a better
bowhunter: Since he put one on his girlfriend’s bow, she now
outshoots him up to 40 yards -- and she has turned that improved
accuracy into greater success in the field, putting more meat in the
freezer. Now, he’s putting in more practice time to catch up to her!
It's really not hard to understand
QAD's popularity. The QAD Ultra Rests have a unique advantage
over most drop-away rests. With the QAD Ultra Rests,
bowhunters don’t have to trade the arrow containment of a capture
rest for the advantages of a drop-away. Just nock your arrow, flip
the lever on the thumb wheel and you’re set; with the integrated
capture bar, the arrow can’t fall off the rest. Did that trophy buck
just step behind a big beech tree or quarter away while you’re at
full draw? No problem -- thanks to QAD’s Velocity Drop-Away
technology, the launcher won’t fall until the bow is fired, so you
can let your bow down slowly without disengaging the launcher. (If
you want to disengage the launcher without firing the bow, just
quickly flick the lever with your thumb; that’ll kick the launcher
back to its pre-cocked position.)
Upon the shot, the QAD rests
make about as much noise as most drop-aways -- not perfectly silent,
but well short of ruining your hunt. The QAD rests come
packaged with a taller (optional) launcher to extend fletch
clearance for those bows that tune nock low, and also include a
cable clamp option that eliminates the need to use a bow press for
installation to serve in the timing cord. They even include an
instructional DVD with every rest.
Since the QAD rests are compatible with virtually any modern
compound bow, we recommend them routinely. I have yet to
regret outfitting a customer with a QAD. The product just
works!
Joe Castle
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Email Matt |
Perspective from an Experienced
Bowyer
Arrow rests have come a long way over the last couple decades. The road
from a piece of feather glued above the shelf to today’s high-speed
drop-away designs has been a long one. Year after year companies and
archery enthusiasts have worked hard to raise the bar on arrow flight,
versatility, and ease of tuning. In this reviewer’s opinion a few years
ago one such company called Quality Archery Designs really hit the nail
on the head.
 Installation really is a snap. You start by installing the felt on the
launcher and containment bar then bolting the rest on the bow nice and
square. On the Hunter model, you adjust the “Drum” portion of the arrow
rest until the launcher arm is straight up and down in the fully raised
position and doesn’t quite touch the shelf in the lowered position. Next
raise the rest and roughly square up your arrow a touch nock high and
centered in windage. Install your string loop and/or nocking point,
saving the act of doing a final tight crimp for post-tuning.
Now you have the choice of either putting the bow in a press and running
the QAD activation cord between the bundles of the down cable to
serve-in later, or using the included string clamp. Next draw the bow
and see where you’re at. The tail is long so you’ll probably need to
pull it through a good bit more to get the rest all the way up. Keep
pulling it through and re-checking, a little bit at a time, until your
rest is all the way up at full draw. Now you can either finalize the
clamping and trim the tail or serve the activation cord in. Pull down
your paper for tuning and proceed as normal, reading the hole and
adjusting accordingly. That’s really all there is to it!
The simplicity and ease of using the QAD Ultra Rest doesn’t stop in the
shop either. Once you get ready to shoot just nock an arrow and raise
the rest into its locked position via the conveniently located thumb
lever. Your arrow is contained in any position, even upside down. If you
want to drop your arrow without shooting just give the thumb lever a
quick flick and the rest falls away just as if you’d shot. In the event
something terrible happens, such as a severed actuation cord, the QAD
Hunter will still safely drop away from your arrow without serious
consequences - other than noticeably compromised arrow flight. If you’re
like me and prefer a 4” feather with a slight right helical, or you’re
tired of wrinkled and damaged vanes, the QAD is just what the doctor
ordered.
I’ve used the QAD Hunter in conditions from fair to icy, in open fields
and thick woods, and have yet to experience a failure of any kind with
it over thousands of shots. You get robin-hood consistency, deep
mountains dependability, all for little as 50 bucks. I haven’t had to
re-fletch any arrows other than those damaged from shooting at the same
spot twice in months! QAD Rest get a big thumbs up.
