Review of the DZ-32 “Deadzone” Compound bow by Limbsaver
Alright, let’s get this out of the way right quick. As one of my good Coaching friends says “Opinions are like (You fill in the Noun here) everybody’s got one”. When you’re considering looking for a new bow some of the best advice out there would be to “Try ‘Em ALL” and then go through the arduous task of deciding which one’s right for you. Our bow reviews are designed to give you some straight facts on the bows we test with some of our “opinions” mixed in (hence the quote above, so take them as you will) We apologize for the length of this review, but we felt we needed to be complete with our findings.
The Sims Vibration Laboratory is very well known for designing high quality archery products so when we were sent the new Deadzone bow, needless to say we had high expectations. It is important to note that Sims Labs embarked on a vast amount of testing before bringing this bow to the market. It seems clear from their video presentation on www.limbsaver.com that they wanted to put their best foot forward in taking the plunge into the compound bow arena. With such a well regarded reputaion in noise reduction technology, the decision is understandable. Now just to make this clear, this is the first bow that Limsaver and Sims Laboratories have produced for the market and it represents their best attempt to design a bow from the ground up. What does all this preparation and testing mean to the consumer? Well, hopefully a bow that combines Limbsaver’s bag of innovation with a sweet shooting, value packed bow. The video on the limbsaver site is impressive to say the least, but what about some real life, down to earth testing. Enter Heritage Hunters……..
We put this bow through its paces and then some. As with any bow review, we don’t want to rush through the review and present our thoughts after just several shots. You can do that after visiting a dealer (and we encourage you to do so!) but what about some more “extensive” testing. The type of testing that you can’t get from a simple pro-shop visit. Stuff like speed with hunting arrows and how’s it shoot out of a ground blind / Treestand? We like to tell you about our initial impressions, our thoughts throughout the review process and our final thoughts on the bow after the testing period is over. For those of you who want some “Fast Facts” about the DZ-32, check out this video
Deadzone DZ-32 Specifications (As Advertised)
Axle to Axle: 32″
Brace Height: 7.25″
Mass Weight: 4.0 lbs
Draw Length Options: 23″ - 30″
Poundage Options: 40 - 70 * Draw Length and Poundage Options are specific to Module and Limbs.
IBO Speed: 320-330 fps with 30″ draw, 70lb and 350 grain arrow
MAP Pricing: $749
The Bow we tested: 70lbs / 29″ Draw Length / Right Hand Out of the Box - First Impressions I don’t know about you, but the first thing I was interested in seeing with this bad boy was the overall “Look” of the bow. I’ll admit it, the thing looked a little wierd in all the pictures and press releases I had seen. After pulling it out of the box, the “wierdness” feeling gave way to “unigue” which turned into down right “Cool as Hell”. I found myself visually comparing the bow to our other bows, our buddies bows and bows in the pro-shop. I’ve got to say that not only does the look of this bow “grow” on you, I almost prefer the overall profile to that of other bows now (almost!). As we will discuss, the unique shape of this bow is responsible for many of its innovative features.
Riser: The fit and finish of this bow is fantastic! There are absolutely zero blemishes and the new soft-touch High-Def Next Generation G1 camouflage is flawless. Overall, the workmanship of this bow is excellent with clean cuts and no visible tooling scuffs on the riser. This may not hold much weight with the average hunter but #1: I want precision and flawlessness in anything I pay $700 plus for and #2: I’ve walked into pro-shops before only to see small blemishes on “Brand-new” bows hanging on the rack. The riser utilizes what limbsaver calls a modified “I Beam” structure and strategically placed cut-outs. These two features not only give the riser strength and stability, they also serve to further reduce noise. The riser is straight (as a result of the limb pocket design) and has no contact with the actual limbs.
Cams: Limbsaver outfitted this bow with their H.E.A.T. (High-Efficiency Active Transfer) Cams. These cams have specific drawlength modules ranging from a 23″ version up to a 30″ inch version. These cams are of the 1.5 Hybrid type which provides an increase in speed as well as elimination of nock travel and are 1/2 inch adjustable. At fulldraw, the cams are nice and vertical with no torque or lean.
