What Does A Bow Stabilizer Do? [Let’s Find Out]

My bow keeps vibrating every time I shoot and makes me lose aim. So my friend suggested installing a bow stabilizer but what does a bow stabilizer do? Will it be helpful? 

A stabilizer is to hold your bow stationeries together and helps you to get rid of unstable arrows. To balance the motion and force during shooting a bow stabilizer is a perfect choice. 

But what is it actually for? What does a bow stabilizer do? Explore all the questions about archery stabilizers.

What Is A Bow Stabilizer?

In the world of archery, a stabilizer refers to different types of weights, made on rods, and placed on a bow to enhance its stability. Or you can say, it’s the tool to lessen the movement of arrow release, thereby promoting precision.

In brief, stabilizers are equipment that helps to reduce inconsistency when an archer releases an arrow. Because this immediately increases the moment of inertia of your bow.

What Does A Bow Stabilizer Do Actually?

The role sounds simple, it just increases your bow inertia when you release your arrow. It happens within a few seconds there is no chance for any kind of vibration or excessive movement of the bow. 

Even the aiming is also controlled by a stabilizer as it balances the arrow release force and the backward stress after release. But the whole process is not as easy as it sounds.

Let’s see what a bow stabilizer does with these two core factors- vibration and aiming.

Vibration

Nowadays target and hunting crossbows usually propel the arrows with a lot of backup force.

In fact, your arrow’s acceleration becomes at least hundreds of times higher than the gravity, which is approximately 9.8 m/s2. (According to layman’s terms, gravity increases a compound’s speed total of 9.8 meters per second every second.) 

So, with this much stress pushing the arrow as well as your bow, not being a perfect mechanical procedure—it doesn’t exchange 100% of its original energy. 

As a result, the excess energy is released by excessive noise and sudden vibrations.

Obviously, your bow’s vibration will be at a very high-frequency, which may potentially hurt you, and an absolute chance of repeated vibrations throughout the wrist zone also your pointing elbow can get serious tendinitis. Sometimes the tennis elbow and your carpal tunnel. 

Your repeated motions and the bow’s excessive vibrations from shooting enhance the chances of causing both physical and mechanical issues. 

So, What is a bow stabilizer used for? This is where a  good stabilizer starts contributing. Oy absorbs the sudden shock and potentially extends your shooting career.

Now, what is the purpose of a stabilizer on a bow? Well, With the stabilizer protruding from your bow, and multiple shock absorbers attached there, all the extensive vibrations dissipate much more quickly.

Finally, the result is perfect and pleasant shooting and no risk of injury to your bow arm.

Aiming

Now Why Use A Bow Stabilizer for aiming? Because your bow will be perfectly balanced and you’ll be able to hold your bow in an accurate place with your stabilizer.

So, What does a compound bow stabilizer do? When you add stabilizers to the bow it also makes the aiming process easier by enhancing your bow’s inertia which usually equates to a less smooth motion. Inertia is the tendency of an object to either stay at rest or keep functioning. 

In this case, increasing the bow’s weight slows the movement in your bow arm while aiming and this promotes your ability to aim more accurately at the aiming center. 

However, adding excessive weight to your bow may cause faster fatigue and poor accuracy results.

Do You Need A Stabilizer On Your Bow?

Does your bow become unstable while shooting? Does it vibrate too much that you lose the aim? 

Then you better install a stabilizer to the bow. And if you are a beginner you must know how to balance a bow with a stabilizer. Let’s find out all the crucial facts about why you need a stabilizer.

1. To Increase Your Shot Stability

One of the key benefits of a stabilizer is to promote the shot stability of your unstable bow. 

As a Stabilizer increases your bow’s inertia, it keeps reducing the motion of the shooting. 

In the case of your stabilizer, the extra mass slows down the sudden damage you may experience due to the excess stress. 

This allows you to aim more steadily than ever before. This is why most expert archers shoot with a stabilizer, especially for target shooting. 

