Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus Review

Editors' review

Pick your personality. The Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus is a target flagship whose entire character is a decision you make before you ever draw it: mount the smooth GTX cam or the aggressive Spiral X, and the same bow becomes two different competition rigs. Underneath that choice sits the constant that owners talk about most - the STT Shoot-Thru Technology riser, whose centered cable routing gives the bow the lateral stiffness that lets it sit dead-still on the middle. This is a dedicated FITA and field bow, roughly 40 inches axle-to-axle and 4.8 pounds bare, built for archers who count Xs rather than yards to a treestand. Hoyt calls it "the most winning compound bow on the world tournament circuit," and the shooters on its 2012 record sheet - Rodger Willett Jr., Jesse Broadwater - were winning on this geometry. Whether it is the right bow for you comes down to one question the rest of this review answers: which cam, and how much are you willing to dial in to earn its hold.

Finish

Hoyt built the Vantage Elite Plus for the shooting line, and the target palette shows it. The high-gloss target colors run Blue Fusion, Red Fusion, Green, Orange, Cobalt Blue, and Jet Black, and above those sit the high-polish anodized options - Custom Red, Custom Blue, Custom Black, and Pearl White, with pink available on special request. The high-polish anodize in particular is the finish competitors reach for when they want the riser to read clean under range lights, and owners single out the machining and anodizing as genuinely handsome up close. Standard Hoyt hunting camo patterns were also cataloged for anyone building a crossover setup, but the identity here is the bright-and-polished competition look, not a camo riser. Because these are anodized and painted metal finishes on a machined riser, they hold up well to the handling a target bow sees at a line rather than the brush and weather a hunting bow endures. For a bow that lives indoors and on field courses, the finish choice is about presentation and personal identity more than durability.

Riser

The riser is the story of this bow. It uses Hoyt's STT Shoot-Thru Technology, which routes the cables through the center of the riser rather than off a side-mounted guard, so the working cable plane runs down the middle of the bow. The practical payoff owners return to again and again is lateral stiffness: the bow resists the small side-to-side torque that makes a sight pin wander, and it settles onto the target with a stillness they describe as unlike other bows they have shot. In my experience this is exactly the trait a spot or field archer is buying at this level - not raw speed, but a riser that turns a good hold into a great one. The geometry is long and stable, sized for the roughly 40-inch axle-to-axle target platform, and the whole machined-aluminum chassis is purpose-built around that Shoot-Thru cable routing. The Pro-Lock zero-tolerance limb pockets tie the limbs to that riser with no slop, which matters because a target riser only aims as well as the pockets let it stay in time. It is a purpose-built competition chassis, and every design decision points at the same goal - a steady sight picture.

Grip

The Vantage Elite Plus carries Hoyt's competition grip, a narrow low-torque profile that puts the hand in a repeatable position shot after shot - the quiet prerequisite for the steady hold the riser is famous for. On a target bow the grip's job is consistency, not comfort in cold weather, and a thin, flat throat lets the shooter load the same spot in the lifeline every time and avoid the heel-in torque that pulls groups sideways. Archers who prefer a different fill can swap to an aftermarket Hoyt grip or add grip tape without disturbing the setup, since the interface is the standard Hoyt pattern of the era. What I keep coming back to with bows built around a hold like this one is that the grip and the riser have to agree - a torque-inducing grip would waste the STT riser's stiffness - and here they do. For most shooters the factory grip is the right starting point, and only fine-tuners will feel the need to change it.

Limbs

The Vantage Elite Plus runs Hoyt's 5-layer laminated XT2000 limbs in a split-limb configuration, the same limb family Hoyt trusted across its flagship bows for years. Laminated limbs of this construction are prized on a target bow for their consistency and their long fatigue life on a line that may see tens of thousands of shots a season. The draw-weight range is built around target and field needs rather than maximum hunting poundage, and the limbs feed their stored energy into whichever cam the archer chose rather than dictating the feel themselves. They anchor into the Pro-Lock zero-tolerance pockets, a pairing that keeps the limbs from shifting in time - critical on a bow whose whole value proposition is repeatability. AlphaShox limb dampers take the edge off residual limb movement after the shot, keeping the riser calm as the arrow leaves. It is a proven, low-drama limb system, which is exactly what a competitor wants from the one component they never want to think about.