Limbs/Limb Pockets: The advent of parallel limb design is nothing new for the compound bow world. However, the configuration that Limbsaver saw fit to provide this Deadzone with, is! First, the limbs do not actually touch the aluminum of the riser which serves to significantly reduce vibration, and thereby noise. Second, the rolling fullcrum system not only serves to extend limb life but also (and most impressive to us) allows the user to “let-down” the poundage of the bow WITHOUT A BOWPRESS. The manipulation of the bow without a press is a feature claimed by several other bow companies but I have yet to see it to the extent Limbsaver has created. A bowhunter can literally (with two different sized allen wrenches) take the pressure off the limbs enough to fix any aspect of the string. Just back out the smaller poundage lock srews on the side of the limb pocket and then the main limb bolts and you’re on your way to loosening the tension on the string. I have to admit that we were a bit skeptical about how hard it would be to return the limbs to their original poundage. No problem. The rolling fulcrum system allows for a smooth turn in either direction (increase or decrease in poundage) without feeling like you’re competing in some strange strongman competition. It is truly a “crank-down / crank-up” bow. Finally, the limbs of the bow extend past the riser which not only (in our opinion) provide a greater degree of balance but also aid in further reducing vibration and extending limb life. This extended limb design also allows for a straight riser, further improving forgiveness and accuracy. After many shots on this bow, I consider that statement to be 100% true. We like the size of the “Limbsaver” logo running down the limbs but would like to see it jazzed up a bit to make it jump out at you more.
Silencing Features: This bow is decked out with dampening features. It’s a limbsaver bow, why wouldn’t it be right? The limbsaver patented NAVCOM (Noise and Vibration Control Material) can be found all over the bow. From the limbs, to the string, to the cable rod, to the shelf on the riser (arrow impact strip and fall away rest pad already installed!), this bow comes standard with NAVCOM. As previously mentioned, the design of the bow also aids in it’s noise reduction. From the orientation of the limb pockets and parallel limb design to the cutouts of the riser, a careful examination of this bow shows attention to noise reduction.
So how’s it shoot?Note: This section is designed to answer the previous question in easy to understand fashion, which admittedly in large part is based on our (Dan and Dale’s) interpretations. We personally like reading reviews geared toward the average joe and we wanted to do the same here. We’re hunters, so if you’re curious about Energy Efficiency, Force-Draw Curves, Drawstrokes, and limb flex on the DZ-32, you won’t find that information here. Besides, our Heritage Hunters budget only goes so far! Limbsaver was kind enough to send some goodies along for the ride so we put on a Prism Elite Sight, their Fall-away Arrow Rest and their S-coil stabilizer, and let fly with a few arrows. We were so anxious to start shooting that by the time we were ready to pre-tune, daylight was fading. We put on some Firenocks (see equipment list below) and were able to video some of our first shots out of the bow in the lower light. The Limbsaver accessories are all first rate and we would recommend them to anyone looking to “pimp” their bow. The Elite Prism sight pins are some of the brightest that we’ve tried (due to the light gathering lens) and it also has an adjustable long-range pin for distances beyond 60 yards. Although we liked the Elite Prism sight, it had a few more pins than we were used to, 5 more to be exact, and felt a bit heavy on the bow. Besides, we wanted to shoot the DZ-32 with the same sight that we hunt with (the 1 pin Cosmic Impact) and try out the increased speed factor of this bow with 1 pin out to 40 yards. We’re already fans of the S-coil stabilizer and we like fall-away rests, so we stuck with those accessories during testing.
Balance: This bow sits extremely well balanced in the hand. We suspect the non-reflexed riser caused by the extended limb pockets gives this bow it’s balanced feel, but then again, we’re not bow designers! When watching someone draw this bow, you can see the symmetry on the top and bottom. It only makes sense that this type of symmetry leads to improved balance throughout the shot.
Grip: Dan and I are admittedly fans of smaller style grips so we were pleasantly surprised that this grip, although appearing larger in all the press releases and slightly chunkier than we’re used to, gave us a torque-free brace. The grip is deceptive in that it appears chuncky but fits great in that “V” between the thumb and forefinger. It is made out of laminated Hardwood and just plain looks sweet on this bow. We’re fans of wood grips anyway and we can find no fault with this one. We even consider the grip part of the reason the bow balances so well in the hand.
