Your 100% correct bfisher,..if thread hijacking ever becomes a crime I'm afraid we're both in for doing some hard time...
.....
Now to your questions.
"Why you want to shoot such an ugly bow?? Just kidding".I have thick skin, am very open minded and fully subscribe to the theory "different strokes for different folks",.. I have to shoot an Oneida for about 25 years... ;D
You can say most anything to me and it rolls of my shoulders.. ;D
I figure Deer could care less how pretty the bow is that kills them and beauty is in the eye of the beholder..
I'm 47 and began shooting before I was of hunting age picking up my Dad's re-curve and teaching myself to shoot. Back in the 70's when I started hunting I shot Bear compounds since you had about few other choices, who didn't cut their teeth somewhat with a Bear bow. By nature I'm a tinkerer and one who loves to take things apart and re-engineer them and/or improve on them. My wife often says.."Jeff won't buy anything he can build himself"..and she's correct. Could be the Pa. Dutch in me that "if there's a harder way to do it I'll find it".. ;D
In 82 when Oneida first came out I was very intrigued by their uniqueness, smooth draw and ability to be entirely self sufficient in regard to tear down, cable & string replacement and total maintenance. With an Oneida type bow no need for a bow press to change strings and/or cables and in fact string changing can be done in the field with 2 sticks if necessary.
In the mid to late 80's I became great friends with a man who was an Oneida dealer in my original home area and with him I made many trips to the original home of Oneida bows in New York and tutored under the original designer's and creators. I have one of their original patten-ed proto-types bows that lead to the Oneida Company and am in fact still friends with many of the original owners and creators.
I've owned and shot about all model bows but lever limbed bows are my personal bow of choice for many reasons.
"How did "Monster" come about? Did they buy Oneida or what"?Since the early 90's I was a Staff Shooter for Oneida. Early in the 2000's the Company was sold and moved to Michigan where it is now under the name C. P. Oneida. I continued to be a Staff Shooter as well as running their Staff Shooter program and Web Site forum until late 2006.
Monster Bows is an entirely separate Company from Oneida. The other fellows and myself were Oneida loyalists and between us we had/have come up with quite a bit of upgrades and improvements that can be made to the existing Oneida bow line. As loyalists we shared these with the current owner(s) in an effort to help them improve upon what we felt was an already great idea & design, after all this is part of what Staff Shooters do, testing and R & D. I have no desire to slander anyone but let's just say that our ideas were basically insulted & ignored and the door was slammed in our faces and enough said. The current ownership unfortunately feels their is no improving these bows over what they are now, no desire to improve or change anything and they have 2 ways of doing things..."their way and no way". This is fine as it's their business but...it's also their loss.
The cam-less and no timing system version of an Oneida was something that flopped in the early 2000's and the current owners wanted nothing to do with this design when they bought the Company.
Thus the forming of Monster Bows LLC. The cam-less design was re-engineered and bugs tweaked out of it and a new Company was born with patten-ed bows called the Phoenix & soon to be released Dragon.
Although separate from Oneida there is no hiding that a vast knowledge and understanding of the design and operation of the lever limbed bow is what led to the creation of Monster Bows so we have a loyal following of Oneida enthusiasts as well.
I personally have been doing Oneida work for years and now do all of the Oneida work for Monster bows as well. I do about 40-60 bows per year with either maintenance or service but mostly performance upgrades and custom built Hybrids which are a mix of parts from various models that achieve some amazing results.. ;D
I must be doing something right as I have many people who have bought brand new Oneida's and had them sent directly to me for upgrades for silencing and speed enhancement before they even received them. I would imagine being a Hoyt man you know who I am referring to when I mention "Cracker's" from Archery Talk ? Some people in the Oneida clan like to refer to me as the "Crackers of Oneida bows".
Your comment about breaking limbs made me laugh inside. I do a vast amount of trial and error building and testing before I release anything to the public and I could show you many broken limbs and parts from experiments that failed....
"I do guess they have one advantage over conventional bows. It's hard to break a limb that's already in two pieces from the beginning?"There's a couple of more.
1) Lever limbed bows by design typically have a much smoother draw, larger more noticeable valley and typically a let off that is less noticeable than conventional compound bows.
2) Most anyone that is used to a conventional compound who draws a lever limbed bow under estimates the bows actual draw weight by close to 10 lbs. This is due to the smoothness of draw. It's a well know fact that many people who have had shoulder or arm injuries that typically would have ended their ability to shoot a bow comfortably have been saved by switching to a lever limbed bow. Again due to their smoothness.
3) Lever limbed bows have a virtually level nock travel due to their design and also by design have little if any hand shock upon release.
4) Can you name a conventional compound bow that as let off is increased speed does not decrease ?
With the Monster Bows Phoenix or Dragon let offs into the 90% range are available and speed actually increases as let off does..
While speed isn't everything I will reveal one little tid bit. One of the folks behind Monster Bows has already built a bow that has shot close to 400 fps at IBO spec's, but I can't say any more.....
I'll readily admit that lever limbed bows are unconventional looking and may not be for everyone but I also feel they are highly misunderstood and if more people would give them a chance they may find the advantages that I've spoken of above suitable for their needs.
Feel free to visit our web site at
www.monsterbows.com/monster/We have a pretty nice discussion forum there as well for anything Archery, not just lever limbed bows. We have a cross bow section, traditional section and even a wheel bow section. Maybe even have you come on board as a Mod for our wheel bow section..
Sorry for the novel but you asked...
Great conversation we're having here my friend, just a shame we had to hijack this poor guys thread to have it..
LMAO
I've gotta go soak my fingers after all this typing as their beginning to smoke..
Jeff