Hello to everyone here in the TradTalk forum. I’ve been lurking on this forum for about 2 years now and I thought it was probably about time to make an account and contribute something to this great community. The information here is part of why I took the archery path that I’m currently on now. I did JOAD back when I was a kid and took about 20 years off of archery while life got busy. When returning to the sport at the beginning of 2021, I decided that I wanted to take a more traditional approach to archery.
I was originally planning to purchase a Samick Discovery 17” about 2 months ago. On the day that I was going to pull the trigger on the SD17”, I noticed a new listing on AlternativeSS for a 21” model. Being on the taller side, a longer version seemed like it would be perfect for my 30in draw. I emailed Glyn at AlternativeSS and patiently waited until it they received stock from Korea before I placed my order. About 3 weeks ago, the new bow was delivered to my home. I ended up getting a muddy oak (matte brown) riser, 2 pairs of the older Samick Discovery limbs (35lb foam/carbon and 40lb wood/carbon), an additional limb pocket weight, and some steel limb bolts. At this point, I’ve done about 10 shooting sessions with the SD21” and I wanted to share my impressions and experiences with you all. I apologize for the very long post, but I just wanted to be thorough and provide information that may be helpful to any prospective buyers since there isn’t much information about this new riser out there.
A few problems with the order: As soon as I received my new gear, I noticed that there were a few issues that I needed to contact AltSS about. I knew from comments here that there were some potential problems with the style of limb bolts that Samick decided to put on the old SD17” so I ordered some of the “steel replacement bolts” right off the bat. Unfortunately, the replacement bolts that I received were identical to what came on my new riser. When I contacted AltSS about this, I was told that Samick are no longer producing the steel limb bolts and instead have simply changed the stock bolt to a more standard 2 piece (bolt and locking grub screw) system like you’d see on most ILF risers. The new system still uses an aluminum bolt, but has a steel core and it weighs 8g less than the full SS bolt. The threads on the new bolt and the locking grub screw do seem pretty robust and I think they’ll work fine for me. I got refunded for the steel bolts and now I have a free spare set now in case anything does happen down the road.
![Automotive tire Gas Auto part Rim Electronic device]()
My other problem was that the mounting bolt that came with my extra limb pocket weight was for the SD17” and was too long to hold the weight on the new model. AltSS agreed to send me a new mounting bolt when they come in stock so right now I’ve only been using 1 weight in the lower pocket. It’s also worth mentioning that although they’re listed as being made of copper, the stock and the extra weight that I received are both made of brass. The result is that they only weigh 130g with the mounting bolt instead of the 143g on the product listing. It’s not a huge deal to me, but it is a little disappointing that I won’t get the total mass that I was hoping for when I bought the steel bolts and weight system.
First Impressions: This riser has a decent weight in the hand (with the pocket weight) for it’s size and it definitely holds a bit steadier than my wooden risers. The finish on the bow is very nice looking and the color is beautiful, but the texture of the finish is rough enough that it can scrape up the edges of your limbs and other things that may rub against it’s surface. Overall machining quality is pretty good and the only “flaws” would be the slightly ribbed texture left by the CNC machine when they dug out some of the recesses. That seems somewhat common as I’ve seen similar things on other mid-priced aluminum risers. The grip is mostly comfortable to hold in my hand, but I’ll get more into that later. Everything generally seemed like it was well made and finished to a high standard.
Bow setup: Everything was as easy to put together as my other ILF bows. With long limbs, it ends up being a 66” (AMO) bow. Limbs click in and out of the pockets without much effort and hold relatively firmly. The limb bolts came from the factory in what looks like the middle setting. After messing with brace height, the draw weight was within 1 lb of what I expected at my draw length so I believe that the limb poundages are measured with the bolt halfway out/in. Most of my other bows are being shot off the shelf, however I decided to throw my old AAE Free Flyte on my SD21”. It took a bit of tweaking, but mounting the FF with a nylon washer resulted in a good clearance for the flipper arm to lay flat against the window and it leaves plenty of room for the pseudo-plunger spring ("spine point") to move in. The riser is cut pretty far past center so using a real plunger on this one may be worth trying. It’s also worth noting that I don’t think a stick on rest would work on this one. You’d probably have the build up a thick base before sticking a rest on, if you choose to go that route. The shelf has slight radius so you might be able to shoot this off the shelf too, but you’d need a pretty thick strike plate for the same reason. In my testing, I’m ending up with a brace height range of about 8.5” -9”, and 9” seems to be where it resonates the least.