Draw Cycle / Wall: The draw cycle of the Deadzone is typical of many of the “Fast” bows on the market. Very smooth on the initial pull while letting you know it’s a fast bow on the last few inches of the draw before dropping off into the valley. You don’t get speed without something under the hood (or Cams for that matter). We can’t effectively say how this draw will feel to you, so get on down to your local shop and pull one! The back wall is as solid as we’ve felt and holding it in its anchor position is a breeze. The valley distance is also excellent. We thought of Goldilocks with this one; not too narrow of a valley and not too wide. To us it was “just right”!
Shock Level: This bow is made by one of, if not “The”, leaders in the field of vibration dampening. It was really no surprise to us that the Deadzone has ZERO hand shock. It was however somewhat of a relief in that a review on a bow of this magnitude would sort of be hard to do, in good concience, if it had “ANY” hand shock at all, Shhhhhhheeeeewwww!
Perceived Noise on the Shot: Let’s be blunt for a moment shall we! I have never owned a bow without eventually putting cat whiskers on the string instead of string leaches. You know, those dangly looking things? It’s part habit and part OCSD (Obsessive Compulsive String Disorder) on my part. I’ve just always felt that whiskers did a better job of silencing the string on the shot. After shooting this bow relentlessly for over a month, I do not feel the need to do this to the Deadzone ( a first for me) There is very little percieved string noise (other than the normal “swoosh” sound), nor is there any noise seemingly coming from the limb pockets. The only noise that we could decipher seemed to originate from the shelf where the Fall-away rest slapped the NAVCOM rubber. Eventually we did what any hunter/scientists would do, tried the bow with a rest that did not contact the riser. We used the Whisker Biscuit to see if this eliminated the sound. Bingo! No more slapping sound resulting in a dead silent bow. Of course we liked the Limbsaver Fall-away rest so much that we threw it back on the bow. We tweeked the cord running from the rest to the cable and that seemed to do the trick to lessen this slap, to a level that we could deem “negligible”.
Percieved Speed vs. Actual Speed:*Note: In regards to our speed testing. We try and provide some real numbers (using our own chronograph equipment as well that of some pro-shops) to give our readers some numbers. We do not claim to be experts on speed related issues, nor do we care if you disagree with how we do our testing. We’ve seen the posts on other forums and we’d rather not get into a spitting match about speed. We’re simply trying to provide some idea of how the bows would perform if your average joe picked himself up a chronograph and let fly. I guess we’re trying to save you the effort here. Considering that we normally hunt with arrow speeds in the 260’s (fps), this bow is smokin! Right from the start we could tell that this bow would be close to advertised speeds just by the way it shot at 20, 30 and 40 yards. The percieved flat trajectory out to 30 yards was fantastic and still pretty good at 40. Now I don’t know about you but that’s a recipe for success if you’re a fan of 1 pin hunting sights like we are. Factor in the use of multiple sight pins (like the Limbsaver Elite Sight), and this bow is scarey accurate out to 60 and 70 yards for you western bowhunters. After a few days of shooting, we had the DZ-32 dialed in with 1 pin from 15 - 30 yards with some slight windage at 40 yards. The same cannot be said from our previous hunting bows. Now on to the hard numbers……… Pro Shop Chronograph - Archery Connection, Middleburgh NY When we cranked this bow up to it’s maximum poundage at the pro-shop it registered 72 lbs on the scale. So at 72 lbs, a 29″ draw and a 350 grain arrow, the registered consistant speed after 3 shots was 312 fps That’s all wonderfully fast and all but we don’t hunt with a 350 grain arrow. As mentioned previously, the last few inches of the draw cycle was a tad harsh. We backed out the poundage slightly to 70lbs to see what that did to the draw cycle. Bingo! Much smoother on the draw and we now felt that we could shoot this bow for a long period of time without getting tired. Back to base camp…….. Our Chronograph
We got our hunting arrows out and did some more chrono testing at the Heritage Hunters testing facility (That sounds more professional, doesn’t it?) Our hunting arrows were weighing in at 400 grains and after 3 shots through our own chronograph, we were getting a consistent speed of 287fps (70lb, 29″, 400 grain arrow) To be honest, the only “visible” difference in these two speeds appeared beyond 30 yards. I’m sure if you played around with the set-up, arrow mass and string, you could achieve higher speeds. These numbers were achieved with a served in G5 Meta Peep, 2 string leeches, 4 cable leeches, and a string loop with tied in nocks. All of which cost us in advertised speed. Overall, we acheived consistantly accurate groups at 20 and 30 yards with almost 30 fps faster arrows (than we’re used to) and no noticeable handshock! For us, this bow rocks!
