 Welcome to the Pyramid Air YouTube channel friends today. I am joined by one of my co-workers Ron Duker Ron is going to be me for archery for you guys. So Ron's got a wealth of experience shooting crossbows shooting bows. I've recently gotten into vertical archery myself But Ron is far more knowledgeable and is going to be a much better Person to hold your hand through navigating the wonderful world of archery So Ron, thanks for joining me today. Thank you Tyler Let's talk through like how long have you been hunting with with archery equipment hunting officially 20 plus years So started out with vertical archery got into a little bit of traditional archery and then had a couple use cases for crossbows which then turned me on to pretty much the whole Avenue and angle of every type of archery there is never really gotten into target archery. I'm more of hunting but Everybody has their fit, right? Absolutely. Yeah, so, you know for me I definitely approach things more from the target side of stuff I hunt as well But target archery is really captivating for me just as target shooting with air guns is But I think the interesting thing about archery is that I would say the predominant use case for archery equipment is Hunting less than target shooting. Absolutely and a whole another set of Challenges that you face when you don't have an Environment in a situation that goes exactly the way you have it set up and the way that you want it Backyard archery is one thing I did that for about 10 years prior to shifting to hunting And the whole idea was you just start getting that bug after you're hitting our archery targets And you're hitting 3d targets for a while. You're like, ah, man. I really want that the real thing Give me the challenge of shooting a whitetail. That's what really got me into it Yeah, and same thing here guys I picked up a bow and went hunting for the first time about four years ago And and the minute you see that first deer in the woods, you're like, huh part start Hunter mode switches on yes, and that feeling really For me it was an immediate connection and something that I was like I need to do this again Absolutely, and I think a lot of you guys probably feel the exact same way The interesting thing for for us on the airgun side is that you know, we've had aero firing airguns for a number of years One of the things I want to help With you know, we're on here to talk you guys through it's kind of the use cases for different archery equipment And and an airgun firing an arrow Isn't really archery equipment and we can say that I think because well It's not defined as such by really any state from a hunting standpoint, but from a practical Application perspective, you know, can you say that there's really any difference between an aero firing airgun that shoots? you know 450 to 500 feet a second and the latest and greatest 10-pointer Raven that shooting 450 to 500 feet a second I mean listen as far as arrow trajectory. It's basically identical sure a lot of it is very similar It's the platforms and I mean really it's the question of the platform and the feel on how you want to approach it but what I would say is is Shooting a dragon claw is a bit louder Then some of the other implements and I would kind of just my experience this isn't true 100% overall Typically the quietest most stealthiest option as far as the animal being able to hear something is actually going to be your vertical vertical bow You can get really quiet with those to the point where My average harvest is 12 yards and under from a tree stand or from a saddle platform And hopefully we can get some video of that for you So you know that I'm not I'm not joking on that and then the next quest is usually the crossbow and it depends on what you go Typically the heavier and faster crossbows are going to be louder. That's the trade-off to speed Yeah, and then the dragon claw you get some serious speed and you get some serious accuracy With that comes then the loudness absolutely and that's most arrow firing air guns to be fair And you know, but I was always surprised You know shot a handful of crossbows now that we've started carrying a ton of them and and Ron's absolutely right They can crack, you know, some of those 500 foot per second models are certainly not quiet But the whole idea being that the arrow is going to get there, but hopefully it does Keep it under 40 yards and the arrow is going to get there You'll be fine. Yeah, and I think the same logic from a Distance standpoint applies to the arrow firing air guns just as well to crossbow or to a vertical bow Obviously there are use cases where you might shoot a little further with one of these You know depending on what kind of game you're after of course But you know, I think the big thing for for me is that when I get asked about You know, oh, should I go with an arrow firing air gun or crossbow? A lot of it's legality You can't you know, you simply air air gun hunting isn't as popular from from states adopting it As crossbows and certainly not as vertical archery goes There are way more states that will allow you to use that crossbow for white tail Then will allow you to use an arrow firing air gun. So while the performance is similar You know where you're actually able to use them is not and that kind of sucks. Yes, it does But it means that for those of you that live somewhere You know where you can't use this to go hunt big game You've got your option right here In crossbows and that's really great because there's a lot of the same kind of fundamentals of shooting in a crossbow Absolutely as there is in an air gun, which I think is great But I think the big controversial topic in the archery world And I hear it myself at the local bow shop is like the vertical bow hunter versus the crossbow hunter This is something I'd say to all archers and air gunners out there It's all a function of fitting what's best to you in your hunting situation As well as you and what you what you like to do and how much time you have so My my use case scenario was I had a deer charge me a 10-point buck charge me when I was going into the stand in Probably 2014. I think it was it was like october 17th And so I scurried up My uncle has a ladder stand. I don't hunt in ladder stands typically anymore I'm more of a saddle guy But I was climbing up his stand because that was closest and I was getting charged by a deer and he met business And so I got up there and I was looking and I waited and I waited and all of a sudden I'm like, okay sun starts coming up and I can see him standing there But I can't make out his points. I could just see his breath puffing at me That's where the crossbow came in was actually When I started tracking him down because I don't use the use of any cameras or anything like that I