![Plant Reptile Lizard Road surface Tree]()
![Plant Wood Twig Tree Natural landscape]()
![Wood Bumper Gas Automotive exterior Grass]()
Limbs: The R1 and R3 limbs are very nicely finished and arrived to me without flaws. I’ve only really shot the 35 lb (R3) set, but the draw is smooth and response after the shot is subdued. My previous setup was using TT BlackMax2s (wood/glass) weighing only 2 lbs heavier on the draw. These R3s feel more like 5 lbs lighter and are just as smooth overall. So far, I’m very happy with these Discovery limbs considering they’re only $105 for each pair.
Riser Details: Like some other hunting style ILF risers, it’s been drilled and tapped for many accessories. It has mounting points for a rest, plunger, stabilizer (or weights), sight/quiver, window clicker and a clicker plate. Some of the pictures floating around out there on the internet don’t show a clicker/plate mount so there may be 2 versions of this riser or they may have just changed the design prior to release. The riser also comes in a nice padded pouch that protects it well when it’s packed for travel.
Based on the comments from the other SD21” post, the new design of this riser seem to be a little bit controversial. Personally, I kind of like the new design, although I may have liked it more if it was just a longer version of the 17” design. If you squint your eyes a bit, it looks like half of a stylized eagle has been sculpted into both sides of the riser. When you actually hold it in hand, it doesn’t really have that vibe and I don’t find it distracting or off-putting at all. After mounting a 16 oz Yost weight, an SRF and my rest, that bird-like appearance sort of fades into the background.
The sight window is huge in comparison to my other bows and I find that I have a very good view of the target when I’m lining up my shots. Archers that use a lower anchor point should have plenty of room above the arrow to see their gaps if they shoot without a cant. Even with my relatively long arrows and an anchor point below my mouth, I still have close to 2.5”-3” of space above the point to see my target and gaps. I opted to try an SRF “sight” that I purchased last year and I can easily see the full frame when lining up shots, which was not the case with some of my other bows. I've attached a couple of images to see this 21" riser next to a 23" WFL and 19" Galaxy Sage Elite.
![Wood Knife Tree Natural material Blade]()
![Wood Sleeve Gesture Twig Art]()
![Air gun Wood Trigger Sleeve Shotgun]()
![Brown Wood Art Artifact Hardwood]()
![Wood Artifact Art Font Hardwood]()
Grip: My biggest issue with the riser is simply the shape and material of the stock grip. It’s not horrible or anything, but it puts a lot of pressure on the top of the web between my thumb and forefinger. After a shooting session, I’m left with a red patch in that area. I was planning to purchase a wood grip from Rcore, but after sending them some pictures, they think it might actually need a different grip shape than the original SD17”. Hopefully they can get one of these new risers to take some measurements because I’m also not a huge fan of the stock grip material. It’s basically just plastic with a rubber coating. It feels smooth in hand, but there are already some spots on the stock grip where I’ve worn off the rubber coating and revealed the plastic underneath. Overall, I think I would simply prefer if it was wood and shaped more like the Rcore standard grip.
Shooting performance: It’s taken me a few weeks to get everything set up and tuned to how I like it, but I’m quite pleased with how this bow shoots. As of this week, I’m using the AAE FF, a 16 oz Yost Weight, SRF, limb savers, string silencers and velcro on the string grooves. The result is a bow that I can point and settle quickly on target, with a pleasantly thumpy shot. There’s a little post-shot vibration that dissipates completely within 1-2 seconds, but it’s not bad. It took some adjustment to get used to this new setup because it’s quite different than my previous 68” WF Lark setup. Things have finally started to click for me and my groups are now as good or better than I was shooting with that bow. Balance with the weights is pretty good and the bow stays close to vertical after release. I’m hoping that adding a second limb pocket weight makes the bow even more stable without making the bow tip back too much. We’ll see about that when I get my new mounting bolt from AltSS. In summary, I’m quite happy with this new bow setup, aside from the grip. It shoots as nicely as I had expected and hopefully it serves me well for a long time.
