I'm 90 kg and 52. I'm a pretty ordinary paddler but love downwind. I had a 27 ace but it was too fast and advanced for me. I went to a v2 bullet and loved it. I could stay upright when everyone else was falling off and could focus on getting better at picking runs and linking.

when the new 2020 bullet came out I gave it a demo. Things I noticed relative to the v2 included the wider tail, increased rocker, increased nose volume and the slight v/double concave.

on the water the new bullet was more forgiving than my v2, nosedived less, and recovered better. It was very easy to catch runners with and the more rounded rails at front helped it slide around more than the v2 rather than grabbing.

my demo culminated with great downwind where I averaged 10.1 kmhr which is very much top end for me.

the finish of the new bullet is top end as always despite the factory change. Weight was right on 11.3kg.

in the end I have upgraded to the new bullet with my v2 finding a new home instantly! Here are some comparison photos.

Looks like 2 very different boards .
Iooking at your profile I can see you have a very fine taste in quality boards.

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Bowerboy said..

my demo culminated with great downwind

Made greater by the awesome people you paddled with, no doubt...

It seems like the new Bullet took has some Bayonet DNA in it. a welcome change for my taste at least.

It's really great that they are now full PVC sandwich construction. I think all of us very soon will be thinking about buying fewer things, but made to last, because of climate change. Plus, downwinding is pretty hard on boards, and knocks and scrapes are common. It is testament to the skill of the Kinetic factory that they can make a stronger, more durable, board weigh less than Cobra used to make them. I wonder what the logic was for putting more volume in the nose of the Bullet v3. I didn't feel that the V2 lacked nose volume. Presumably it is to balance out the wider tail. I wonder how it now fares in crosswinds and chop? The RS manages to do well despite lots of volume in the rails. But in general these days I prefer less volume in my downwind boards, not more. Volume above the waterline doesn't tend to do much except cause trouble.

Is it more similar to the Bayonet, as burchas suggests? It seems to me that opinions on the Bayonet are a bit divided.

I think it is basically 27.5 inch bayonet. Similar tail, nose and rocker.
i demoed a 26 inch bayonet and remember thinking if only they made a wider version.
did another ocean downwind today in some very rough water. The bullets manners are great, and I loved it.

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Area10 said..
I wonder what the logic was for putting more volume in the nose of the Bullet v3. I didn't feel that the V2 lacked nose volume...

The combination of the new nose shape and rails at the nose with the added volume on the bayonet really makes for a much better performing nose. I've never managed to pearl it and not from lack of trying I first saw this new nose on the Bullet V3 (this new one would be v4 if anything) which never made it to production and comes as a hollow construction out of Maui but it didn't have as much volume as the bayonet or this new Bullet but still preformed much better than V2. The rest of the board handled like a bullet.

If the rocker is indeed the bayonet rocker then this is good news! It's the fastest dw rocker I've ever paddled. But with the same nose tail and rocker as Bayonet we might as well call it what it is as Bowerboy suggested

I have done about five downwinds on the bullet now. It is fast! I have increased my speed across all the downwinds compared to before which is so much fun. The board loves to rocket across the face of swells in a super comfortable way. It is allowing me to concentrate on maintaining speed and linking.

It has the same sweet spot as the old bullet, about 40cm behind the handle, where it really releases and accelerates. It only came with a 7 inch fin which I thought would make it unstable. But I have been in some serious rough stuff and the board is so stable.

It will pearl , but not as much as the v2. With so much stability I am getting into the groove of catching the swell, stepping back to the sweet spot, releasing and accelerating, stepping forward and powering onto the next swell. Then repeat!

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Congrats Bowerboy. Stoked! Can't wait to try this one.
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Bowerboy said..
I have done about five downwinds on the bullet now. It is fast! I have increased my speed across all the downwinds compared to before which is so much fun. The board loves to rocket across the face of swells in a super comfortable way. It is allowing me to concentrate on maintaining speed and linking.

It has the same sweet spot as the old bullet, about 40cm behind the handle, where it really releases and accelerates. It only came with a 7 inch fin which I thought would make it unstable. But I have been in some serious rough stuff and the board is so stable.

It will pearl , but not as much as the v2. With so much stability I am getting into the groove of catching the swell, stepping back to the sweet spot, releasing and accelerating, stepping forward and powering onto the next swell. Then repeat!

Yeah I think the SIC 7" weedless, if that is what it came with, works better in the SIC boards than the 8.3" version.

Would it be possible for us to see more pictures of the 2020 Bullet V3? If possible I want to see the rail and bottom shapes, the underside of the nose, and the volume in the tail. There doesn't seem
to be much on the interweb yet. If you Google the board you get this page and a profoundly unhelpful dealer video and that's about it, apart from the catalog.

And btw how well does it surf, go upwind, and how fast is it in flat water relative to the V2 bullet or the RS? Cheers.

And what colour is the deck pad? On the front of the catalog it looks almost white, whereas inside it looks to be a rather grim light grey, like an old toilet mat. IMO brand managers who approve the use of white deck pads should be taken outside and a bucket of manure and offal poured over them, while they are standing on the board. Then they can demonstrate how easy it is to keep the deck looking nice. I like the way my RS looks, except for the toilet mat deck pad.

if you want to see more of the 2020 Bullet v4 here is a short vid:
Skip to 1:43 to see on the water

Yeah I saw that, thanks. It just looks like a mildly revised Bullet 14v2 in that clip though.

