Nobody needs a bow. They need a bow for one job.

Five kinds of shooting come through the door and they want five different pieces of equipment. Pick the one that matches what you are actually going to do, and the draw weight, the arrow and the price follow from it.

The bench has been setting up bows since 1985. Paper tuning, cam timing, string and cable replacement, D-loops, peeps, rests. Walk-ins welcome, but a first fitting takes about forty minutes and goes better if the bench is expecting you.

Two numbers first

Draw length: wingspan ÷ 2.5 Arms out, fingertip to fingertip, in inches. A 70 inch span is a 28 inch draw. It is a starting figure, not a final one, and the bench will move it half an inch either way once you are on the string.
Draw weight: what you can hold Not what you can pull once. Hold at full draw for thirty seconds without shaking. Most adults land between 45 and 60 pounds and most people overbuy by ten.

Five kinds of shooting

Prices are the whole package, bow through arrows, set up and shot in before it leaves. Bare bow only is roughly two thirds of each figure.

Indoor target and league

$700 to $1,400

Twenty yards at a paper face, every Tuesday from October to March. The equipment is built for repeatability rather than speed, so it is long, heavy, and slow, and none of that matters at twenty yards. This is also the cheapest way to find out whether you like archery, because the same bow will shoot a league for ten years.

Long axle to axle, 34 inches and up
Low draw weight, 40 to 50 pounds
Heavy stabiliser, front and side
Fat arrows, 2314 and similar
Scope with a clarifier, not pins

Wrong for you if you are buying one bow and the real plan is deer season. A target rig is a poor woods bow and you will replace it.

Whitetail from a stand

$900 to $1,700

Short, quiet, forgiving, and shot from a seated or twisted position at under thirty yards. Most of the money that matters here is not the bow. It is a rest that holds a fixed blade straight, arrows heavy enough to punch through a shoulder, and a release you can operate with cold hands in a glove.

30 to 32 inches axle to axle
55 to 70 pounds, and be honest about it
Fixed blade heads, tuned and spinning true
Arrows at 420 grains and up
Single pin slider or a three pin

Wrong for you if you have not shot in three years and the season opens in two weeks. Come in for a tune and shoot the old one this year.

A first bow for a kid

$220 to $420

The one thing that ruins this is buying for the child they will be in three years. A bow that is two inches too long at the draw teaches a bad anchor and the bad anchor outlives the bow. Buy for the child in front of you and bring it back for adjustment, which is free for as long as they are growing.

Adjustable draw, 18 to 28 inches
Starts at 15 to 25 pounds
Whisker biscuit, not a drop away
One pin, no peep to start
Free re-fitting until they stop growing

Wrong for you if the child has not held a bow yet. The range fee is ten dollars and includes a loaner. Find out first.

Crossbow

$500 to $2,200

Legal in the Missouri archery season for everyone, so a good part of this is people who cannot draw a vertical bow any more and are not ready to stop hunting. The buying decision is almost entirely about cocking effort and overall width, not about speed, and the maintenance item nobody is told about is that the rail and the string need service every hundred shots.

Crank cocking if shoulders are the reason
Narrow when cocked, under 12 inches
Bolts matched to the rail, not generic
String and rail service, every 100 shots
Scope zeroed at 20, checked at 40

Wrong for you if you want a light carry. The lightest crossbow worth owning is heavier than the heaviest compound.

Traditional recurve and longbow

$300 to $1,100

No sight, no release, no let off, so the bow holds its full weight the whole time you are aiming. It is harder and it takes a year before it is fun. People who want this already know they want it, and the honest advice is to start twenty pounds lighter than you think, because form is the entire discipline and heavy weight ruins form permanently.

Takedown recurve, 58 to 62 inches
Start at 30 to 35 pounds on the fingers
Wood or carbon arrows, spine matched
Glove or tab, fitted at the bench
String twisted and served here

Wrong for you if the goal is a filled tag this fall. Traditional is a project, not a season.

Bench rates

Posted, not quoted. Most of it is same day if you get here before two. Anything needing a press is priced with the string or cable in it.

Service, what it covers, and the flat rate
Service	What it covers	Rate
Full fitting and set up	Draw length, weight, rest, peep, D-loop, sight, paper tuned and shot in	$85
Paper tune only	Nock travel checked and corrected, no new components	$30
String and cable replacement	Press time, install, timing, retune. String and cable priced separately	$60
Cam timing and synchronisation	Draw stops, timing marks, limb bolt balance	$40
Arrow cut and build, per dozen	Cut to length, insert, vane, nock, spin tested	$36
Fixed blade head tuning	Spin test, square shoulders, broadhead flight matched to field points	$25
Crossbow rail and string service	De-wax, rail dressed, string served and waxed, trigger checked	$35
Range, per hour	Twenty yard lane, target face, loaner bow if you need one	$10
Growing child re-fit	Draw length and weight moved up as they grow, on a bow bought here	No charge

Firearm transfers, and why the bench is slow in November

The shop holds a federal firearms licence, so anything you buy online can ship here and be transferred to you. The transfer fee is a flat thirty five dollars and the background check is run in the shop while you wait, which usually takes under twenty minutes and occasionally takes three days through no fault of anyone standing in the room.

From the last week of September through the second week of November the bench runs a day or two behind, because every bow in the county arrives at once having sat in a garage since January. September is the month to bring it in. Nothing about that is a scheduling problem the shop can fix by trying harder, and it is worth knowing before you plan around it.

Call ahead on a Saturday. Two people work here and one of them is usually in the press.

Photograph to be shot

The bench itself, bow in the press
Hands working, no faces needed
Tools laid out in use order
Wide landscape crop, roughly 3:2
Natural light from the front window
No flash, no staging, no tidying up

Hours: Monday to Friday 11 to 4. Saturday 10 to 2. Closed Sunday.
Where: 123 Main St, Cameron, Missouri
Phone: (816) 555-0121