2. To Absorb the Vibration

The other key factor of bow stabilizers is to absorb the vibration of shooting. When you are drawing a bow, a lot of energy is built between the limbs and the bowstrings. 

When released, this energy is moved to the arrow, and some of it transfers in the form of vibration. 

That’s why all the bow stabilizers have rubber or rods as inserts and other tools that are supposed to absorb this residual vibration.

3. To Increase The Bow Accuracy

When you use a bow stabilizer it results in perfect accuracy. This is because of both stability and extensive vibration absorption. They make your arrows more accurate than before and save you from any flinch due to the big vibration in the shot.

4. To Reduce Excessive Noise Of Vibration

The last added need of a stabilizer is the minimizing of the noise. Excess noise often makes you able to throw a shot or makes you miss the opportunity.

When an arrow is released, the energy can be very loud. This must spook the living target before the arrow is landed. So a quality stabilizer is a must to reduce this unwanted noise of shooting.

How Does A Bow Stabilizer Work?

So how does a bow stabilizer work? What’s the actual mechanism? Also, get to know what its purpose is-

Mechanism

There are 2 main functions of stabilizers – made with rubber and other functions with a motor and rod stand. 

1. Rubber stabilizer

The rubber stabilizer is a manual type of stabilizer that works simply. It is mainly invented to reduce the vibration of the bow. 

When you shoot the arrow, it gives a sudden backward force. The rubber placed on the stabilizer minimizes the force and reduces the vibration. 

The key purpose of this one is to minimize the vibration and make you aim correctly.

2. Motor stabilizer 

This stabilizer has a motor-driven gyroscope mounted into a tube that is located on your bow. The front screws of your bow were traditional vibration dampeners normally found. 

The main purpose of this one is to reduce vibration as well as noise. And thus builds up great accuracy.

How Much Difference Does A Bow Stabilizer Make?

There is a big difference between using and not using a stabilizer. Because they absorb a huge amount of vibration which soaks up the noise. 

A longer stabilizer of 14 inches improves balance and accuracy to hold your bow. So yes, a stabilizer is going to make a lot of positive changes to your hunting experience. 

Do Stabilizers Improve Accuracy?

Do you know how a stabilizer makes your bow stable and helps you to get rid of vibration? And the fact is the more stable a bow is the more accuracy you will get while shooting.

What Size Stabilizer For Bow Do I Need?

Stabilizer size matters in the case of balancing the bow. Now the question comes: What size bow stabilizer do I need? It depends on the type of bow you are using and what type of hunter you are.

Like, what size stabilizer for the compound bow? The accurate size for a compound bow stabilizer will be 10-12 inches. 

What Size Stabilizer For Bow Hunting?

For bow hunting, longer bows are preferred as they can put on much weight to reduce vibration. So, I suggest using a 12- 15 inch hunting bow stabilizer.

How To Choose A Bow Stabilizer?

You use a stabilizer to balance the bow so you can’t just put any random stabilizer on it. See the key facts to choose the best bow stabilizer.

Bow Type

Use a stabilizer according to your bow type. Like in the case of compound bows, take a regular stabilizer with a moderate length of 10-12″.

On the other hand, if you are going bow hunting use a more advanced and long stabilizer.

Experience Level

If you are a beginner you must use a stabilizer to cope  But use easy functional rubber and manual stabilizers. And motor stabilizers for more experienced archers.

Length-Weight Balance

Stabilizer weight can greatly affect its vibration absorption capacity. The longer and heavier the stabilizer, the more vibration it can absorb. So use heavy or long ones for better results.

Quality and Pricing

Always matters in choosing the stabilizer. The cheap bow stabilizer gets unusable after a few shots as the ribber gets ripped off or loose. So it’s better to use a high-quality stabilizer even if it costs a bit more.

Wrap Up

For the archers out there on the range or who compete, it’s a big deal to manage with unstable bows and cope with a release force. 

This is where a stabilizer works on promoting accurate balance. Isn’t it a savior? 

FAQs