Thursday, August 27, 2009

Compound Bows - Making Archery a Better Sport or Hunting Activity!

By Bart Icles

Archery compound bows undoubtedly has made a big impact on the sport of archery and hunting ever since it was introduced way back in 1966. It also changed peoples perception of bows and the sport it represents, and has made them much more aware and discerning when it came to purchasing bow hunting equipments in general. Prior to its introduction, competitive shooters, hunters and sportsmen who were highly involved with the sport didn't know at the time how severely restricted their choices were where bow hunting equipments were concerned. They only had fewer choices, such as to either get the longbow and the recurve bows, or for others, the crossbow. With the invention of the compound bow, the archery world changed dramatically...forever.

The compound bow was invented by a simple Missouri-based hunter named, Holles Wilbur Allen. It was granted a US patent in 1969 and from thereon, the rest is history. The compound bow uses a leverage system that works in the form of cables and pulleys that easily bends the bow's highly rigid limb when drawn. The limbs stiffness comes from a combination of composite materials designed to unleash the power stored within it whenever it was bent and the string is released.

The compound bow is strung in continuous loop that is either wound on one or a pair of pulleys or cams (these are known as single or dual cam bows). A cam allows the archer to easily pull the wounded strings and enables him to hold the drawn position easily and for a longer duration, for more accurate and powerful shots over longer distances. This feature is not possible with a recurve bow or longbow.

Compound bows are highly flexible pieces of archery equipment that can be adjusted to fit any archer of any type: from strength, height, weight, and class. Again, this feature is not possible with the traditional bows, which both have set levels of strength class when these were made, and that cannot be altered. Compound bows hurdles this restriction by being adjustable to fit the archers preferred optimal settings.

Compound bows are not only considerably shorter than the traditional bows, but are also more durable, tougher, and lighter due to its materials. These cannot be easily get affected by extreme temperature changes or fluctuations, unlike the wood being used on a recurve bow or longbow, which would be dramatically affected by the presence of moisture or lack of it when exposed to the outdoors.

The only (minor) disadvantage of the compound bow is that the strings are rather difficult to string or restring. One would need some special tools to safely and effectively do this, or a specialist to do this.

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