WASP APEX & TRIGRIP TEST.
I finally rebuilt my target system with the the lazy ball-return. Taken apart to allow the fence fixit man to reinforce a broken rotted fence post with a new concrete spur, it has gone back together with way less grief than I had expected!
The WASP Apex has been out for some time but I still have details to relate that you may not know.
The WASP TriGrip is about to be released, and I was sent one to have a try of. The enthusiasm for this one has been huge amongst the first-testers and now, I know why!
But let’s start at the beginning, with me showing off for a change! Here’s stuff about the WASP APEX & TRIGRIP.
Journalists worth their salt are supposed to be able to spot talent, early. And so help me, I DID! Issue one of of Slingshot World magazine had an end quote, after everything that read, “I effing LOVE catapults!” John Jeffries. Now this was a long time ago and we have published seven issues altogether. And John has proven not just to be a demon shot, with skills and talent that are truly hard to beat but has also been the most awesome craftsman of slingshots the UK has ever had.
While Gamekeeper John (who has left the scene and now only makes sea fishing videos) was a legend in his own lunchtime, with ProShot Catapults casting his frames in metal and engraving his signature upon them, the subsequent development of the GKJ frames has mostly been down to the massive CAD talents of the young Hogans. (The ‘and sons’ part of their company name. ) And they have been major talents, with some truly cool new iterations, including clip designs of the Pocket Poacher series.
But John Jeffries is something else. As well as being a terrifying competitor to go up against, for even the best shots, John has been making new designs, so damn cool that they get paid the ultimate compliment and get shamelesly copied. Usually by the Indonesians, who care not a fig for copyright anyway. There have been a few imitators, but a real John Jeffries Custom Catapult remains an object of desire for any keen slinger.
Once, a chum of one of the main men at Wasp, called him up. He was a bloke who made mould tool files for programming spark erosion mould-tool machines. Military ones, on a machine of immense cost and sophistication. I reckon it was a sneaky ‘foreigner’ job, done under the radar at a facility that would only get used for this as a favour for an old friend, but that’s just my unprovable opinion! What I do know is that this bloke called to ask where the wooden prototype shape he was rendering came from? Only it was MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATELY SYMMETRICAL. This is ‘not possible just by eye’. But John had done it and the bloke simply marvelled at the answer and carried on…
Now John has been a fabulous asset to WASP, who have sponsored him for some time, happily taking their products with, to the top end game fairs that he attends with famous bushcraft knife makers, Emberleaf. But more than that, he has had input on designs. He will get sent very early prototypes to test and his designs also get made into commercial products via the mould tools made by WASP, which is their metier.
The WASP APEX & TriGrip both have Jeffries’ DNA in them. The APEX is a pure John, the TriGrip, may be the single most worked upon and fettled slingshot design in history.
To start with the APEX, I asked John about it and he revealed that when he started out, he really wanted to do well in competitions and went along to see what all the top shots did and had in common. What he found was dubbed ‘Brave Hold’ as the best shots all seemed to use frames where the hand gripping the frame was awfully close to the end of the tines. You had to have some nerve as a hand-hit wouldn’t take much wrongness-of-angle to result in smacking yourself in the web of your hand!
And it became a proper, tooled, clipped cast model. Uniquely in slingshots, this is NOT for novice shooters. The WASP UniPhoxx, XOPhoxx and Enzo are perfect for that. But the Apex sits low in the hand. I have just tried it and found it a real beast to be able to take a heavy band, too, as there is very little, in fact negligible ‘leverage’ on your hand, due to how low the frame naturally wants to sit in your hand. I loved it! It does take skill to aim well, and I can see why John found the design and shoots so terrifyingly accurately with it.
The clips are asymmetrical, too. A feature that got instantly copied by another brand, who spotted the ease with which elastic could be fitted and how they do NOT twist as you tighten them, by nature. This makes a rock solid bond with the rubber and means the whole concept is bloody brilliant. Or as our favourite American would say, major in awesomeness!
But the TriGrip has been in develpment for a very long time. The WASP guys are utter perfectionists and I can tell you that the design has been subtley tweaked many times. I know that John has had no fewer than four different (just a bit, each time…) plastic prototypes to shoot and feed back to WASP about.
So this is the final iteration, and while I admit I wasn’t sure about what or how, I am now in agreement with the folks who have had early access and what they say. The name is about the three ways you can grasp the thing, and for me, that’s a ‘brace’ grip. The simple fact is, that if you hold the frame in the ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL place in your hand each and every time, then the natural adjustments to shoot straight and accurately have none of the issues with a slightly different hold each time.
I recall a design from one maker long since gone, called a Reaper that had this quality and the expression I used, was that it was awfully easy to shoot well! There is something almost mystical about what is termed the TriGrip’s ergonomics. Or that quality of design that make it fit the human form. In this case your hand, be it different sized hands for different people.
There is a subtlety to it, in 3D that means it goes to the same place in your paw each time.
I had spent some time rebuilding my lazy-git ball-return system in the garden and found that I could slap the smallest spinner in the middle, with much more ease than I was used to. It can only be due to the effortless reproducibility of hold that the TriGrip offers.
I am beyond impressed and reckon that you NEED one of these!
WASP APEX & TRIGRIP, killer frames you want!
Below.. the Lazy-Boy target system I built, from am idea stolen from GZK!