String Quality: The bow comes standard with Winner’s Choice Custom Strings. With the Winner’s Choice brand having a good reputation in the industry as well the fact that there has been no noticable stretching or peep mis-alignment. After thousands of shots, this string is literally a “Winner”!
Maneuverability: Just in case you’re wondering how this bow “maneuvers” in a ground blind and out of a treestand we did some of that testing as well. The 32″ Length of the Deadzone gives the shooter a greater range of up and down movement in the ground blind and treestand. We were able to take this bow on a couple of late May Turkey Hunts in NY to see how it fared in a real hunting situation. (all stories for another time) Compared to my trusty 36″ Xtec, the Deadzone is cake to maneuver inside the blind.
Shootability: We’re not sure if this is even a word. In fact, the shot consistancy as well as degree of accuracy of today’s bows are only as good as the person shooting it. For what it’s worth, we found this bow to fling an arrow down range with a high degree of consistancy and accuracy for our shooting abilities. Within 2 initial adjustments of the sight, we were busting nocks and producing quarter size groups at 30 yards (and for Dan, that’s usually a tough task!)
Overall Marks on the Deadzone (DZ-32) by Limbsaver
Workmanship: 5 out of 5 - If you like getting a superb fit and finish for your hard earned money, check this bow out.
Balance: 5 out of 5 - We’re not engineers, but we suspect the very reason this bow looks a little different from other bows on the market (extended limb pockets) is the same reason that gives this bow exceptional balance.
Draw Cycle / Wall: 4 out of 5 - We personally have no problem with the draw cycle. As already mentioned however, the last few inches of the draw curve at Maximum poundage may take a little getting used to, but lowering the poundage by one crank on each limb gets her back into the range of smooooooth.
Noise / Handshock: 5 out of 5 - Come on! The bow is made by the leader in vibration dampening technology. Do you think they’re going to put out a bow that has handshock? We realize that sometimes this category is dependent on the person shooting the bow. To us, and compared to other bows we’ve shot, this bow has Zero handshock with nothing but a “swoosh” sound on the shot.
Speed: 5 out of 5 - Dan and I are not really speed guys. Yeah we’re intriqued by it, and we certainly love the ability to shoot effectively out to 40 yards with one pin but let’s be honest. Most of us bowhunters aren’t going to realize advertised speeds with a hunting set-up. So when it comes to the speed, anything that propels our hunting arrows over 280 fps is going to impress us. This bow does that in a way that doesn’t make the bow jump out of our hands. Cool enough for us!
Overall Value: 4.5 out of 5 - The score of 4.5 in this category has more to do with the price of “All” bows on the market than the DZ-32. We feel that any bow on the market that costs over $700 should also be able to completely process your deer. However, since most “Top of the line” bows run in this price range we can’t really fault Limbsaver here. Overall, we feel the DZ-32 represents a top of the line hunting bow that utilizes all of Limbsaver’s tricks of the trade. As usual, if you’re thinking about getting a new bow, we’ll tell you to shoot as many as possible. However, One look at this bow makes you want to shoot it. One shot makes you want to keep it. Is that convincing enough for you to include this bow on your list?
Final Thoughts: If this is Limbsavers “First Attempt” at bringing a bow to the bowhunting crowd, I am loving the possibilities for this bow line in the future. Special thanks go out to Limbsaver for allowing us to test this bow and trusting us to follow through. Heritage Hunters is a new entity to the hunting industry but it’s our goal to give our members a down to earth look at each product we review.
