About Minum Archery

I was raised in an archery family, had a bow in my hands as soon as I could hold one, and remember fondly of the many weekends the entire family would tour the state of Oregon to attend the various 3d shoots.  As soon as I was old enough, I was bowhunting with my dad and brother every year, even if it meant my dad would have to drive many long additional hours back from hunting camp to pick us up after school ended so we could enjoy what he loved so much.

Amidst all of this, I observed my dad, in his labors of love, approach the sport with an always DIY mentality.  He maintained and tuned all of our equipment (5 bows!), and so sometimes took the blame when one of us got frustrated with our shooting and decided to blame the bow.  He fletched all of our arrows, and so meticulously searched for them when we inevitably missed a target.  And even beyond the standard shop services, he built archery targets, created backpack quivers, sewed bow cases, made strings, and created many other archery and bowhunting accessories that he used to hunt with.

And it wasn’t until years later that I realized that not everyone worked on their own gear and fletched their own arrows.  Not everyone designed and created their own DIY gear.  I realized this was something special, an attachment to this pastime that meant he was going to make something work regardless of how much was in the bank account or how busy he was at work.  And with few resources available, he was going to figure it out himself.

Even since that realization, I’ve observed the archery and bowhunting world become more technical, more specialized, more precisely engineered, and more available with the myriad of products off the shelf.  Everywhere you turn there seems to be products that claim to boost your ability to shoot or hunt, as if archery and bowhunting were pay-to-win.  It’s all become commercialized, and while I am excited to see it more accessible to new people than ever before, it also seems we have lost the pioneering feeling that I associated with archery as a child.

Minum Archery was born in 2019 out of my desire to return the DIY spirit to the sport.  Initially focused on soft goods, my first product was a bow shoulder sling that was a variation on one of my dad’s DIY creations.  Shortly after launching, however, I hit pause on the soft goods and began to pursue the idea of designing an archery simulator.  I’d often shot the Dart Target System growing up and a TechnoHUNT a few times and always had a blast, but was also fascinated by the technology.  And so to me this idea represented the peak of what I had set out to do.  If I could figure out how to create an affordable, at home, easy to build alternative to something so expensive ($40k!) and technical, I could further the idea that DIY still has a place in the archery and bowhunting community.

Over a year later, I am proud to have been able to make good on this endeavor, providing software and a free build guide for others to have as much fun building their own simulators as I have had.  I’m proud that the price point has landed at an accessible $1600 (perhaps even less for some), and I sincerely hope you enjoy this end product, but also just as much, the process of building it yourself.

    - Tom Hamilton, Founder of Minum Archery