more take a look and see what's happening in the different areas Kind of circle in sort of speak Play the wind to stay out if it's not if it's not right, etc, etc And when I ran into it, there were a couple of trees and the reason why this deer was probably about seven or eight years old The reason why he nobody ever got him or even saw him on the trail cameras There's over 30 trail cameras on about an 18 acre plot down there And none of them are mine. They're all my uncles but at the end of the day They never saw him once on any trail camera And I said, well, that should make it easy for me to identify where he's going The problem is where he was going was in an area. The only place I could get his position on him Was an old 1950s aluminum 12 foot ladder stand that I had And I had to put it on a tree that I had no ability to draw back It's like try try shooting when when you're like this Um, and so I tried here and I was up in my stand. It couldn't work I had to sit the whole time. So I said, you know what? Maybe I got to try the crossbow and To be honest at the time I was like because there is there is Bad blood there is bad blood kind of between the crossbow and the vertical archers You'll you'll hear that as you get into it But I said, you know what if I'm going to take a deer like that and a crossbow is going to be the way that I can get him I'm in so I went out and I got the crossbow while I was still hunting with vertical as well When I was hunting does and other properties. I would use my vertical But whenever I had the setup and that's where I really learned like Doesn't matter what you use as long as you're stacking the cards to your favor And so for me I sat there and he came up and I missed him this day But it taught me several lessons. He came straight up at me I'm on a I'm on a ridge and he came straight up at me looking right at me Everything was good to go I was waiting for him to turn come out of this thicket and turn broadside on a on a old hay road And he didn't the wind changed blue and he took off But I'm like, you know what I thought at that moment I said There's another benefit to the crossbow as well Which is all I had to do in order to hit him with this sitting on my lap was this Already cocked already loaded already ready to go So when he started coming in I didn't have to worry about timing when I would when I would draw my bow back I didn't have to worry that he was going to see me. I didn't have to see worry about any side profiles or anything It was just as simple as this And I had him sitting there just waiting waiting waiting and he turned around and walked the other way It ended up it was actually the next season next november that I actually took him with a crossbow I actually took him with an Excalibur crossbow Um out of a tree stand just like that in the same situation and so I say, you know what? I mean at the end of the day the width of him and I'll show you a picture at some point But he was 24 inches. He was 24 inches wide. Yeah, throw it up. He was 24 inches wide Um, I did the research found out. He's the second widest He's not the tallest like other guys are going to come in they're going to have zoom and crocket And they're going to have higher higher points and so forth and so on But he was 24 inches wide and I I did the research and I only found the only other deer that was that wide Was actually the state record for the state of Ohio So he's a pretty serious deer and I was I could not have taken him to be honest. I could not have taken him I'm sure several other hunters in the area have tried over the years and have missed them Just a really smart wise deer that if you didn't have a crossbow in your hand I I don't think I would have been able to get him And so take it for what it's worth So now I actually carry both and depending on my stand situation where I see the deer at I have both in my in the back of my truck and I just decide which one I'm going to use that day depending on my stand location Yeah, and that's a really interesting like nuanced perspective on the whole thing is it's very use case based for you Which I think it's not for most people, uh, you know, I find in talking to a lot of hunters that You know, they would love to go hunt with their vertical bow, but they're not well practiced enough They're not putting the time in or maybe they don't have the time. That's how they feel about it Sure, so they pick up a crossbow and and that's one of those cases where I would rather you do that because your your success potential Goes way up with the crossbow compared to you being unpracticed with a vertical bow Yeah, well and and to be fair because all of the thousands of hours that I put into vertical I'm more accurate with vertical I am I could go out 60 even to 100 yards On a vertical bow and I will be more accurate than any crossbow you put in my hands or any air gun for that matter And I don't know why that is it just is something that connects in my brain better and my muscle memory and the way that I do things Uh, the vertical the vertical archery is is the way to go, but I said thousands of hours To get there and I don't have thousands of hours shooting a crossbow. I'd have to be restricting it all the time You know guys, there's a huge breath of product available when we talk about archery equipment And there's tons of crossbows that you can go right now on the website and see There's also a ton of vertical bows coming to the website soon So, you know, there there's a great use case for both of these tools and especially for those of you that maybe can't Physically use a vertical bow, you know a crossbow is going to get you in the stand and do so very easily And with something you can be very effective with and I think ultimately that's the important piece here And that's why Ron's here guys He's going to be taking you through a lot of these crossbows showing you the different kinds showing you how they perform Probably eventually getting into some vertical stuff as well. Yes, and more importantly, you know, you're going to get to see the hunt At some point. So, you know, once season rolls around, I'm expecting this guy to be up in a tree I'll be up in a tree. We've got some other folks on staff that are going to be up in trees as well Hopefully filming a bunch of stuff for you But this was a really brief introduction to archery equipment that we sell here at pyramid air And I wanted to introduce you guys to ron I think you guys are going to find that he is super informative and really well knowledge on archery equipment And so ron welcome to the youtube channel. Thank you. Tyler. Thanks for coming in and we will see you next time Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like comment subscribe. You'll be seeing more of this guy and me real soon