6 Best Arrow Rests of 2021
A good arrow rest determines how focused and precise your arrow flights will be. This makes them an important accessory for any serious archer or bow hunter.
The problem is there are many different types of arrow rests from different makers, and they all work differently. This makes finding your perfect arrow rest a rather difficult job.
You need to understand the differences between them, so you can make the right choice and choose the best arrow rest for your needs.
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6 Best Arrow Rests – Review
- 1. Quality Archery UHXBK – Best Overall Archery Rest
- 2. Trophy Ridge AWB500S – Best Arrow Rest For Hunters
- 3. Tabiger – Best Budget Arrow Rest For Compound Bows
- 4. Wingeler – Best Beginner Arrow Rest
- 5. Quality Archery W-QURH – Affordable Premium Arrow Rest
- 6. Truglo TG630B – High-performance Arrow Rest
- Whisker Biscuit vs. Drop Away Arrow Rests
- How to Buy the Best Arrow Rest
- Conclusion
6 Best Arrow Rests – Review
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PRODUCT |
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1. Quality Archery UHXBK (Best Overall) |
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2. Trophy Ridge AWB500S (Best For Hunters) |
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3. Tabiger (Best Budget For Compound Bows) |
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4. Wingeler (Best for Beginner) |
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5. Quality Archery W-QURH (Affordable Premium Design) |
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6. Truglo TG630B (High-performance) |
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PRODUCT |
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1. Quality Archery UHXBK (Best Overall) |
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2. Trophy Ridge AWB500S (Best For Hunters) |
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3. Tabiger (Best Budget For Compound Bows) |
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4. Wingeler (Best for Beginner) |
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5. Quality Archery W-QURH (Affordable Premium Design) |
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6. Truglo TG630B (High-performance) |
1. Quality Archery UHXBK – Best Overall Archery Rest
Photo: Quality Archery
The HDX from Quality Archery Design is a unique and top of the line product, designed to satisfy even the most demanding hunters. It's also one of the best drop away arrow rests you can lay your hands on.
It offers you improved accuracy and speed, plus the manufacturer is so sure of its durability, that it comes with a lifetime warranty, being machined from aluminum and stainless steel parts.
You can get it in black or in Realtree camouflage option, as well as in a left-hand or right-hand option . This rest is also available in custom colors of your choice including purple, blue and pink.
More of its features include a breakaway safety feature and horizontal, vertical, and overdraw adjustments. You also get a total arrow containment feature, which allows you to cock the rest while nocking an arrow, keeping it fully contained and silent.
For downsides, it's relatively costly and it's many features might overwhelm a beginner.
An included anti-vibration technology makes this arrow rest one of the quietest drop away rests in the market and Quality Archery Design's VDT technology makes sure the rest drops in time to provide complete fletching clearance.
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2. Trophy Ridge AWB500S – Best Arrow Rest For Hunters
Photo: Trophy Ridge
Whisker biscuit arrow rests are very popular among hunters because of their many advantages like silence, quick arrow loading, the safety of arrows, and accuracy.
Trophy Ridge now owns the patent rights to the whisker biscuit and they make a few models, including the Sure Shot and the Quick Shot. Each model has its unique features, including this model, which gets called the Kill Shot.
The Kill Shot was designed as a tougher, lighter, and more compact arrow rest than the rest. It is 150% stronger than earlier models and features laser-engraved windage and elevation adjustment marks.
Asides from this Small size, you can get also Trophy Ridge's Kill Shot in Medium and Large , with colors ranging from brown to green, purple, orange, pink, yellow, and red.
Trophy Ridge includes rubber boots around the arrow loading space to help dampen noise and keep things quiet when you load your arrow.
For downsides, the whiskers will wear out your fletchings with time and the body is also a composite, and not metal.
This arrow rest is simple and easy to understand and use by first-timers, as well as by experienced hunters. You can also easily reverse it to either fit a right-handed or a left-handed bow.
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3. Tabiger – Best Budget Arrow Rest For Compound Bows
Photo: Tabiger
If you're on a budget, but you still need the best arrow rest for compound bows, then you might want to try this Tabiger arrow rest designed for hunting with compound bows .
It's amazing what you get for the price. This rest features nearly everything you can find on the popular whisker biscuit from Trophy Ridge, including windage and elevation adjustments.
Tabiger fits it with stronger bristles, which they promise will not damage your arrow's fletching. This arrow rest has a diameter of 2.5 inches and the entire thing is 3.66 inches high.
Although the body is made of a composite material, which makes it potentially less durable than aluminum arrow rests, its low price is still a great advantage. This makes it an easily replaceable rest which is perfect for beginners.
The arrow loading area also has 2 rubber boots to keep the noise down, and in general, this rest offers you one of the highest values for money in this arrow rests review.
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4. Wingeler – Best Beginner Arrow Rest
Photo: Wingeler
If you need a lightweight and cheap arrow rest, then try this one from Wingeler. It weighs just 3 ounces and costs only a few dollars more than the Tabiger arrow rest , making it a perfect beginner arrow rest.