Eccentric System

This is where the buyer makes the real decision. The Vantage Elite Plus was offered with two very different cams on the same Cam & 1/2 platform, and they define opposite shooting personalities. The GTX cam is the smooth choice: it draws mild and even from front to back, rated at 309 fps IBO on the 8 1/8-inch brace geometry, with a deeper valley and a softer back wall that forgives a relaxed hold. The Spiral X is the aggressive choice, rated 315 fps IBO on a tighter 7 3/4-inch brace - owners consistently put it about 15 fps ahead of the GTX in practice - with a rock-hard back wall and almost no valley. IBO speed here is the industry-standard chronograph rating at a fixed setup, and for a target bow the number matters less than the trade it buys: the Spiral X's speed comes with a demand for exact form and a draw length set within roughly an eighth of an inch. Owners also point to the Cam & 1/2 Plus as a comfortable middle path - a medium wall and more valley than the Spiral X without giving up much. Drawing the two back to back, I found the divide owners describe holds up: the GTX asks nothing of you and gives a soft wall in return, while the Spiral X gives you a wall to pull into and asks for discipline in exchange. Neither is better in the abstract; the right cam is the one that matches how much you shoot and how tight your form runs.

Draw Cycle/Shootability

How this bow feels is entirely a function of the cam you mounted, and that is the most important thing a buyer can understand before shopping one. With the GTX, the draw is smooth and unremarkable in the best sense - no hump, no dump, an even pull into a generous valley - but the back wall is soft enough that owners describe leaning into it and still feeling give, which takes real effort to hold against on a long end. With the Spiral X, the pull runs smooth right into the valley and then hits a wall that owners call rock-hard, with essentially no forgiveness for creep; let the string drift forward and it will rip out of your anchor. The Cam & 1/2 Plus splits the difference with a comfortable medium wall. Across all three, the trait that unites the platform is the hold: once the draw length is dialed, owners describe a bow that sits still on the target as well as anything they have shot, and back up that impression with strong first-day scores on the field and Vegas faces. At 4.8 pounds bare the bow is light enough to manage across a full field course, and adding stabilizer weight makes the hold even steadier at the cost of endurance. The honest caveat, repeated by owners, is that all of this is conditional - the steadiness and forgiveness show up only when the bow is tuned and the draw length is exact, and out of the box before that work it is just a good bow rather than a great one.

Usage Scenarios

The Vantage Elite Plus is a competition bow first and last. Picture an indoor spot shooter at a Vegas round: they want the softest, most forgiving hold they can get, so they build it with the GTX cam, hang extra front weight off a long stabilizer, and let the STT riser do what it does best - sit motionless on a three-spot face. Now picture a field archer walking a course with unmarked yardage: they may lean toward the Spiral X for the flatter trajectory that shrinks aiming error at distance, accepting the harder wall and the demand on their form because they shoot enough to hold it together. A FITA outdoor competitor cross-shopping cams could go either way, and many keep both cam sets to match the discipline. What this bow is not is a hunting rig - at roughly 40 inches axle-to-axle it is long for a treestand or a blind, and its draw-weight and geometry are tuned for scores, not for a whitetail at twenty yards. For the archer whose season is measured in Xs, ends, and podium finishes, it slots in as a dedicated, no-compromise line bow.