And why would "less undertuck on the rails" lead to more stability as is claimed there? Hard rails are generally more stable.

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Area10 said..
And why would "less undertuck on the rails" lead to more stability as is claimed there? Hard rails are generally more stable.

You are right about the hard rails. That said, Less undertuck doesn't mean soft rails, just refers to how far the rail line is under board. Usually the more undertuck the softer it is if we're going by general design conventions so by the same conventions less undertuck will mean harder rails.

My reasoning was that in the case of the Bullet 14v2, the rails were relatively hard up front. So the phrase "less undertuck" was likely to mean softer rails. "Less undertuck" could refer to many things as you say, but in this case it is unlikely to mean anything except softer rails up front. And softer rails tend to feel less stable. The Hypr Hawaii 14ft downwind gun for instance is exceptionally stable for its width and surface area partly because the rails are so hard for most of the length of the board. This also enables it to plane very easily, so when I hear about a DW board's rails being softened, I always wonder whether early planing might have been compromised for the sake of flat water pace.

anyway, I can't quite marry the pictures at the start of this thread, which make the V2 and 2020 Bullet 14 look quite different, with the board in the video, which looks substantially like a mildly-tweaked V2 with a different colour scheme. I'm not sure that looks different enough to persuade me to sell my Bullet V1 (which I kept when I sold my V2) and get this one.

But the Bullet V2 was a great success at the Gorge I believe, so I guess it depends what your local conditions are. And it is really great that these are now full PVC sandwich and made at the Kinetic factory. That's almost a reason to buy one in itself, as that crack in the nose of the Bullet V2 in the pictures above show... I'm getting royally pissed off with fragile boards. Which is why my newest one was double-carbon, full PVC sandwich, wood stringer and s-glass I-beam strengthening. You could knock down a wall with it. But it should outlast me, which is the green(er) way to go, really, than these boards that are junk after 3 years of normal use and cost a fortune at the ding repairers.

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Area10 said..
And btw how well does it surf, go upwind, and how fast is it in flat water relative to the V2 bullet or the RS? Cheers.

Upwind it is not too bad. The nose has a slight v that seems to push it over small swells ok and lessens the slap. It is not as good as my 26 RS which can pierce the waves better. The bullet is very well behaved in side chop, nice and stable and keeps it's momentum. It also pushes off side chop nicely, releasing well.

I have not done too much on the flat, nor a direct comparison with my RS, however I was surprised with the glide the bullet has. I did a pure flat water paddle on the weekend and it's flatwater performance was very comfortable. Obviously it will not be fast on flatwater but the wider tail and the double concave, v setup seems to get it gliding.
I have not specifically surfed the bullet on breaking waves, however I have dropped down some big ocean bombs and based on that I would suggest surfing will not be a problem.

Thankyou very much Bowerboy.

it looks to me like the production Bullet 14v3 is less different from the V2 than the V2 was from the V1. That could be good news for V2 fans, especially since it will be better-made and the colour scheme more sun-friendly.
It's a bit less good for those of us who were fans of the 14v1 but I guess you can't have everything.

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Area10 said..
Thankyou very much Bowerboy.

it looks to me like the production Bullet 14v3 is less different from the V2 than the V2 was from the V1. That could be good news for V2 fans, especially since it will be better-made and the colour scheme more sun-friendly.
It's a bit less good for those of us who were fans of the 14v1 but I guess you can't have everything.

Bowerboy statement about different rocker, nose, tail and rails suggest otherwise. It maybe a bigger departure, especially if i'm to consider his statement that it is more like a 27.5 Bayonet.

Istn't it simply that the board in the video is the 12.6 and might not have the same changes than the 14?
It would make total sense that they would showcase the 12.6 and the inflatable instead of the 14 for a downwind board.....

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LucBenac said..
Istn't it simply that the board in the video is the 12.6 and might not have the same changes than the 14?
It would make total sense that they would showcase the 12.6 and the inflatable instead of the 14 for a downwind board.....

Maybe - this is why I asked Bowerboy for some more pictures of specific parts of the board - because the conclusion that was being reached here did not accord with what I saw in that video, which to my knowledge is so far the only video available.

But then again, the 14ft Bayonet doesn't look that wildly different from a Bullet 14v2 anyway, from a distance.
The UL version looks very different, however.

we need more pics/video, basically :) and ideally to see both 12-6 and 14ft versions, by the sounds of it.

Rails are hard to photograph however they are rounded all the way back to about 1m from the tail

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Bowerboy said..
Rails are hard to photograph however they are rounded all the way back to about 1m from the tail

What about the rail line under the standing area, does it have some edge or is it completely soft?

Also, a rocker line shot on a flat surface with no fin with help a lot to figure if it is a continuous rocker like the Bayonet or a staged rocker like the Bullet.

Thx for taking the time to post

Thanks very much Bowerboy. Those photos do look different from the Bullet 14v2.

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burchas said..

Bowerboy said..
Rails are hard to photograph however they are rounded all the way back to about 1m from the tail

What about the rail line under the standing area, does it have some edge or is it completely soft?

Also, a rocker line shot on a flat surface with no fin with help a lot to figure if it is a continuous rocker like the Bayonet or a staged rocker like the Bullet.

Thx for taking the time to post

The rails are very rounded under the standing area. They only gain an edge starting about 1m from the tail.

Thank you for the pictures. That is becoming interesting and could kick the Bullet back into a third life. We do not have a local distributor so not much into SIC myself as a result but still.....