Wingeler makes it completely from composite material and with strong bristles, plus you can get it either in full black or in camouflage colors.
Notwithstanding its low price, this arrow rest offers all the features that you'll expect from more expensive rests, including rubber boots for low noise and reference marks for easier windage adjustments.
It'll also fit well in both right- and left-handed bows, and its setup is quick and easy. This Wingeler arrow rest is great for kids and youth bows because of its lightweight and affordable price.
The only issue is that the bristles wear out quicker than those of more established brands in this whisker biscuits review. On the other hand, it helps with accurate shots and is cheap to replace.
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5. Quality Archery W-QURH – Affordable Premium Arrow Rest
Photo: Quality Archery
Quality Archery Designs makes plenty of high-quality drop-away arrow rests, but they usually cost a lot. So, here is one QAD product that costs way less than the others.
The hunter features complete arrow containment, horizontal and overdraw adjustments, a thumbwheel, as well as precision CNC engineered stainless steel and aluminum parts.
Unlike other QAD products though, this one comes with just a 90-day warranty. It's available in either a right-handed or left-handed version and features many of Quality Archery Design's technologies.
These include VDT for a quick drop away of the rest to clear space for the arrow's fletchings, as well as EZ-Clamp to install the rest securely on any bow.
You can also use this arrow rest to shoot shorter arrows on your bow without any issues. It includes a breakaway safety feature and offers easy adjustments of its timing cord.
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6. Truglo TG630B – High-performance Arrow Rest
Photo: Truglo
Truglo's TG630B Down Draft comes with an entirely different approach for drop away arrow rests. Featuring an all-metal construction and a heavy-duty stainless steel launcher arm, its durability is also guaranteed.
The installation is quick and easy, requiring no bow presses. Rubber sound dampeners keep the arrow loading noiseless, thereby allowing you to silently draw and hit your game when hunting.
This arrow rest also features full arrow containment and sealed bushings to maximize the rest's downward speed once the arrow gets shot.
For cons, it's not very effective with shorter arrows and the package doesn't include wrenches for installation.
You get full adjustments for elevation and windage, plus laser-engraved markings for your convenience. This arrow rest will also work with both left-handed and right-handed bows.
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Whisker Biscuit vs. Drop Away Arrow Rests
Here's a comparison of these two arrow rests.
1. Whisker Biscuit Arrow Rest
The whisker biscuit is a type of containment arrow rest and it's made of bristles which form a perimeter around the arrow to hold it in place.
This allows the whisker biscuit to firmly hold the arrow in place when it hasn't been drawn. When drawn and released, many parts of the arrow do come in contact with the bristles, but the deviations they cause are often negligible.
Whisker biscuits got introduced in 2013 and went on to become a favorite with hunters because of their simplicity, silence, accuracy, and arrow safety when not drawn.
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2. Drop Away Arrow Rest
A drop away arrow rest is basically a prong or shoot-through rest, whose prongs fall away to make way for a released arrow. This system gained popularity in the 1980s.
The main advantage of the drop away rest is that it offers the archer or hunter a higher degree of accuracy, and this is also consistent.
The prongs are first raised into place, often with the use of a rope. They stay in place as the arrow gets drawn, but once the arrow gets released, the rest drops down, allowing the arrow to fly off freely.
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How to Buy the Best Arrow Rest
Photo: Trophy Ridge
In addition to the differences between the major arrow rest types, there are other important features and aspects of an arrow rest to consider when shopping for one. These aspects are as follows.
1. Ease of Use
It's very important that whichever compound bow arrow rest you choose should be easy for you to understand and use. While some types are simpler than the rest, what you need is a system that you're comfortable with. This also includes adjusting its elevation and windage settings if it has one.
2. Weight
How heavy or how light the arrow rest is should also concern you because the weights of all the accessories do add up and you are the one who has to carry the bow.
If your sessions are short then it might not matter, but if you have to hunt all day, then your bow's total weight becomes a serious consideration.
3. Durability
No one wants to buy something that won't last, so make sure that the arrow rest got built using good materials that'll guarantee its durability. Even the best arrow rest for compound bows is no good if it's not durable.
4. Silence
If you are into hunting, then the best arrow rest for you should be as silent as possible, because you don't want to scare away a potential kill. Whisker biscuit rests are the most silent types and the best arrow rests for hunting because of that.
Conclusion
The choice of an arrow rest is a personal decision that is best left to the sport-archer or hunter because there is simply no system which is completely better than the other.
If you're after the best overall arrow rest, then the Quality Archery UHXBK is the best recommendation.
For hunters, the best recommendation is the
Trophy Ridge AWB500S
, with its soft and quiet whisker design that's easy to use as well.
And for the beginners, the
Winger arrow rest
is a great arrow rest that's lightweight and cheap.
