Handmade Traditional Bows.
Bows and Strings
We make two products- bows and strings to put on those bows. If you buy a bow, it comes with a tuned string for the draw weight and style of the build. If you’re looking for something custom, send us an email or fill out the Custom Bow form in the product section.
This is a wood and fiberglass hybrid reflex-deflex bow, the result of a year and a half of trial and error. The design goal was a bow that shoots both fast and smooth, striking a happy medium that both hobbyist 3D shooters and hunters will appreciate. This Karst model is blue died birdseye maple and walnut limbs, with tapered maple laminations. The draw weight is a spritely thirty-five pounds @ 28 inches.
The standard length of the Karst Bow is 60 inches AMO, which provides enough working limb to achieve that balance of speed and smoothness. What is working limb? In order to store and transfer energy, traditional bows need to flex — that flexing section is what we call the working limb. When that energy is distributed evenly and transferred efficiently, the result is a bow that shoots both smooth and fast with the right string and a well-tuned arrow.
The Karst Bow is cut just past center, which allows for clean arrow flight and easier tuning. All KB models come with our house-made Pretty Good Strings, matched to the draw weight of the bow.
Despite the name, this string performs well beyond “pretty good.” Built from a 50/50 blend of fast-flight, low-stretch materials, it’s designed to shoot both fast and smooth. We buy each component of the string blend in bulk to ensure the strings are overall some of the most affordable and well-performing strings available today.
Each string is pre-stretched and waxed to ensure consistent brace height, durability, and reliable performance. Designed to settle in quickly and hold its tune, it minimizes creep so the string you start with is the one you keep shooting. All Pretty Good strings are 12 strands. If you are looking for a more forgiving, smoother string, check out our Pretty Smooth String.
Available in a blend of two colors, forest green and dark brown, pictured above. Each string has black serving string unless otherwise specified.
All string sizes are listed as the actual string length, if you are fitting it to an existing bow, roughly subtract around three inches from your AMO length of your specific bow. If you aren’t sure what you need, send us an email and we’ll sort you out.
About us
Traditional archery has, in many ways, become countercultural. We’re in the dog days of optimization, where every last FPS is squeezed from carbon limbs on the latest bow your dentist’s salary can afford.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We build bows for those who value a deeper connection, to the materials, the craft, and ultimately, the practice of archery itself.
