# Bear compound bow



## Dusty Britches

I met a guy the other day that has a Bear compound bow. Yeah, big deal. But his was an old model. The cables ran through the riser. It was really neat looking. He had no idea how old it was. It was in like new shape, too. Anyone got an idea?


----------



## WindWalker

You may have seen a Bear "Delta-V." circa early 80's. I have one, a 1983 model. A beast!


----------



## tacoben

From your description, it might be a Bear Victor Tamerlane Compound. The one I have is over 50 Axle to Axle. It has a four (4) pulley system. Though I mainly keep it as a "wall hanger", I do take it out to shoot once in a while. As far as age goes, I believe these were made between 1976 into the early 80's?


----------



## clayking

Bear Polar sounds like it fits the bill..............ck


----------



## Doug Brisbane

Bear had quite a few models. They were the last company to start making compound bows of the major manufacturers. The Delta V that you have was a super fast bow and It had no recoil. The extra cabels made it hard to keep in tune and it was real heavy. I did clinics for Bear at that time and most people had trouble drawing a 70# bow. The Tamberlane was there target madel for the most part.
Jennings was the first company to promote the compound and they were the Mathews of the early compound. I still have one of the jennings bows. It has 600# Airplane cable, and Guitar tuners for takeups on the cables to keep the limbs and cams in tune. PSE was real popular at the time also.


----------



## Dan71

*Bear Tamerlane*

I have a Bear Tamerlane that I bought new in 1975. I think it was Bears first compound. (They also made a hunting version that was called an Alaskan)


----------



## Jerry/NJ

I have the Bear Polar LTD which I bought back in ......sheeshhhhh 1970? I got it from a shop that has been long gone. I can post a pic if needed Tracey.


----------



## toxoph

Dan71 said:


> I have a Bear Tamerlane that I bought new in 1975. I think it was Bears first compound. (They also made a hunting version that was called an Alaskan)


Good memory, It was called the Victor Tamerlane II. Debuted in the 1975 Bear catalog based on the popular Victor Viking magnesium risor. It was Bears first.




Jerry/NJ said:


> I have the Bear Polar LTD which I bought back in ......sheeshhhhh 1970? I got it from a shop that has been long gone. I can post a pic if needed Tracey.


!977 is when the Polar LTD debuted, it was the second generation Polar compound.

I think the Delta V was around 82 or 83, nort real sure.


----------



## toxo

*Bear bows*

You guys are close...some of you are right on. I have been seling bows before there was compounds. PSE had a citation.........Bear made a tamerlane long compound but very slow.....there first entry into the compound market was a whitetail hunter that evolved into various other whitetail models....The Tamer lanre came after the first whitetails. PSE had a phaser in 1973 that Terry Ragsdale won the Cobo hall indoors with a perfect 300 all xs......with no cable guard, wide nylon wheels and no cut past center....Martin made a compound with cables that had cables in the riser with a solid limb on the inside and a small pulley system on top with a limb that was away from the limb on the back of the bow both top and bottom...there by having 4 limbs with 2 working....on the bottomthe string was on the tip and the other end on a pulley....strange!!! ASTRO, Herters, Stemmler, Browning, even Wing and American archery had compounds...one of the nicest was American archery wood limbs that made wood laminate for Bear bows. That were laminated vertically not horizontally...The Bear Brown Bear and the glass limb compound....in the early 80s. My first memories of the compound were the Allen that had a real funky design with cables, inside cams and almost no let off maybe 10-25 % letoff!!!!! Archery compounds were all a compromise of the Allen design...Now a real question for the Archery history buffs. Who designed the first compound bow......never shot it but designed it?


----------



## toxo

*Bear/Pse*

there were 2 Alaskans..........one as described above and another that had along ATA and wood limbs with Metal rizer 4 wheels and another Alaskan with a wood handle that was the first if my mind has it right.
Pse had a great shooting wood handle bow.......the Excalibur then the Northstar...I shot a lot of game with the Excalibur finger shooting!!!!!


----------



## mttc08

My first compound was a whitetail hunter. 50# pull and very slow. Had a set of bear sights and the pins were huge !!! Oh, had a bear 8 arrow qiver on it also. Every so many shots the quiver came loose and fell off. I missed tons of deer with that bow. Not the bows fault, I remember shaking so bad it was unreal. Thought my heart was gonna pop......lol I have arrows all over Randolph co. WV. Man I would not trade those memories for nothing. Had it made and didn't know it. Was loving life and not a care in the world....hunt , hunt, hunt.........
Older, wiser and have killed more deer than I can recall........biggest was a 10 point last year.......still get excited but, thank goodness I out grew the shakes....lol....if it ever comes to where I don't get excited I guess that would mean it's time to quit. Don't see that happening anytime soon.
John


----------



## toxoph

The Bear Whitetail Hunter debuted in 1977, 2 years after the Victor Tamerlane II. The Tamerlane may have been slow but it could beat a dragster! :smile: 
http://www.archeryhistory.com/compounds/pics/70/bearcomp78-s.jpg

The original vertical lasminated limbs were designed by E Bud Pierson and son, the son being Charlie Pierson from Cinn Ohio. I had the honor to meet and talk to Charlie years ago. The name for the vertical lamination was V-Core, very fast. Their Sultan bows won many flight championships based on this design. At one time there was talk of making an ILF Olympic carbon limb based on this design but I never heard anything more of it.

Good question on the first compound, I know it was designed long before Allen patented it, I'l have to look that up.

I used old Bear catalogs to verify the compund question


----------



## toxoph

toxo said:


> Now a real question for the Archery history buffs. Who designed the first compound bow......never shot it but designed it?


Not sure if this is the answer your looking for but in 1938, Dr Claude J. Lapp first assembled the compound bow. He knew the the bow was remarkable but doubted it would be accepted so he never pursued the idea.

(Fred Bears World of Archery, 1979)


----------

