[FerrumVeritas]

Generally a first generation of a Gillo product will have “Lux” in the name. This means that it has titanium nitrate coated bushings, wood grips, and other premium fittings. It used to also mean a glossy finish, but now basically all of their products are sandblasted and various degrees of matte.

When the product has been out for a couple years, Gillo often releases an “M” version which is often significantly cheaper. The GT M and GQ M are good examples of this. From a functional standpoint, there are basically no differences. The only noticeable change is that these have a plastic, often 3D printed grip rather than the wood one.

Gillo bows aren’t really designed for barebow specifically, but Gillo was one of the early companies that included barebow specific accessories and attachment points with their recurve risers. This, combined with some happy accidents like the asymmetry on the 27” risers (or, honestly, just the existence of their 27” risers when most other companies didn’t offer them), made them very popular with barebow shooters when barebow began its modern resurgence in popularity around 2014-2016 (which coincided with Gillo’s founding, so they were the hot new thing too).

It’s worth noting that barebow has maintained popularity in Italy due to the popularity of field archery, so they aren’t seen as a niche market by Italian companies (Gillo, Spigarelli, SmartRiser) like it was/is for Hoyt or W&W. What Gillo did differently was to design a riser that didn’t need a separate barebow version to appeal to those archers.

I suspect that when Gillo saw that their barebow sales outstripped their recurve sales, they became a frequent and strong supporter of the barebow class at major events.

The GQ was designed more with recurve archers in mind compared to the G1. Between the current generation GT and GF, I think the GF has some more barebow specific nods like the tunnels for attaching weights, but it also feels great with a stabilizer setup.

Michele obviously does very well with it. Maximiliano did well at Lancaster and Vegas with one last year.

The only drawback I can think of is also a potential positive: most of their risers are comparatively heavy. Not overly so, and the GX series is on the lighter side.

 

[FerrumVeritas]

For what it's worth: Uukha's warranty denials overblow an issue. There are some archers that crank in the limb bolts with Uukhas to try and get a specific feel. I'm sure some people took that too far.

Let's take a set of 68" limbs on a 27" riser. I think it's fair to say that most manufacturers expect that combination to be used by someone with a draw length between 26 and 30 inches. Border's chart here says 27-30.5 and Border is notoriously conservative with their draw length recommendations. Adjusting your limb bolts give you +/-5% on a conventional riser. So if we assume an increase of 5% per inch that's 15-20% of draw weight variation from draw length and an additional 10% from adjusting limb bolts.

Pre-loading the limb bolts is functionally no different than drawing the bow a little further or a little less as far as the amot of strain put on the limbs is concerned. So yeah, if you have a 30" draw length you probably can't/shouldn't crank the pockets all of the way in with a set of limbs on the GT, as this will give you a limb weight of 30%, which is more than the limb is designed for/tested at. Similarly, if you have a 27" draw length, the limbs on their minimum setting will likely feel underwhelming as you haven't gotten into the working area of the draw force curve. But a long draw archer can definitely take advantage of the lower settings, and a short draw archer can get some extra poundage out of a set of limbs on the high end. If you have an average draw length, you can comfortably take advantage of most of the 30% adjustment without fear (having your limb bolts set to the maximum +10% with a 28" draw isn't any different from someone with a 30" draw shooting the limbs).

If you're particularly concerned, shoot a bow 2" longer than you normally would. Gillo makes the widest variety of riser lengths of any manufacturer that I'm aware of, and the geometry of most of their 27" risers is fairly forgiving towards average or shorter draw archers using them (I do suspect that the 27" GF won't be, with the additional deflex and actual length of 27.75, but I plan on running medium limbs on it if/when I get one rather than the longs I run on my GT 27).

 

[FerrumVeritas]

All good points.

FWIW, the particular archer I referred to has about a 28" draw and didn't crank up the weight. There really was something wrong with the limb. If he was shooting a G1 like me, Uukha might have helped out, but since he told them he was using a GT, they refused to warranty them.

Yeah, I seem to remember there being a host of QC issues with Uukhas around the same time they issued their statement about GT risers. I think it was the post-pandemic rush to restock coupled with the extraordinarily hot summer globally that caused a number of limb failures across many major brands (W&W, Hoyt, Uukha). I'd be more worried about using SK99 or Vectran blended strings than the riser adjustment.

 

[FerrumVeritas]

So, I have yet to find any indepth set up/reviews of the GF; is the set up similar to the GT [there is a pretty lengthy series on the GT on YouTube]?

What is the +/- turns for the limb bolts? It sounded like in the GT coverage there wasn't a definite "stop" in or out for the effective range, is it the same with the GF?

I wrote one over on Reddit and cross posted it here.

There is no definite stop for the GF, but it is easier to return it to factory settings. You can set the clicker plate on top of the riser an adjust the pocket until the cutout is flush with the clicker plate. This is the factory setting. The GF can be adjusted to +5 and -6 full turns. I haven't tested it quite as thoroughly as the GT, but I believe that this effectively gives you something like +15% and -25%.

 

[FerrumVeritas]

I will have to get my hands on it for this to make sense, I'm just not picturing it at the moment.

Kaminski described on the GT what sounds like an "inspection hole," one of those "you're too far out when you no longer see threads" kind of things... Am I understanding that correctly and if so did that feature carry over to the
GF?

Yes. It did.

 

[FerrumVeritas]

Putting my Gf together; Apparently I'm not smart enough to lock down the tiller bolts? Grub screws or collet [sp] locks from the belly side of the riser, because I'm not finding a hex wrench to fit.

I didn't bother checking how many turns out the limb bolts are yet, I just threw on some limbs and a string [not even waiting for my slightly longer string to show up] drew it back and thought "feels close enough..." Ended up with a 9" brace [with room to remove some twists] on a 25" riser with med limbs, so probably a little tall but I haven't shot it yet.

There are no locks on the belly side. The grub screws go on the lateral sides of the riser (one in the top, one in the bottom, which wide.

My 70” GF likes a 235 to 240 mm brace height, if that helps as a reference.