"Kick Ass" Boomerang Review

by Manny Olivares
    (V12Aero)

As promised, a review of three new boomerangs recently purchased: "Kick Ass" and "Ayr" by Adam Carroll and "Stephane Marguerite" by LMI&FOX.  I will be reviewing the "Kick Ass" and my partner phnxhawk will be reviewing the other two booms in other posts.

First things first, "Kick Ass" looks really great and has an awesome paint scheme. The first thing I noticed when I received my new "Kick Ass" was its size.  I expected it to be the size of my other boomerangs, such as my "Alpine" boomerang which can be seen on the "Rangs" link underneath the picture below. This boomerang is smaller in size and initially I didn't think that its range would be very big.  However, phnxhawk owns a "Bambino", a miniature boomerang, http://theboomerangman.com/cart/index.php?route=product/product&manufacturer_id=44&product_id=211, and that has a very good range.

From Rangs

I warmed up my arm a bit for this boom with my "Yanaki" and "Tassie Devil" booms because I thought this might require a stronger throw.  However, my first throw of "Kick Ass" had me pleasantly surprised.  It was a very easy throw, beautiful flight, and easy to catch!

As discussed in a previous blog, we set up some flags in order to gauge the range of the booms.  We set up flags at 24, 32, 40, 48 yards along the beach where we figured the apex of the flight of the boomerang would be.  We acknowledge that there is of course some error in estimating the range of the boomerangs.  It is very difficult to precisely determine how far out the boomerang goes, even when one of us is out there under it.  Additionally, the apex of the flight might not occur right over our flags so its possible that we could be under or overestimating its maximum range.

Now I'd like to point out that I removed a lead weight which was wrapped with duct tape around the leading edge of my boomerang.  While I have no problems with adding weight to my boomerangs I simply wanted to see the unweighted range of my rang.  In the future I'm sure I'll add the weight and tape back on to see how it affects the range.

With this in mind, we estimate the range of "Kick Ass" to be between 32 and 38 yards.  The high density phenolic material from which it is made of is certainly very stiff and not too flexible as phnxhawk can attest.  As such, it is important to be gentle in tuning these stiff phenolic rangs.

Even from the get-go I had no problems getting this rang to return to me properly.  Usually I have to find the proper throwing technique for each individual rang as they all have their own eccentricities.  "Kick Ass" likes to be thrown with minimal layover (about 15 degrees), slightly above shoulder level on release, about 45 degrees to the right of the wind, and with light-moderate force.  If you are familiar with the technique for throwing boomerangs you'll see that this isn't much different from how the majority of other boomerangs are thrown.  There are some cases where the rang likes to be thrown with lots of layover and a high release but this isn't the case here.

The "Kick Ass" has a very cool, low, round flight and quickly has become one of my favorite boomerangs.  Here is a video to showcase the "Kick Ass" in action.  I understand that sometimes it is difficult to see the boomerang in the air in the video, but as mentioned in previous blogs, filming the boomerangs in flight is difficult.



Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more!