Matt Stambaugh
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Email Mike |
Criticisms from the Crowd
If you scan the forums and chat boards, you'll be sure to find the
classic criticism of drop-away rests. No matter the brand or
model, some amateur bowyers seem intent on claiming that their drop-away
arrow rests don't drop fast enough.
While this conclusion is almost always completely wrong, we understand
why this common amateur misdiagnosis exists.
When you fire your bow, the launcher of a drop-away arrow rest should
move out of the way before the fletchings arrive, so the arrow leaves
the bow with zero fletching contact. Easy enough! So once
you bolt-on your new drop-away arrow rest, all your fletching contact
issues should be gone - instantly and forever, right? Wrong!
It's not quite that simple.
First, you must realize that a drop-away arrow rest doesn't solve issues
with improper tuning, incorrect arrow spines, excessive cam lean, poor
cam synchronization & nock travel, or inadequate cable clearances - nor will a
drop-away arrow rest correct glitches in your shooting form, such as
heavy hand torque. If your bow setup has
unresolved technical issues that exist before the installation of your
new drop-away arrow rest, those issues will still exist
after your drop-away arrow
rest is installed - resulting in
poor arrow flight and fletching clearance issues . The drop-away arrow rest doesn't
cure a poorly functioning bow setup.
So it's not uncommon for someone to purchase and install a drop-away arrow
rest, only to discover fletching contact issues still exist.
And since most consumers don't have access to a $50,000 high-speed motion
analysis camera, they make the natural - but summarily incorrect -
assumption that the drop-away arrow rest isn't dropping quickly enough.
I spoke with QAD's Kevin Fry about this very issue, and it's clearly a
frustrating issue for their customer service department just as it is
with ours. In the sales business, we're supposed to follow the
adage that the customer is always right. But in this case,
that policy is probably counterproductive. Kevin Fry explained
that QAD conducts extensive high-speed motion analysis to test how
quickly their arrow rests designs can drop. Using ultra-high speed
bow setups (under IBO safety regs - do not attempt), their testing
confirms that the activation of the current QAD
mechanism cannot be outpaced, even with a bow shooting at 420+ fps.
Of course, that is well beyond the (safe) speed range of ANY modern
compound bow. So unless your new bow was just delivered from the
planet Cybertron, the mechanism of your new QAD Ultra Rest will easily
drop out of the way - with time to spare.
Rebound
In fact, the QAD mechanism moves so fast, it sometimes has enough time
to drop and then rebound (bounce) back up into the path of the arrow.
Of course, this is easily solved by adjusting the timing of the rest, so
the launcher falls later in the cycle - such that any rebound happens
AFTER the arrow has cleared. Nonetheless, without the benefit of
high-speed analysis, this too is often
misdiagnosed by amateur bowyers as a slow-falling arrow rest. So
to make setup even easier for do-it-yourselfers, QAD introduced an
upgraded Lock-Down model in 2007 which included an anti-rebound
mechanism. While this feature really wasn't necessary, it made
life a little simpler for everyone.
Mike Blanton
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Email Matt |
A Better Idea
The engineers at QAD listened to the shooting public and delivered with
no shortcuts. From the affordable QAD Ultra Rest Hunter to the
Pro-Series HD model in full camo, the QAD series drop-away arrow rests
allow shooters to enjoy the total arrow containment and shoot any
fletching configuration they desire. The QAD drop-aways are easy to use,
extremely consistent, and above all else, reliable.
Matt Stambaugh
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Email Joe |
Summary
If you're looking for the benefits of a drop-away rest but not quite
ready to abandon the security of your trusty capture rest, the QAD
Ultra-Rest might be just what you’re looking for. Quality Archery Designs
has taken the best features of drop-away rests -- less arrow-to-rest
contact, increased arrow speeds, elimination of fletching contact -- and
improved on them all.
Joe Castle
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For more information on
Quality Archery Design Products:
Quality Archery Designs
P.O. Box 940
Madison Heights, VA 24572
Phone: (434) 846-5839
FAX: (434) 528-1696
E-Mail: archery@qadinc.com
To Purchase Online:
Hunter's Friend LLC
340 Low Gap Fork
Oil Springs, KY 41238
Phone: (877) 410-7811
FAX: (606) 297-1009
E-Mail:
cservice@huntersfriend.com
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