If anyone has any specific questions about this riser or would like me to take any measurements, let me know and I’ll do my best to get those answered for you. Thank you all for the great information in this forum and I hope this post helps someone else out there to decide if this riser is right for them.
-Tort
I was originally planning to purchase a Samick Discovery 17” about 2 months ago. On the day that I was going to pull the trigger on the SD17”, I noticed a new listing on AlternativeSS for a 21” model. Being on the taller side, a longer version seemed like it would be perfect for my 30in draw. I emailed Glyn at AlternativeSS and patiently waited until it they received stock from Korea before I placed my order. About 3 weeks ago, the new bow was delivered to my home. I ended up getting a muddy oak (matte brown) riser, 2 pairs of the older Samick Discovery limbs (35lb foam/carbon and 40lb wood/carbon), an additional limb pocket weight, and some steel limb bolts. At this point, I’ve done about 10 shooting sessions with the SD21” and I wanted to share my impressions and experiences with you all. I apologize for the very long post, but I just wanted to be thorough and provide information that may be helpful to any prospective buyers since there isn’t much information about this new riser out there.
A few problems with the order: As soon as I received my new gear, I noticed that there were a few issues that I needed to contact AltSS about. I knew from comments here that there were some potential problems with the style of limb bolts that Samick decided to put on the old SD17” so I ordered some of the “steel replacement bolts” right off the bat. Unfortunately, the replacement bolts that I received were identical to what came on my new riser. When I contacted AltSS about this, I was told that Samick are no longer producing the steel limb bolts and instead have simply changed the stock bolt to a more standard 2 piece (bolt and locking grub screw) system like you’d see on most ILF risers. The new system still uses an aluminum bolt, but has a steel core and it weighs 8g less than the full SS bolt. The threads on the new bolt and the locking grub screw do seem pretty robust and I think they’ll work fine for me. I got refunded for the steel bolts and now I have a free spare set now in case anything does happen down the road.
My other problem was that the mounting bolt that came with my extra limb pocket weight was for the SD17” and was too long to hold the weight on the new model. AltSS agreed to send me a new mounting bolt when they come in stock so right now I’ve only been using 1 weight in the lower pocket. It’s also worth mentioning that although they’re listed as being made of copper, the stock and the extra weight that I received are both made of brass. The result is that they only weigh 130g with the mounting bolt instead of the 143g on the product listing. It’s not a huge deal to me, but it is a little disappointing that I won’t get the total mass that I was hoping for when I bought the steel bolts and weight system.
First Impressions: This riser has a decent weight in the hand (with the pocket weight) for it’s size and it definitely holds a bit steadier than my wooden risers. The finish on the bow is very nice looking and the color is beautiful, but the texture of the finish is rough enough that it can scrape up the edges of your limbs and other things that may rub against it’s surface. Overall machining quality is pretty good and the only “flaws” would be the slightly ribbed texture left by the CNC machine when they dug out some of the recesses. That seems somewhat common as I’ve seen similar things on other mid-priced aluminum risers. The grip is mostly comfortable to hold in my hand, but I’ll get more into that later. Everything generally seemed like it was well made and finished to a high standard.
Bow setup: Everything was as easy to put together as my other ILF bows. With long limbs, it ends up being a 66” (AMO) bow. Limbs click in and out of the pockets without much effort and hold relatively firmly. The limb bolts came from the factory in what looks like the middle setting. After messing with brace height, the draw weight was within 1 lb of what I expected at my draw length so I believe that the limb poundages are measured with the bolt halfway out/in. Most of my other bows are being shot off the shelf, however I decided to throw my old AAE Free Flyte on my SD21”. It took a bit of tweaking, but mounting the FF with a nylon washer resulted in a good clearance for the flipper arm to lay flat against the window and it leaves plenty of room for the pseudo-plunger spring ("spine point") to move in. The riser is cut pretty far past center so using a real plunger on this one may be worth trying. It’s also worth noting that I don’t think a stick on rest would work on this one. You’d probably have the build up a thick base before sticking a rest on, if you choose to go that route. The shelf has slight radius so you might be able to shoot this off the shelf too, but you’d need a pretty thick strike plate for the same reason. In my testing, I’m ending up with a brace height range of about 8.5” -9”, and 9” seems to be where it resonates the least.
