I thought that Adcock and Havard were A&H Archery. Now I see that Havard is now with Dryad Bows and Adcock is?

A&H is now in Michigan? What's going on?

A&H was John Havard and Larry Hanify for a few years...Adcock was not involved with them.

Larry now owns A&H....and John is working with Mike at Dryad.

Thanks for the update!

What does the A and H stand for?

I would assume it stands for Adcock and Hanify. Even though OL Adcock is no longer involved in the business, he is the inventor of the ACS technology. ACS stands for Adcock cross sectional. Which is standard on all there bows.

When you start to understand what he has done to improve limb performance, you will start to yern for one of their bows. I have three of them and they are the fastest bow I have shot.

I originally founded A&H Archery with O.L.  I wrote the patent and paid for it and still own all the rights to it.  The "A" & "H" stood for Adcock and Havard.  I disbanded that company and formed a new A&H, incorporated in Michigan, and took on Larry Hanify as my partner in that venture.  Now Larry owns the new A&H all by himself and is manufacturing ACS bows under a licensing agreement to my ownership of the ACS patent.

Now I have become a part-owner of Dryad Bows and am enjoying working with Mike, Jason, and Connie on bringing new bows incorporating the ACS technology to the market with them.

It's all good and leaves us all free to pursue our dreams.

John,

Why the change?

Bob, just the natural progression of things really - nothing more.  

I'm terribly obsessed with developing new things and have wanted to put an ACS recurve on the market for many years.  In fact I've been shooting one of my prototypes for four years now.  

Mike and Jason are also all about new things and new product development (although thankfully they aren't as nerdy as me - they think about making money too which is a good balance to my financially impractical focus on performance perfection).  Plus, they are fun to work with and are very dedicated to building a financially successful business.  Introducing ILF ACS longbow limbs has gone swimmingly well and probably around the first of 2012 we'll be offering the recurve version.  We'll have bolt-down versions of both too.  

Developing new and better things and bringing them to market is what turns me on and that's the root cause of this progression.

Well John, it's not really fair to speak in hushed whispers about the ACS recurve and not give at least a little peek into the package.  Impressions vs. non acs limbs?  peformance? stability?

Roger, how are things in FBKS now that the tourist season is over?  This time of year was ALWAYS my favorite in Alaska.

Performance without shootability and stability isn't very useful.  So you can expect all three attributes in the ACS recurve.   It is fast and well-mannered.  

I'm not gifted with well-developed subjective abilities, preferring to confine my observations to those things that are measurable and verifiable.  However, the "feel" of the current prototype has that classic near-letoff sensation that a well-designed recurve provides.

Setting brace heights at goofy-low levels and building twitchy limbs in order to maximize speed isn't going to appeal to large numbers of customers.  We won't do that because it's counter-productive to our business plan.  Building a "me-too" recurve limb that doesn't offer more to the customer is also something that fails to excite me.  I'd rather not offer one unless it's a step forward.

Test results of the latest prototype (now working on prototype #8 with Mike & Jason) is very promising.   Simply getting a limb/riser/geometry design that works and shoots well isn't enough.  We had that at prototype #1 (based on my multiple years of earlier prototyping).  Changing one thing at a time and working meticulously through evaluating the impact of each change enables us to fully understand limits, envelope boundaries, and all the changes that maximize performance and stability without reaching said limits.

I'm comfortable that we're at a point where we can and will drive a developmental peg into the ground.  While there will always be room for improvements and further developments I believe that the new ACS recurve will be at least as stable as any other recurve limb out there while offering outstanding performance.  

A bowyer quoting his own performance numbers is always suspect.  Consequently I never do that.  It's true that I have extensively tested each prototype to understand the value of the design changes and am very confident about the performance level of our design.  I have little doubt that our third-party test results will be very impressive in comparison with most any other bow.  It will definitely allow most archers to drop down in draw weight and still shoot the same arrow the same speed.  In my opinion that's one of the better ways to use performance.

John if I'm reading right the ACS recurve is going to be a takedown and not ILf. What lenght's do you plane on making?

The ACS recurve will be offered in both bolt-down (takedown) as well as ILF.  The optimum design for bolt-down and for ILF is a tad different but both will be available.

Hey John, We are just fixin to welcome in old man winter up here for his 6 month subfreezing vacation.  No luck finding a bull moose yet around town and just got back from a fruitless run up the dalton for bou (unless you count Ptarmigan).  Have you designed and/or tested a static tip limb like Dryad is known for?  I'm sure the rest of the trad archery world will be watching with me for the ACS recurve to make it's appearance.  Can't hardly wait.  Thanks John.

Roger, yep - the ACS recurve will be the very definition of static tip.

John....do you find static tip recurves anymore "twitchy", "finicky", or "unstable" as some have described them? I really don't subscribe to that but I think some people shot a static tipped once and didn't get along with that particular bow and blamed it on the static tips.

I know that I have shot regular recurves, r/d longbows, and straight limbed bows and couldn't shoot some of them worth a darn. The worst for me was a straight limbed hill style bow. Could never get consistent.

I personally can't wait to see what you guys will be releasing. Will you be incorporating carbon into the limbs?

Tim, no, a well-designed static tip does not have to possess any of those negative attributes you mentioned.  A static tip demands more stability than a working tip (I dislike the term "working tip" and think the term "bending tip" is more appropriate) and that can be achieved through proper use of both design and materials.  A static tip does work - very important work, although not in the same sense as a "working tip".  

A static tip is essentially a lever arm in the same way that a siyah is.  It functions in some ways like an atlatl does - it magnifies leverage and also adds the benefit of reducing string angle and finger pinch (one of the subjective things even I can feel).  It also yields a quieter recurve because the string "rolls" back up onto the tip upon the loose rather than slapping against a bending tip.  Carefully designing a bow to take advantage of that leverage is a positive as long as torsional stability is excellent.  Lack of torsional stability is what makes limbs twitchy.  The ACS limb will not be twitchy and will have excellent torsional stability.

Carbon will be in the highest-performing limbs although we are considering testing a clear glass limb with veneers.  I'm not a lipstick & rouge sort of guy.  I prefer to stick strictly to only those things that add to performance.  But we're going to evaluate the lipstick & rouge option just so we can decide if we want to offer that.  Thankfully both Mike and especially Jason have a better eye for artful things than I do.