The “whisker biscuit” is one of the most popular hunting style arrow rests. It makes an excellent rest for hunting conditions, but due to the amount of contact it makes with the arrow it is not the rest of choice for most competition shooters.

By: Chuck Campbell

There are literally 100’s of different styles and kinds of arrow rests on the market. Drop-away, fixed, you name it, and they sell it!  In choosing an arrow rest you should consider what you will be doing, hunting, 3D shooting, indoor or outdoor spot shooting.  The style of rest you chose is really just a matter of personal preference.

All of the arrow rests have their purposes, and some are better than others for their specific purposes. For example the new “whisker biscuit” style of rests work great for hunting situations, but will not offer the best performance for “world class” level target shooting.  Whisker biscuits support more of the arrow making the arrow falling off the rest in heavy cover, or while you have buck fever less likely.  On the flip side, a high quality, low contact rest used by competition shooters might not be the best choice for the average hunter.

Regardless of which rest you choose it will need to be set up properly. With an improperly installed rest none of them will perform the best.

When installing the rest make sure it is square to the bow’s arrow shelf. When you have the rest installed knock an arrow and place it on the rest.

Now you want to establish the correct knocking height on the string. The proper point will have the arrow and the relaxed string forming 90° angles on both the top and the bottom of the arrow.

The last thing you need to do is set up the proper left to right position of the rest in relation to the bow’s riser. Measure from the front of the riser to the center of the arrow.  Make sure this is the same distance as the position of the back of the arrow.  Move the rest either left or right to get the same measurement.  This will give you a good starting position.  Depending on how well your arrows are grouping will determine whether or not this position needs to be tweaked a bit.  It takes some trial and error while shooting to get the left-right position exactly right for your shooting technique, or particular arrow used.