Review: Trophy Ridge Drop Zone Fall Away Rest
by Brian Wensel-Dewclaw Staff Shooter

The Trophy Ridge Drop Zone Hunter Arrow Rest was evaluated in both severe rain and clear and sunny weather conditions during the 2009 fall archery season on hunts in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It was installed on a Hoyt AlphaMax 32 shooting Easton ACC Pro Hunter arrows tipped with 100 grain Easton field points, Aftershock Archery Maniac Fixed Blade broadheads, and Rage 3-Blade SlipCam mechanical broadheads.

I am a firm believer that a fall-away rest can significantly increase your accuracy while ensuring as much energy as possible is transferred from the bowstring to the arrow through reduced friction against the arrow. I have at least a half dozen compound bows hanging in my workshop at any given time, and on both competition and hunting setups I shoot fall-away rests, specifically, the Trophy Taker brand. But, a rest alone can’t solve all your problems. The key to the success of any arrow’s flight is ensuring you find true center shot during set up.

Now I have to admit, many years ago when I decided to make the transition from a standard two-prong rest to the fall-away design, the Trophy Ridge Drop Zone was at the top of my list. A friend had one mounted on his bow and at the time had nothing but problems. His fletchings were consistently hitting the arrow rest during flight, meaning the fall-away feature wasn’t “falling away” fast enough. This initial bit of intelligence is what prompted me to decide against the Drop Zone and go with the much simpler, lighter Trophy Taker line of rests. For this review, I was skeptical and a bit worried that the problem would again occur. How was the Drop Zone going to perform with a bow as fast as the Hoyt AlphaMax 32 shooting speeds in excess of 300 feet per second? Only time and an unbiased evaluation would tell.

Design and Function:
Out of the package, the Drop Zone arrow rest is a solid piece of equipment. It is a sturdy rest that mounts easily to the bow. The Drop Zone claims to be “the ONLY fall-away rest that drops vertically” and is “consistently quick, quiet, and unobstructed.” Once the equipment was setup and properly fine tuned, it performed as advertised and resulted in many consistently tight groups in my Field Logic Block Target.

As with most fall-away rests, the arrow rest operates by connecting a D-Loop type rope from the rest to the bow cable. When the bow is drawn and the cable moves downward, the rope pulls the rest up into position and readies the arrow for release. Once the arrow is released and the cable returns to its original position, the arrow rest immediately drops, leaving the arrow to fly unobstructed to the target.

Unfortunately, I did have one problem during setup that needs to be discussed. After initial setup, I drew the bow to launch my first arrow at the target and the string that raises the rest detached from inside the housing. After further investigation, I became intimately familiar with the internal workings of the Drop Zone arrow rest. The rope enters a small hole in the housing and rides over the top of a wheel and then is attached to the internal workings at the bottom of the housing. There are two long screws that act as guides for the small bar that the rope is attached. There are two springs that ride along these screws, providing the right amount of tension to allow the rest to quickly fall-away upon release. The screw that holds the rope into place inside the housing was simply not tight enough. After reattaching the rope and reassembling the sight housing, the rest worked flawlessly.

I give the details of the internal workings of the rest for two reasons. First, during disassembly and reassembly of the housing it occurred to me that the initial problem years ago, with the arrow rest not dropping away fast enough, must have been fixed by inserting stiffer springs, forcing the rest to fall-away much faster. Second, I’m not sure where to place the blame on the malfunction during setup; with the assembly process or with the design. I received this rest right before a two week hunting trip. Although this malfunction made me a little nervous, I used the rest and it thankfully it worked flawlessly.

Trophy Ridge Arrow Rest Review Continued on page 2....