Compound Bow
A compound bow is little-affected by changes of temperature and humidity and gives superior accuracy, velocity, and distance in comparison to other bows.
The modern compound bow uses a levering system of cables and usually cams and pulleys to draw the limbs back.
Compound bow limbs are usually much stiffer than those of a recurve bow or longbow. This limb stiffness makes the bow more energy efficient than other types of bows, but the limbs are too stiff to be drawn comfortably with a string attached directly to them. The compound bow uses a string attached to pulleys, one or both of which has one or more cables attached to the opposite limb. When a compound bow string is drawn back, the string causes the pulleys to turn. This causes the pulleys to pull the cables, which in turn causes the limbs to bend and thus store energy.
The use of this levering system gives the compound bow a characteristic draw-force curve which rises to a peak weight and then "lets off" to a lower holding weight.
First developed and patented by Holless Wilbur Allen in Missouri in 1967, the compound bow is not the most popular type of bow in the United States.
