Northern Mist Longbows
Traditional Design-Uncommon Performance
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| Steve Turay: owner, bowyer, and bow hunter-with aerial target discs |
The Best of Both Worlds
- Our bows offer stability, durability, and a tendency to forgive technique flaws, because of their classical limb shapes.
- But, the innovative taper-grinds of the core laminations, and weight-saving limb cross sections, produce arrow speeds normally associated with more radical hybrid designs.
- These bows are built to shoot heavy, hunting-weight arrows with Authority!
- We allow customers to match any grip design to any bow model, so you can assemble the bow you really want: the bow that will help you to shoot up to your full potential.
More than 21 years experience-Over 2,000 bows built
Our Products
We produce top quality, affordable bows, that are genuinely beautiful, smooth, fast, and dependable. Each is built by hand, to your specifications. The expert craftsmanship and choice materials result in a one-of-a-kind custom bow that is forgiving, and offers superior performance with little hand shock.
We specialize in:
- One-piece and take-down longbows
- Wood/fiberglass composite construction
- Straight/reflex, reflex/deflex, and string-follow bows, with models ranging in length from 60" to 69," in a variety of handle designs
The longbow has been in a state of continuous development for over 10,000 years: right up to this very moment. For more than 21 years, we’ve continued in this tradition of innovation, perfecting our designs and production methods, while producing well over 2,000 custom bows. Our production rate is limited to keep our quality high. We build state-of-the-art bows for both hunting and recreation. Let us build one for you.
Traditional Archery
- During the 20th. century, the remains of a one-piece wooden longbow were recovered from a bog near the town of Holmegaard, Denmark. When archery historians and bowyers got their turn with the “Holmegaard Bow,” they were astonished by the extraordinary sophistication of the design. The bow was carbon dated at 9,000 years of age.
- Between the years, 1200 and 1500, the most challenging problem faced by the armies of Europe, was to build armor that the English Archers couldn’t shoot through. The one-piece Yew longbows shot a very heavy, yard-long, Ash or Poplar arrow, tipped with a forged iron point: the original armor-piercing projectile. The estimated effective range was between 180 and 250 yards and the rate of fire was 10 to 12 arrows per minute. Thus, the rate of fire for 300 English Archers could be 3,600 arrows per minute; that's 36,000 arrows after 10 minutes. They gave us the word: Artillery.
- Two soldiers, pursued by Welsh archers, rushed into a fortress and slammed the door. The Welshmen loosed arrows at the closing door . . . “which being shot with prodigious violence, some penetrated through the oak doors of a portal, although they were the breadth of four fingers in thickness. The heads of these arrows were afterwards driven out and preserved, in order to continue the rememberance (sic) of such extraordinary force in shooting with the bow . . .” (Burke: The History of Archery)
- Official U.S. Army records contain an account of the mounted pursuit of a warrior from one of the western tribes. Riding at full gallop, the man turned in his seat and shot arrows at the racing cavalrymen, several of whom sustained wounds to the face and thighs, those being the only exposed body parts.
- Archery legend, Howard Hill, shot 10 thrown dimes out of the air, without a miss. While working as a stunt-archer for the Warner Brothers film, “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” Mr. Hill shot an arrow into the center of a target, and then split it with a second arrow—on purpose, thus giving rise to the expression: to “Robin Hood” an arrow.
For more than 10,000 years, people have been using traditional bows to protect their homes and feed their families, taking game ranging in size from small birds through elephants. Silent, accurate, powerful, and capable of being shot from any position, at targets both stationary and in-motion, traditional bows and arrows have proven lethal to every game animal on the planet: no wheels, no cams, no cables. Archery History

