Wrist Rockets! Buyer's Guide for Index Release Aids

Let's talk about release aids today, specifically index, AKA wrist rockets. If you have lost a release or you don't know which one to take with you to the Elk Woods, bring them all. All kidding aside, guys, there's a lot of release choices out there on the market. It can be overwhelming. This video is going to be more of a buyer's guide with some rationale to help you sift through and figure out what's gonna work best for you. So let's dig into a little bit. You got your thumb buttons. They're pretty cool. Single hook, you can hook in. Some have a click, some don't. As you pull and open your hand, it will break. Hopefully you're not just, that's a no-go. You have tension activated. Those are kind of good for helping you be more surprised with the release. A lot of people wouldn't want to hunt with one per se, but some do. Those are good. And then you have hinges. A lot of your favorite professional archers will use those on the target scene and they're very accurate. For me, I kind of like a handheld for the fact that I can have a consistent anchor every time and nothing moves once I come to anchor. Whereas these, you kind of have to find your anchor and then find which trigger you're going to use. And there's some movement going on. But let's be honest, there are moments when you're elk hunting and you have a sliver of time to get that shot off. It's gonna be tough to do that with a tension activated or a hinge. You can command shoot these with fairly decent accuracy. I'm not condoning that, but I'm just saying yours truly killed all the elk that I killed from 2002 to 2019 was with this specific release, Scott XT. They don't even make it anymore. So it can and will work for you, but there's a lot of options out there. Let's go through some of my top favorites. And hopefully you can decide which features make the most sense for you. So you can narrow down your options and be on your way to punching your tag in 2024. The first one is the Scott XT. It is my favorite. It's single hook. I can get on the D loop almost without even looking. I can get it pulled back and I can get it set to where I can find a same anchor and get my second knuckle on my index wrapped over and pull this wrist through this strap, pushing and pulling and getting a very clean break. I can shoot this very accurately. I can also punch the crap out of it really quick if I needed to. Next is the Scott Solis. This is very similar. This is something that they are making to this day. You can see head to head, they're very similar. This is gonna be a great option as well. Same with the B3 Hawk. All three of these guys are pretty much the same. Very reliable. This Hawk is definitely adjustable on the tension. I like them as heavy as possible. Then you have the S2, which is a very sophisticated, sexy single hook style. You can click this and pull. Next, the Like Mike 2 from Carter. Lots of adjustability on the tension travel. And you want trigger travel adjustment. You want tension adjustment. And the difference is how much does this trigger actually move and how much poundage or pressure do you need to apply for this to break? Let's use the Shot Trainer and then the Shoot-A-Bow and let's see which one I like the best. Scott XT, B3 Hawk. Scott Solis. Like Mike 2. Push this button in. It'll click. Scott S2. Oh, that's hot. That is hot. We could adjust that though. But let's go shoot a real bow indoors with these and then we might even step outside and shoot a few. First up is the nostalgic Scott XT. I love that I could punch that if I needed to, but if you guys can tell, I'm really working through that trigger. I kind of like that. B3 from Hawk. Seems a little bit hotter than the XT. Carter Like Mike. And I love Carter's names with their releases. When you have buckles, just throw a little silver Sharpie mark on the button or the hole you go to so it's consistent every time. These will kind of stretch as they get hot, you get sweaty, you get dust. And then your backup one you might not have used as much. Put a little mark so you have the same spot every time. We have a full video that we went to Carter Enterprises and we covered this release in that video. Pretty dang sexy. That's a good release. It's a good choice. The S2 from Scott. I love that single hook, easy to get on. Really, really hot. We'd have to make an adjustment on that. I do not like how hot that was. That gave me wise guy vibes. This is the Solus. This part's kind of tricky. There, I would probably shorten that up just a touch. And you do the, you got your two Allens right there. You can adjust that. Send it. Yeah, that's going to be long for me. I would shorten that up a little bit so I can get it in that second index, but dang, I like the vibe on that. You guys can tell with, for me, when it comes to wrist rockets, I don't want to breathe on it and have it go off. So with that being said, the Like Mike 2 and the S2 are very similar. Similar ergonomics, similar, you have to push things to make them set up, but they're both good, but both of them are so stinking hot right now that it's not for me. You may like it though, but they do offer adjustability, which is awesome. And they're well-constructed. I'm going to give both of these solid marks. Scott XT is still my favorite, but they just don't make them anymore. B3 has got a very similar vibe, but right now, as it sits, it is too hot for me. And then the one here, I'm going to go ahead and shoot this one again. I really liked it. I'm going to loosen these up, shorten it, choke it down just a little. I like the vibe on that. It didn't break right away. I really had to pull through. I want to stay present in the shot execution. I don't want to just check out mentally, hope and pray, because that's, hoping and praying is how you fail. I don't love that, how it's shaped. It's tough to get through there. We just made an adjustment, shorten it up. I'm going to shoot another. Scott Solis. Dude, I like, oh, I love it. I can shoot really tight groups with this. Out of all these release aids, again, I kind of already went through them all, but the favorite one out of the ones I just went through was definitely the Solis. Archery, you got to be consistent and you got to find what works for you. Command shooting versus non, that's not the point of this video. The point is stuff happens fast when you party with elk. Let's wrap this video up, guys. We didn't use the Wyze Choice. I've used it in the past. It's great. There's a bunch of other ones I didn't use on here. That's cool. You can comment, try this one, try that one. We'll check out your comments. We look at them. Comment below what you're going to run in 2024 for a release aid. Separations in the preparation. Catch you on the next one.