This month the BowCountry.com test crew had the opportunity to test the Parker Ultra-Lite 31. As far as we are concerned this is the greatest short axle bow we have tested. One of our staff was shooting with his back to the archer next to him at the range. All he heard was arrow swoosh. No string twang. No limb popping or pinging, just arrow swoosh as it cleared the bow. Another of our staff had picked up the Ulta-Lite at his local archery shop and soon everyone was whining about getting our hands on a Parker Ultra-Lite 31. We contacted the extremely affable and cordial Johnny Grace, of Parker Bows. We told him our story and that our friend Dr. Dave Samuel was raving about the Ultra-Lite 31 and would it be possible to get our hands on one. Johnny sent us two!

When we saw the Parker boxes show up with our favorite UPS guy, we all looked like kids on Christmas morning. Upon opening the package and removing the Ultra 31's from their boxes we all noticed the cam and idler wheels lovingly wrapped in protective foam. Almost no one cares enough to do this. We were amazed at the overall length of the bow and it's very thin profile or aspect. We all thought that the SQ2 was a short bow, this Parker made it look like a full size bow.

Appearance
Honest. We all drooled for a short period of time checking out the overall appearance and finish of the Ultra 31. The entire bow is a dipped in Trebark Superflauge camo and get this, the cam and idler wheel are also camo! We know some of you are going to be disappointed that the so called big name camo guys don't get to take a few more bucks out of your wallet, but the Superflauge works just fine, thank you! All holes, sight, stabilizer and rests, (which there are two of, by the way) were clean of machining debris and other foreign material. The limbs are consistent in length and thickness. You'll find like we did, that the limb width is also slightly narrower than most.

The cams on the Parker fit tight in the limb grooves with almost zero play. Limb bolts are equipped with set-screw stops to prevent bolt movement during shooting as does the cable guide rod.

The grip is a beautiful, one piece walnut. We noticed that Parker added checkering to the heel of the grip for traction. This not only gives the grip a better visual appeal, it also provides a little traction on these hot hunts down in central Georgia or places where long underwear are unknown.

Riser
The Riser on the Ultra 31 is machined from 6061 aluminum and fully dipped in Trebark's Superflauge. As mentioned earlier, there are two rest holes to accommodate a much larger variety of rests and overdraws. One thing we did notice about the riser is the location of the stabilizer hole, which is very close to the bottom limb pocket. This forces the user to use either smaller diameter stabilizers or a stabilizer extension. At each end of the riser you'll find aluminum limb pockets screwed directly to the riser. Unlike most other bows, where the limbs pockets pivot with the limb, the Parker's limbs pivot independently from the pockets on a small plastic rocker that sits in the back of the pocket. The riser also has two round holes at each end which are used for the mounting of a Parker two piece quiver.

Limbs
The Ultra 31 limbs are hand crafted from a single piece of Power Tuff composite material by Gordon Ind. Draw weights are available in 10# increments 50-60 and 60-70. Both limbs are precision ground for thickness to maintain tight tolerances and thus keeping both limbs working equally. Our Ultra 31 limbs showed a difference of only .002" when measuring the limb thickness, which, by the way, is outstanding (some of the tightest we've seen for off the shelf product). Both limbs are dipped and finished in Trebark SuperFlauge.

Super One Cam
The name says it all. Parker has done an admirable and awesome job of squeezing even more power out of an already powerful Cam. Parker's Super One Cam is machined 6061 aluminum just like the riser for maximum strength and durability. All edges are smoothed for longer string/cable life. The Super One Cam comes draw length specific, so you need to know your draw length before ordering. Draw length can be changed in one inch increments by ordering other cam modules from Parker. The Super One Cam has a very positive back wall or draw stop which virtually eliminates the possibility of overdrawing or "creeping". This may sound immaterial, but when it comes to accuracy it is almost a necessity. Super One Cam comes in 80% let-off (relaxation) but are available in 65% upon request.

Bow performance
The Parker Ultra-Lite 31 may be short but it certainly isn't short on performance. The first thing we went to do was set our draw weight at 60# for the AMO test session. When we put the bow on the scale we found that it was already set at 60#s from the factory. It's a beautiful thing when someone at the factory cares enough to actually listen when you are ordering. We installed a nocking point and a launcher style rest, we loaded the Ultra-Lite 31 into the BowCountry.com Hooter Shooter provided by Spot Hogg. By using the Hooter Shooter we are able to remove all the human error that may occur during a testing session and it also shows us how well the bow will group arrows.

AMO requires that the bow be set at 30" draw length and 60#s shooting a 540gr arrow. Our Ultra 31 draw lengths actual measurement came out to 30 1/4". For the IBO test session, we had to set the bow up at a 30" draw length, 70#s of draw weight shooting a 350gr arrow. Since we didn't have another set of limbs to install on our test bow we had to use a 300gr arrow.

Using our Hooter Shooter, we tested the Ultra 31 at AMO standards and consistently shot 231fps, this being slightly off of Parker's AMO test results of 245fps. The Ultra-Lite 31 did repeatedly slam arrows into one another at 25yds during the grouping test.

During our IBO test session the Parker repeatedly fired reusable bullets 298fps, this was also slightly different from Parker's IBO results of 316fps. Keep in mind this is not a true IBO test. The groups did tend to open up slightly shooting down at five grains per pound. This could most likely be fixed with a quality stabilizer and a little fine tuning work. Being curious about how much of a difference there is between a 70# bow and a 60# bow, we called our good friend Aaron Cooley. Aaron is the owner of Baxter's Specialized Archery in Covington, GA. As it turned out, Aaron had a 70# Ultra-Lite 31 in stock that we could run through the chronograph. After a short test session I had the results. A 70# Ultra 31 shoots a 350gr arrow 303fps compared to a 60# shooting a 300gr arrow 298fps.

Summary
The Parker Ultra-Lite 31 is a very compact, light, fast, well built, hunting bow that is more than capable of tournament shooting. The specs are not quite up to what Parker claims but please don't be fooled, this is a seriously powerful bow! There is no doubt in my mind that this bow could be tuned to shoot 316fps, but not in production form.

This bow is light enough to stalk all day long and short enough to make confident shoots from the tallest tree stands. The quality of the bow is absolutely outstanding and the engineering that went into the Ultra-Lite 31 is as easy to see as it is to hold in your hand. We would have given the Ultra-Lite 31 a 5 star rating if it weren't for the low stabilizer bushing and inconsistency in the specs. We'll let Parker off the hook this time and give the Ultra 31 a 4 1/2 star rating out of five. We would like to thank Johnny Grace and Parker Bows for sending us two (2) Ultra-Lite 31s. In the din of the large manufacturers shouting out specs and all manner of techno-speak we'd like to encourage you archers to check out the new "silent player" in the market who is chosing to let their product do the talking. All the best to Parker! You guys rock!

You can visit Parker Bows on the web at www.ParkerBows.com to view product information and to locate a dealer nearest you.