Brand · Archery & Bowhunting
Hamskea makes arrow rests and peep sights for compound bows, plus a level for setting up your sight. The Hamskea Epsilon is the rest name people search for most, but it's one of several rest lines, and inside each line the real choice is the bracket that bolts it to your bow. Pick the mount first, then the hand, then the rest. Peeps are the other half of the lineup, sold by aperture size and string angle. (Uncle Walt's rest is a whisker brush he calls "the broom." He has not asked for a bracket.)
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On this site, Hamskea covers three things: arrow rests for compound bows, peep sights, and a couple of accessories (a sight level and an overdraw rest). Hamskea also appears in the bow sight type in our data, but no Hamskea bow sight is in the grid right now.
The rests are the bigger half. They come in named lines (Epsilon, Everest, R7, Hybrid, Trinity, Primer), and most lines are sold in several versions that differ by bracket and by hand. The peeps come as complete kits, as housings, and as single peeps, named Raptor, FS Raptor, Insight and DC Insight.
The grid above filters by type and changes as listings come and go. So I'll write about the lines and what separates them, not about how many of each are listed this week.
Most Hamskea specs in the grid come from Amazon listings, and the grid marks them. Many give only a name and a hand. Where a listing doesn't say, the grid shows a dash.
Here's what actually changes from one rest name to the next. A Hamskea rest listing usually stacks three things:
The mount decides whether it bolts to your bow, the hand whether it sits on your side of the arrow. Get either wrong and the rest goes back in the box.
Integrate is the one mount worth explaining. Grandview Outdoors describes it as a dovetail mount on the face of the riser, developed with Mathews, so the rest doesn't use the Berger hole on the side of the riser at all. A Berger hole is the threaded hole most rests have bolted to for decades. So an Integrate rest needs an Integrate riser, and a Berger-hole rest needs a Berger hole. Check your bow maker's spec sheet before you shop.
The Epsilon versions in the grid are named by mount: a COR riser bracket, a V2 COR riser bracket, and a V2 built for 2020 and newer Mathews bows. The V2 listings name micro-adjustment. Every Epsilon listing here is right-hand. If you shoot left-handed, the Epsilon isn't in the grid for you, and the Everest is.
The "2020 and newer" in the Mathews version matters: it's matched to a model-year range of risers, so check your bow's year.
The Everest is the line with the widest spread of mounts in the grid: a Universal bracket in both hands, a Mathews bracket, and Integrate versions in both hands. Several of the Everest listings name micro-adjustment.
For a standard Berger hole and a choice of hands, this line gives you the most options. The Integrate versions cover both hands too.
The R7 listings are R7 Integrate, in right-hand and left-hand versions. That's all the listings say. The name tells you the mount, so the R7 is a rest for Integrate risers only.
The Hybrid Hunter Pro has the most complete listing of any Hamskea rest in the grid. Per its Amazon listing, it's a right-hand drop-away with full containment, micro-adjustment and sound dampening. Full containment means the arrow can't fall off the rest when you tilt the bow, which matters when you shoot from a seat at an awkward angle.
The Hybrid Target Pro is the target-shooting sibling. Its listing names micro-adjustment and a right hand, nothing else.
The Trinity Target Micro comes in both hands. The right-hand listing calls it a drop-away, and the left-hand listing names micro-adjustment. Again, the word "Target" is in the name, and I'd read it the way the maker wrote it.
The Primer is the simplest Hamskea rest in the grid. Its listing names a right hand and sound dampening. It doesn't name a rest type, so check the product photos and description on the listing before you assume it's a drop-away.
The Versa Overdraw sits in the accessories filter because its listing gives no rest specs. An overdraw moves the rest back toward the shooter. If you don't know why you'd want that, you don't need one.
Archery 360 sorts rests into three groups, and Hamskea's lineup is mostly in the third:
Drop-aways come in two kinds, per the same article. Limb-driven rests connect to the bow's lower limb. Cable-driven rests connect to the cable. Either way, a cord ties the rest to the bow's motion, and that cord has to be set so the rest is up at full draw and gone at the shot.
The International Field Archery Association's rest guide uses five groups instead (shoot-through, containment, drop-away, pressure and specialty), and says containment rests are a favorite of many hunters because the arrow can't fall off. Quick translation: the cable-driven drop-away gets pulled down by the cable, the limb-driven one gets yanked by the limb. Same goal, different string to pull.
The trade-off, per Archery 360: drop-aways are very accurate once they're set up, and more complex to tune. The drop-away arrow rest page covers the type across brands, and the compound bow arrow rest page covers every type side by side.
This is the deciding spec, and it isn't a performance spec at all. Look at your bow. Does it have a Berger hole, an Integrate dovetail, or a mount its maker names? The bracket in the Hamskea name has to match it. A Universal bracket is the general Berger-hole option. A Mathews bracket or a model-year version is for those bows. Integrate is for Integrate risers.
RH and LH are separate products with separate listings. A right-handed archer holds the bow in the left hand and needs a right-hand rest. (Quick check: the hand that draws the string is the hand on the label.) Not every line comes in both hands in the grid. The Everest and R7 do. The Epsilon doesn't.
The words "Hunter" and "Target" in the names are the maker telling you the intended use. For hunting from a stand or a saddle, full containment is worth having, because you'll shoot at angles the range never asks for. Archery 360 points full-capture rests at odd-angle shots for the same reason.
Micro-adjustment lets you move the rest in small, repeatable steps when you tune. The listings that name it are in the grid. It doesn't fix a badly timed rest, though.
