IBO honesty
Bow brands ranked by how close their advertised IBO speed is to what an independent chronograph actually says. Compiled from 55 at-IBO measurements across 12 active US compound brands.
IBO speed is the published-spec performance number on every compound bow's catalog page. Manufacturers test the bow at 70 lb peak, 30" draw length, with a 350 gr arrow and a bare string, and print the chronograph result. The standard exists so two brands can be compared directly. In practice, independent chronographs disagree with the printed numbers — by anywhere from 0 to 25 fps, depending on the brand.
This report compiles every independent at-IBO measurement we could verify and grades each brand by the average gap (Δ). Anything within 7 fps of advertised is treated as honest — that's the tax a real string with a peep and D-loop pays vs the manufacturer's bare-string IBO test rig. Δ between −7 and −10 fps is borderline; worse than −10 is aggressive.
Headline ranking
About the data
Each row is a brand's mean Δ across every at-IBO chronograph measurement we could verify (from print reviews, the Cooney annual flagship shootout videos, and owner forum chronograph posts where the hardware and conditions were known). The interactive page at /field-reports/ibo-honesty includes the per-brand dossier with the year-over-year evolution chart, every individual measurement, and the source link for each. The methodology — what counts as at-IBO, how we extrapolate sub-IBO measurements, the chronograph hardware caveats — is documented in the ranking page's footer and in the IBO honesty guide.
Some entries were verified frame-by-frame from chronograph videos; others come from snippet-level research that hasn't been re-checked. Treat the numbers as informed guidance, not absolute truth — the per-bow source link in each dossier is the authoritative answer for any single bow.