Hi all,

Finally and after having some "loud" discussions with the seller, who refused to return me the money of the Kahn and insisted in replacing it by a new one we reached an agreement, he received the new one and after selling it I got my money back.

He also told me that in a period of one month four Kahns have been returned broken to the store, and that he is probably not selling anymore the Kaya "traditional" bows.

To be honest, and 9 months after the Kahn incident I have not used again my KTB, mainly because I'm back to olympic style, and also due to a little fear of breaking it... Because I really like that bow!

I've been told that the recurve limbs from Kaya are of a very good quality, but I'm also sure that their traditional bows didn't follow the same quality standards.

2

(9 replies, posted in Bows)

Hi!
I have the brown KTB, and that paisley patter is a little bit kitsch... So I tried to remove the leather but it seems to be impossible without leaving a lot of glue and remains of leather, so I discarded the idea.

Another option is to apply a leather dye to change its color. In my case, the best option may be a dark brown or black, but if you have the grey version you could use almost any color, given that the grey is relatively light...

Hi!

::UPDATE::

It broke.

After a week shooting it, in the club indoor range, I was going to shoot my last arrows when the lamination between wood and carbon failed.

It happened when I was drawing the string, just before reaching my anchor point (fortunately, because I would have punched myself in the face...), the central part of the bow, from where the limbs bend, the bow splitted in two longitudinally across the union between the wood and the carbon.
I was very lucky because the leather grip held the two broken parts, avoiding them to completely crack at the center thus preventing the string to slip from the tips and the limbs to collapse upon me.

That afternoon ended only with a broken bow, but it could have ended with some serious injury... I was just lucky.

After examining the bow meticulously where it broke, I think that the failure could be due to poor quality and irregular gluing of the lamination.

Now I'm trying to get my money back, besides the seller and the distributor insists in replacing it by a new one I do not want it after that incident, given its severity.

My thoughts about the Kahn are now a bit contradictory, because it's still one of the best looking bows I've ever seen, and it shot really well, but I can't think about it as a reliable bow, I regret to say.


ORIGINAL POST:

Here are my 5 cents about the Kaya Kahn (Please forgive my english):

Why I chose this bow:
I'm principally an Olympic style archer, and the last 2 years I've been shooting some of the major tournaments here in Spain, but lately I haven't had time enough to train as much as I liked to keep my scores, so some months ago I bought a Kaya KTB to give me a breath from competition.

The KTB opened a new world of sensations to me! It was lighter and smaller than a longbow and fast and smooth as a recurve. And the"barebow" and instinctive shooting style made me forget about all the clicker and screws worries of the olympic.
The problem was that although its 35 pounds it was a pain in the… thumb to shoot it.  roll

So I decided to get the Kahn, as it combines the best from the KTB with the good wooden appearance of a longbow and its invaluable shelf, indispensable to shoot with three fingers with precission.


Firsts impressions:
When you receive the box, your first though is: Are you sure that insides this there is a bow? It's so thin!
But there is! A bow, a string, and nothing else.
Well, maybe one can't expect to have a super wonderful presentation for a 120€ bow, but it would be nice to have, at least, an instructions sheet… sad

At first glance the string was well made, and the bow finish good enough.
I missed the string bridges, but thankfully, Bluelake confirmed in this post that the Kahn doesn't have them.

So I headed to  the club indoor range to try it. The first difficulty I had was to string it.
It's not easy to string a 45# bow with the "crosslegs" techinque. And a 10cm wound in my left leg is good proof of this… So be careful!!!

After shooting for 2 hours I was completely exhausted but very pleased with the new bow.
Really fast and deadly accurate even for a noob like me in instinctive shooting.

But it had some  problems that I didn't realized before:

- The limb tips were super sharp, and they cutted the string servings. In only 2 hours the string was rendered unusable!  mad

- The arrow shelf was not protected so the friction within it and the arrows started to scratch the wood varnish.

So the next day, with my always handy Dremel I've sanded the tips a little bit to blunt the sharp edges and to balance a bit the two sides of the tips in order to correct a small dissalignment of the string.

Also went to the archery shop to buy a shelf protector and in a leather shop I bought a small piece of black leather to replace the grip cover, which albeit being good enough (And made of real leather I think) I found it to be really boring.
Furthermore, I stringed some turns of red thread in the ends of the limbs, just to cover the union between the limb and the wood ends (don't know its correct name), as the KTB has.

I have yet to make arrows for this bow, with proper spine and lenght, but as a preliminar review I can say that is a good bow given its price, very light and fun to shoot, although it needs a sanding of the tips before using it if you want to preserve the string more than one day.

Here some pics of it after my "tunning":

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8006/7492356560_6c0e0d3423_c.jpg
Bow by David.Peralta, on Flickr


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8292/7492357266_8b9e03d008_c.jpg
grip by David.Peralta, on Flickr


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8013/7492357862_208d061fae_c.jpg
Tip by David.Peralta, on Flickr


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7269/7492358534_5502342d8d_c.jpg
Cuerda by David.Peralta, on Flickr

4

(3 replies, posted in Bows)

Thanks Bluelake! I was a little worried about this.

Today I'm going to the field to try it for first time, if I remember i'll post my first opinions.

Regards!

5

(3 replies, posted in Bows)

Hi everyone!

I just received my new Kaya Kahn! And what can I say... It's gorgeous!

I also have a 35# KTB which I really enjoyed for some months, and my olympic Hoyt, but finally decided that I needed a 3 finger traditional bow so the Kahn was my first option.

I received it yesterday and my first feeling was that something was missing... Just after comparing it with the KTB it was clear:

My Kahn has no string bridges (Is that its name? I'm refering to that black round plastic pieces attached at about 10cm from the limb tips), and also has no leather protection in the limb tips.

And here comes my doubts: Should it have them? It's a fault or not?

I saw some photos in the internet, and I think that it doesn't has the tip protections, but in some images it has the string bridges and in some others don't...

What do you think guys?

(BTW, sorry for my bad english)

6

(39 replies, posted in General Interest)

Please, mee too!

7

(57 replies, posted in Bows)

Thanks to all for your help!

I've finally decided for the KTB.
I also like the horn models, but at least now i only want it to get distracted from the stress of the olympic recurve competitions... Too much sights, buttons and stabilizers.
Some times I feel the need to grab a bow, without all the gadgets, and place a target at only few meters and shoot arrows, just for the sake of doing it...
Some one told me that i could simply dismount the accessories from my Formula RX and do it, but i think it's not the same, don't you think so?
In fact i have some friends that started this way and now they have the olympic in the closet and only shoot longbow!!

Well, i'll let you know when i have news about the bow! Sure i will need some advise.

8

(57 replies, posted in Bows)

Thanks for your fast reply aero86!

I was wrong then. I thought that the Khan was a KTB with shelf.
Knowing this I might decide to buy the KTB...

Thanks!

9

(57 replies, posted in Bows)

Hello!

I'm new in korean style archery, and was thinking about buying a bow, but I'm a little bit confused...

The problem is that I don't like the KTB leather finish, and I was thinking about getting the Kahn but, because of the shelf I'm not sure if it is appropriate to be shot with thumbring.
Is more prepared to be used with finger draw and shot with the shelf?
Or the thumbring draw can be used with a shelf (in the left of the bow for right handed archers)?

Thanks in advance!!!

(And please forgive my bad english!)