Limbs: The R1 and R3 limbs are very nicely finished and arrived to me without flaws. I’ve only really shot the 35 lb (R3) set, but the draw is smooth and response after the shot is subdued. My previous setup was using TT BlackMax2s (wood/glass) weighing only 2 lbs heavier on the draw. These R3s feel more like 5 lbs lighter and are just as smooth overall. So far, I’m very happy with these Discovery limbs considering they’re only $105 for each pair.
Riser Details: Like some other hunting style ILF risers, it’s been drilled and tapped for many accessories. It has mounting points for a rest, plunger, stabilizer (or weights), sight/quiver, window clicker and a clicker plate. Some of the pictures floating around out there on the internet don’t show a clicker/plate mount so there may be 2 versions of this riser or they may have just changed the design prior to release. The riser also comes in a nice padded pouch that protects it well when it’s packed for travel.
Based on the comments from the other SD21” post, the new design of this riser seem to be a little bit controversial. Personally, I kind of like the new design, although I may have liked it more if it was just a longer version of the 17” design. If you squint your eyes a bit, it looks like half of a stylized eagle has been sculpted into both sides of the riser. When you actually hold it in hand, it doesn’t really have that vibe and I don’t find it distracting or off-putting at all. After mounting a 16 oz Yost weight, an SRF and my rest, that bird-like appearance sort of fades into the background.
The sight window is huge in comparison to my other bows and I find that I have a very good view of the target when I’m lining up my shots. Archers that use a lower anchor point should have plenty of room above the arrow to see their gaps if they shoot without a cant. Even with my relatively long arrows and an anchor point below my mouth, I still have close to 2.5”-3” of space above the point to see my target and gaps. I opted to try an SRF “sight” that I purchased last year and I can easily see the full frame when lining up shots, which was not the case with some of my other bows. I've attached a couple of images to see this 21" riser next to a 23" WFL and 19" Galaxy Sage Elite.
Grip: My biggest issue with the riser is simply the shape and material of the stock grip. It’s not horrible or anything, but it puts a lot of pressure on the top of the web between my thumb and forefinger. After a shooting session, I’m left with a red patch in that area. I was planning to purchase a wood grip from Rcore, but after sending them some pictures, they think it might actually need a different grip shape than the original SD17”. Hopefully they can get one of these new risers to take some measurements because I’m also not a huge fan of the stock grip material. It’s basically just plastic with a rubber coating. It feels smooth in hand, but there are already some spots on the stock grip where I’ve worn off the rubber coating and revealed the plastic underneath. Overall, I think I would simply prefer if it was wood and shaped more like the Rcore standard grip.
Shooting performance: It’s taken me a few weeks to get everything set up and tuned to how I like it, but I’m quite pleased with how this bow shoots. As of this week, I’m using the AAE FF, a 16 oz Yost Weight, SRF, limb savers, string silencers and velcro on the string grooves. The result is a bow that I can point and settle quickly on target, with a pleasantly thumpy shot. There’s a little post-shot vibration that dissipates completely within 1-2 seconds, but it’s not bad. It took some adjustment to get used to this new setup because it’s quite different than my previous 68” WF Lark setup. Things have finally started to click for me and my groups are now as good or better than I was shooting with that bow. Balance with the weights is pretty good and the bow stays close to vertical after release. I’m hoping that adding a second limb pocket weight makes the bow even more stable without making the bow tip back too much. We’ll see about that when I get my new mounting bolt from AltSS. In summary, I’m quite happy with this new bow setup, aside from the grip. It shoots as nicely as I had expected and hopefully it serves me well for a long time.
If anyone has any specific questions about this riser or would like me to take any measurements, let me know and I’ll do my best to get those answered for you. Thank you all for the great information in this forum and I hope this post helps someone else out there to decide if this riser is right for them.
-Tort
I have owned the R3's in 62" on a Carbon Z15, similar to the White feather Lark in your pic's . And now shoot R3's 60" from a WF19 riser .
