Many hunters, including myself, at some point or another, have had or experienced target panic. To fix this problem you can do different things like, blind bail shooting, shooting at close range tell you get your form perfect, or swap release types. And one type of release that is very popular for fixing target panic is the hinge or back tension release. But can you hunt with a hinge release? And why or why not? In this article, we will answer those very questions.
Here is the short answer:
Yes, in short, you can hunt with a hinge release. However, it might not be a good idea for some situations or for some hunters, and you will need to be very careful when you hunt with a hinge release as an animal can move as you go through your shot proses.
Now that we have looked at the short answer, we can look closer at using a hinge release for hunting and see when you would want one, when you wouldn’t want one, and why they might be a bad idea.
When you wouldn’t want a hinge release for hunting
Hunting with a hinge can be risky if you don’t first think about the animals and what your situation looks like.
The two main risks to a hinge release are an uncontrolled shot and having your shot process take a long time. The way a hinge works is that when you rotate your hand, the release face moves, and eventually it gets to a point where the face moves far enough to where the hook breaks releasing the string. To properly go through the motions of a well-executed shot with a hinge release, it takes a long time and is hard to stop once you get going.
This less controlled drawn-out surprise shot can lead to problems in uncontrolled situations where an animal is likely to spook or you might have to shoot for a split second as the animal you are after crosses an opening in the trees.
An example of when it would be risky would be if you primarily still hunt, there is a high likely hood that the animal you are after will spook right as you are executing your shot. And with an uncontrolled shot, you may hit wound the animal due to not being able to stop your shot. However, if you had a more controllable release such as a thumb button or index release, you could have stopped your shot before the animal ran.
Another risk situation to use a hinge would be hunting in thick areas where you only have 1 or maybe 2 seconds to shoot. Like you are calling in an elk and then it crosses through a shooting lane and you have a split second to shoot before he moves into the brush.
When you would want a hinge release
Now that we have looked at when you would want a hinge release for hunting, we can look at when you wouldn’t want a hinge release for hunting.
If you are in a more controlled hunting scenario (I.e hunting over food sources or in a ground blind), where you know you have 10-20 seconds to shoot, there is no reason not to use a hinge. If you have lots of time to execute your shot then a surprise shot that you get from a hinge release would make the likely hood or putting a highly lethal shot on your game greatly increases.
That being said, with an index-style release, or a thumb button, then you would have just as high of a chase of getting a good shot as with a hinge because you have all the time you would need.
Hinge releases vs other releases
Since we have looked at when you would or wouldn’t want a hinge release, we can look compare hunting with hinge releases to other releases.
When you compare a hinge to other releases there is almost no advantage to using them for hunting. A hinge release can help with accuracy because it allows the shooter to achieve a surprise shot, but with the right technique, you can shoot just as well with a thumb button or index release as you can with a hinge.
Conclusion
hunting with a hinge is definitely possible and may even help you. However, for most hunting situations, any other release style will work just as good or even a little better. If you think that a hinge would work best for you then you should use a hinge release, but keep your options open and try different releases.