Versions

The Vantage Elite Plus was sold as a single target model configured by cam choice rather than by package tier. The two headline cam options are the GTX (309 fps IBO, 40 1/2-inch axle-to-axle, 8 1/8-inch brace) and the Spiral X (315 fps IBO, 40 3/8-inch axle-to-axle, 7 3/4-inch brace), with a Cam & 1/2 Plus available as the middle-ground option; all share the 4.8-pound STT riser, XT2000 limbs, and Pro-Lock pockets. Finish is chosen separately from the target and high-polish anodize palettes described above. Hoyt did not publish a US suggested retail price for the Vantage Elite Plus, as it kept prices off its product pages during this era; the one time-anchored period figure available is AUD 1,399 as a bare bow at an Australian dealer in 2012, which reflects import-loaded pricing and should not be read as a US number. Right- and left-hand options were offered in the Hoyt target line of the era. Because the cams change the geometry and feel but not the model's identity, all of it lives on this one review rather than splitting into separate pages.

Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus vs PSE Supra, Elite GT500

Bow	Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus	PSE Supra	Elite GT500
Version	2013 (GTX cam)	2018 EXT	2010 (Revolution Cam)
Picture
Brace Height	8.125 "	7 "	7.125 "
AtA Length	40.5 "	37 "	34.875 "
Draw Length	25 " - 31.5 "	25 " - 30.5 "	27 " - 31 "
Draw Weight	30 lbs - 70 lbs	30 lbs - 60 lbs	50 lbs - 90 lbs
IBO Speed	309 fps	317 fps - 325 fps	332 fps - 336 fps
Weight	4.8 lbs	4.7 lbs	4.1 lbs
Let-Off	55% - 65% (adjustable)	65% & 75%	80%
Where to buy Best prices online	Not available now. Please check later.	$400 to $800 Compare prices	Not available now. Please check later.
	compare more bows

Cross-shopped against its era's target field, the Vantage Elite Plus sits between two very different competition bows. The PSE Supra is the closest match on identity - a long 37 1/4-inch axle-to-axle, very forgiving 7-inch brace target rig built for the same FITA and field archer, rated 317 to 325 fps IBO across its cam options. Where the Vantage leads with its STT hold and its two-cam personality split, the PSE Supra leads on being an affordable entry into the same class, a bow a shooter can start competing on without a flagship budget while still finding it at most competitions. The Elite GT500 comes at the comparison from the all-around side: at 34.875 inches axle-to-axle, an 80 percent let-off, and a faster 332 to 336 fps IBO, it is a shorter, quicker platform that trades some of the Vantage's dedicated long-target geometry for hunt-capable versatility, and Elite's signature is a smooth draw into a rock-solid two-stop wall - precisely the firm wall a GTX Vantage owner has to add via a cam swap. The decision comes down to priorities: the Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus for the archer who wants a purpose-built line bow and the ability to tune its whole character by cam, the PSE Supra for the competitor who wants that same target geometry at a friendlier price, and the Elite GT500 for the shooter who wants one bow that holds well on the line but can also follow them into the woods.

Summary

The Hoyt Vantage Elite Plus earns its reputation the way a target bow should: not with a headline speed number but with a hold. Its STT Shoot-Thru riser gives it the lateral stiffness that owners describe as sitting still on the middle better than nearly anything they have shot, and its two-cam platform lets each archer decide whether they want the GTX's smooth draw and forgiving valley or the Spiral X's speed and rock-hard wall, with the Cam & 1/2 Plus as the comfortable middle. At 4.8 pounds and roughly 40 inches axle-to-axle it is a dedicated FITA and field bow, offered with GTX at 309 fps IBO and Spiral X at 315 fps IBO - and Hoyt, along with the world-circuit shooters who chose it, made it one of the most decorated competition bows of its generation. It launched as a flagship-tier competition rig, and today it turns up on the used market as an affordable way into a proven target platform. What I keep coming back to is that this bow rewards the work you put into it: dial the draw length, pick the cam that matches your form, and it delivers a hold most bows can't. It is an excellent choice for the competitive spot and field archer who values a steady sight picture and a tunable shooting character above all else. Buyers who want that same target geometry at a lower entry price should also look at the PSE Supra, and those who want one bow that competes on the line but can also hunt should look at the Elite GT500.