My one opinion on this page: if it's your first drop-away, let a shop set the timing. The reason is Archery 360's own note that most archers have a shop set up a drop-away, because that takes a bow press and someone trained to serve and time it. A cord served into the wrong spot doesn't care how nice the rest is. (As a physical therapist, I also have opinions about people bending over a bow press on the garage floor for an hour. Those are a different page.)
A peep is the small ring served into the bowstring that you look through at full draw. Hamskea sells them three ways in the grid: complete peep systems, housings, and single peeps.
The Raptor names in the grid come with fractions: 1/16, 3/32, 5/32, 7/32 and 1/4. Those are aperture sizes, the inside diameter of the hole. Bowhunting.com's peep guide says peeps run from 1/32 to 1/4 inch, and that 3/16 and 1/4 are the most common sizes for bowhunting.
Quick math, because fractions with different bottoms are annoying: put them all in 64ths. 1/16 is 4/64. 3/32 is 6/64. 5/32 is 10/64. 7/32 is 14/64. 1/4 is 16/64. Now they line up, smallest to biggest, and you can see the 1/4 hole is four times as wide as the 1/16.
The FS Raptor items are a Deluxe peep system and a housing named 35/40. The listings don't say what's in the Deluxe box, so read the contents list.
The Insight names split into Standard and Short Draw, and the DC Insight items add Deluxe kits, one of them named with clarifiers, plus a housing named 37.5/45.
"Short draw" and "standard" point to the angle problem. A peep sits at an angle in the string, and that angle changes with the bow and the archer. Specialty Archery's FAQ, for one peep maker, sells peeps in two string angles and picks between them by brace height, axle-to-axle length (ATA) and draw length. The numbers in the DC Insight and FS Raptor housing names look like those angles, but the listings don't spell it out. Check the angle on the package against your bow and draw length.
A clarifier is a small lens in the peep. Specialty Archery matches clarifier strength to the magnification of the sight lens, and warns that a stronger clarifier blurs the aiming dot more. If your bow sight has no magnifying lens, you may not need one at all.
Bowhunting.com says there's no exact formula for matching peep size to sight housing, because anchor point and draw length change the distance between the two. The working rule is to look through the peep at full draw and see the sight housing framed inside it. Smaller holes are more precise. Bigger holes let in more light at dawn and dusk. For a hunter in a dark hemlock stand at first light, that light counts.
Short draw or standard, and the angle number on the housing. Read your bow's brace height and ATA off its spec sheet. If you're between two angles, Specialty Archery's FAQ says you can use either.
Installing a peep means splitting the string, so the bow has to be in a press. Bowhunter's install guide serves the peep in with a small bundle of serving above and below it, then checks alignment after several draws and fine-tunes after about 30 shots. Then it traces the peep's outline with a marker so you can see if it moves. If you don't own a press, this is another shop job. The peep sight page covers peeps across brands.
The last Hamskea item in the grid is a sight level, and its name tells you which axis it's for. Archery 360's leveling article explains the three: the first axis keeps your sight bar plumb as you move it up and down, the second levels the bubble, and the third levels the sight for uphill and downhill shots. The third axis is the one that swings, "like a door on hinges."
The article's test for the third axis is to shoot steeply downhill and adjust by where the arrows group. That's a stand hunter's problem in a nutshell. Every shot from a tree is downhill. The bow sight page has the sights themselves.
Both brands make compound bow arrow rests, and both sell rests for the Integrate mount. On this site, Hamskea's listings are rests, peeps and a sight level. QAD's own site lists arrow rests, broadheads, nocks, metal loops and accessories, says it has made archery products since 1992, and says its products are "Quality Crafted in the USA."
QAD's site groups its hunting rests by mount: Integrate-mounted UltraRest models and Berger-mounted ones. That's the same first question as on the Hamskea side. Whichever name is on the box, the bracket has to fit your riser and the hand has to fit you. I couldn't verify when Hamskea was founded or where its rests are made, so I've left that out. The QAD brand page has its lineup.
Mount, hand, then the rest. Write all three on a sticky note before you shop, and stick it somewhere Uncle Walt won't use it to level his broom.
The Epsilon is one of Hamskea's compound bow arrow rests. In the grid it's sold in versions named by mount: a COR riser bracket, a V2 COR riser bracket, and a V2 for 2020 and newer Mathews bows. The V2 listings name micro-adjustment. All the Epsilon listings here are right-hand. Match the bracket to your riser before anything else.
Its Amazon listing describes it as a drop-away rest with full containment, micro-adjustment and sound dampening, in a right-hand version. A drop-away falls out of the arrow's path at the shot. Archery 360 notes that most archers have a shop set one up, because the cord has to be attached and timed to the bow.
The R7 listings in the grid are named R7 Integrate, in right-hand and left-hand versions. Integrate is a mount that attaches the rest to the face of the riser instead of the Berger hole on its side, per Grandview Outdoors. So the R7 here suits bows with that mount. The listings give no other specs.
What the data shows is checkable: the Hamskea rests in the grid list hand orientation, and several name drop-away operation, full containment, micro-adjustment or sound dampening. Whether one suits you depends on your bow's mount, your hand and whether you hunt or shoot targets. The grid shows those values per rest.
The product grid on this page links to the Hamskea listings on Amazon US, filtered by type: arrow rests, peep sights and accessories. Check the listing for the exact hand, bracket and aperture size before you order. Left-hand and right-hand rests are separate products, and a peep housing may need a separate aperture.
