I recently made a deal on a Sarrels Black Hills r/d longbow and it should arrive next week. I know that Mr Sarrels retired due to health issues. I have used the search function on here and everything I've found has been positive. When I worked in Tulsa, a lot of the local guys were shooting Sarrels, but none of them were lefties, so I didn't get to shoot one. He was set up at the McCallister shoot but was sold out of lefties by the time I got to his booth. Any feedback from the "Gang"?

No different than many specialized tools of life are stickbows of wood, glass, carbon, and ceramic materials - some or all of these components.  They can easily be compared to acoustic guitars where some of the most expensive can be  quite good and some of the lesser expensive can be nothing short of superb, and vice-versa.  Yes, bows and acoustic guitars can be, and usually are crap shoots of sorts, particularly when their users are humanly unique in their own ways and expectations as well.  It's all good, specially if you can bond with your tool of choice. 

It's now more than a week since I sent the cashiers check (Monday March 24) and I'm wondering what our USPS could be doing with it. I probably could have sealed it in a bottle and thrown it in the river and got it there by now.

I got mine last week. Glad to see Gene will be reprinting his old books since my friend lost my copy of "Come November" that i would reread every September before the hunting season.

Hey Kelly
I understand your opinion ...though I do think such should be kept to emails-pms. 
With that said I will give my 2 cents (in a positive way)on the subject of the Montana Longbow and Bear archery.

It sounds like you concluded the pros outweigh the cons or you wouldn't have purchased 5 of them imho.  Also , these have been in production since late 90's..1998ish

Over these yrs it has had some small tweaks in design I believe , but you would have to ask Bear archery for verification on that. I have had the thicker core and thinner core ...Brown glass, black glass. In the yrs 2011-2012-2013-2016.

Yes , all have a slightly different string  length needed per brace . Mostly because the handle  configurations all vary somewhat as Bear archery still does a LOT of hands on grinding . Is this an excuse for what you speak ? NO .  ...but , like every other manufacture , Bear archery likely has a large turnover employee rate . Also likely a few of your bows have "years" between manufacturing dates=likley a different person shaping/finishing out the bows. Coupled with Bear likey using thin core/thick core to more economically utilize core woods . Again, you would have to email Bear for clarification on that as well.
       
      The Montana is a Great bow design (and still a good price though it is ever rising) regardless. Do the different years have differing bow grips ? O yea..just grab a 1998ish and compare it to a 2011---2025 ;)Has the design been tweaked over these yrs ?  yes.
Even a lot of custom manufactured bow grips vary from bow to bow. Even using pnc machines  when the finish work is via human hands...
Could Bear archery do better ? Yes ...we all can