Holless Wilbur Allen: Changing The Face Of Archery

“Holless Wilbur Allen changed the face of archery forever when he decided that he could make a better bow by sawing off part of the limbs of a recurve bow and attaching pulleys to the new ends (Archery History 2016)”. This would change archery forever. “As Holless was experimenting with different ways of using the pulleys, he discovered that by using one with an offset axle (eccentrics), he created one of the biggest advantages of compound bows, let-off (Archery History 2016). The let-off a compound bow produces allows the hunter to hold the bow back longer than usual. If a bow originally had a 60lb draw weight, meaning the amount of force required to pull the string on the bow back, then after the let-off point you would only have to hold

These cams allowed for smoother draw of the bow and greater transfer of energy to the arrow. With the compound bow evolving so rapidly the more accurate hunters where getting. The new bows allowed hunters to take big game from distances never before achieved, and the more the bows advanced the greater the distance would become. But, like the wooden arrow being replaced by the aluminum arrow. The aluminum arrow was starting to become inefficient. With the new power of the compound bows aluminum arrows would bend and become straight after shooting them. Therefore, companies would strive to develop an arrow that could handle the force of the bow but still be light. “In 1983, the Easton company developed the first carbon arrow(Archery - History And Description Of Archery 2016)”. Easton developed the arrow that every archer was looking for. “The carbon arrow, which is considerably lighter than the aluminum and wooden arrow, offered excellent straightness and the ability to flex and return to its original state without losing its original shape. These benefits of the carbon arrow are what makes it the most popular arrow on the market today (Archery - History And Description Of Archery 2016)”. The arrow was just one of the many parts of archery that were

“Ultimately, Jennings was taken over by the Bear Archery Company (Assad 2010)”. Bear Archery is arguably one of the top companies in the industry. But, even with bear taking over the company that lead the charge on compound bows. The bow would not change drastically until a few years later. “The McPherson Brand paved the way for the High Let-off Revolution. Bows were taken from an average of 50% let-off to a remarkable 75%, making it easier for archers to draw and hold more weight (Garth 2016)”. This let off percentage would reasonably be the standard that every company strived for. Even though McPherson was the company with this technology, “The company was later sold in 1989. This decision eventually led to the most innovative cam design in archery history and what is known today as the largest bow manufacturer in the world — Mathews Inc. (Garth 2016)”. Mathews is debatably one of the highest quality bows on the modern market. Mathews took the compound bow design that every company was using and revolutionized it in the early 90’s. Up until then all compound bows used dual cam technology. Meaning both the top and bottom pulley parts of the bow were cams. Therefore, both had to be adjusted and synchronized perfectly to make the bow shoot straight. However, Matt McPherson proved that this was not the only way to achieve the power and accuracy bow hunters were