The 2018 Elite Ritual - 33" Flagship Hunting Bow from Elite Archery

We started years ago with the GTO, the GT500. We had the pulse, the pure.

So when we sat down to design this new bow for 2018, we really did look at the best features we've had on all of our bows throughout the years.

Deep down, I'm a bow hunter, an avid bow hunter, and I have my lucky pair of boots, I have a lucky hat. I have superstitions, I have a routine. I have a process. All of those things are parts of my ritual. Hey, everybody. We're back here at Elite Archery and Tog headquarters in West Henrietta, New York. I'm joined by Mr. Sidebottom and we're continuing our 2018 bow launch and how we got here today. We started years ago with the GTO, the GT500. We had the pulse, the pure, the Energy series bows really put a lead on the map. Then we had the Impulse series, which was our greatest selling bow ever. Last year, we played with dual cage risers and split limbs. And today we're bringing you a bow that's the culmination of all these bows for our 2018 flagship hunting bow.

So when we sat down to design this new bow for 2018, we really did look at the best features we've had on all of our bows throughout the years and tried to combine that into the platform you see here today, which is the 2018 ritual.

We're calling this bow the Ritual. And that really resonates with me. I'm a target tournament archer, but deep down, I'm a bow hunter, an avid bow hunter. And I have my lucky pair of boots. I have a lucky hat. I have superstitions, I have a routine. I have a process. All of those things are parts of my ritual. So, Josh, let's tell everybody about this bow.

So this bow is really built around a forgiving platform for a hunting bow. We really listened to the consumers and our dealers and what kind of specs they wanted for this bow. It's just over 33 inches axle to axle. It's got a six and three quarter inch brace height, and we're getting up to 335ft per second with those specs.

Perfect. Now, I see a lot of different things about this bow. Shooting it, looking at it. One of the things that really stands out to me first and foremost is the grip. The shelf's a little different. The grip, it feels really good. Very consistent. You want to touch on that?

Yeah. The grips are always evolving based on the feedback we get when we come out with the new grip, similar to the grip we had on the options last year, but there's some small tweaks in it that you'll notice that really make it comfortable. There's some changes in the shelf area that make your hand rest just really natural on it.

Gotcha. Now, what kind of draw lengths does this bow come in?

This comes in 26 and a half to 31 inches in half inch increments. And then poundages 50, 60 and 70. You can get a 65 pound bow as a made to order right now.

I know we've talked. We touched on it in our earlier bow launch with the Echelon Efficiency. I'm hearing that more and more and more. And you were kind of proud when we talked about efficiency. Let's tell everybody what efficiency mean or what's that, what's that mean to you?

Efficiency is how well your bow performs. So you get a loss of energy. In a poorly efficient bow, that loss of energy really simply is just noise and vibration. The more efficient your bow is and the better it's going to perform, the better it's going to shoot, the quieter and the less vibration you're going to feel.

So when we talk about efficiency, I don't know that anybody's ever going to be 100% efficient. You know, where are we at with this? I mean, how good is this bow?

This is the best bow I have ever tested. This is an incredible bow as far as efficiency goes. When the guys came to me with the numbers off the testing, I told them they were crazy and they messed something up. Because honestly, I didn't believe a bow could get to be this efficient. We went in, we recalibrated the equipment. I still doubted the results that they were getting. I don't think they were too happy about it. But we retested it. Retested it. And we believe without question, this is the most efficient bow that's ever been produced.

That's going to help not only me as a long draw shooter, but our 26 inch draw, 26 and a half inch draw shooters, 27 inch draw shooters, the effort they're putting in, they're getting better results. They don't need to shoot £75 to get good performance out of their bows. With this bow.

Yeah, yeah. You can take that multiple ways. You're getting better performance for what you're putting in. We can make the draw even smoother and still get good speed out of it.

Gotcha. Now, we've talked about a lot of new features. What's this bow going to cost?

This bow MSRP is $9.99.

I said earlier, this bow was the culmination of everything elite archery's ever done. And it's a smooth bow, It's a whole new cam design, and it's the most efficient bow we've ever had. How did we get there?

So this is the elite two track cam system. But we did clean sheet it for this bow, specifically for this geometry. And the first thing you do when you set out to design a cam, you got to hit the speed number we want, and you got to hit the draw length ranges, and that kind of starts the cam design process. The engineer working on this nailed those two on the first try. But when we drew it, we wanted to make it smoother. We spent months going back and forth, make it smoother, make it smoother, make it smoother till we got here, where you can't even feel the bow transition in the valley. It is a super smooth drawing bow. As we went through that process, the cams got more efficient, more efficient, more efficient. Till the point we got to today where we're shooting 335 with a super smooth drawing bow.

So this is a typical elite bow. The customer that's always been, man, I love the way that feels. I love the way that aims. I love that solid back wall. This is it. I touched briefly on the new grip and how comfortable it was, but I also see we have the dual cages in this riser, too. Can you touch on that?

Yeah. This is a new riser design for this bow. You know, we keep pushing further. Our operations team has gotten better and better and more efficient. It allows us to do more in the riser design. So it does have the dual riser cages. Really super stable riser design.

Now, I've shot several arrows out of this bow in the past few days. It's completely dead in your hand. And one thing I did notice, we have zero rubber pieces. We don't have any dampening on this bow.

That ties back to the efficiency we talked about. The more efficient your bow is, the less noise and vibration it creates. So we don't need all that dampening. We don't need a fancy dampener to try to absorb all that energy. It's all leaving in the arrow. So it's just not necessary.

I've been around tog for a few years now, and we're listening, we're hearing what people are saying. We're delivering what you're wanting. Everyone wants shootability. Everyone wants affordability. Everyone says on our social media following, we can't top our synergy you can't beat your energy. You can't do better than the impulse. I think we have.

Yeah, we took that as a challenge. We hear all that. And that was the focus for this. This bow design. I think we've. We've nailed it, too. I mean, the shootability in this bow, when you combine how smooth it is with the specs, you know, just over 33 inches, axle to axle, is a really forgiving, great hunting bow spec. You're not all crunched up on a really compact bow. It's just a really forgiving bow.

To shoot, go to elitearchery.com play with the bow builder, and then go visit your local dealer before you make your next purchase.

You have to shoot this bow, go to your local dealer, and honor the ritual.