Hill-style....or ASL?

    Back in the early 1950's Howard Hill (to our best knowledge) coined the term American Semi-Longbow.  At least that's when it went into print.  His description of the ASL as we refer to it today, the straight-end longbow, was that it was not so long as it's English prototype, but was a little wider and flatter but not as flat as the American Indian flat bow.  That was pretty much it.  He gave a further look into his own personal requirements in his book Hunting the Hard Way, by saying this type of bow should follow the string, carry a heavy string, be pleasing to draw and be comfortable in the hand.  Those criteria can be found in a lot of longbows today as they're pretty generic.  To get into the essence of the Hill style longbow we must go further, we must look at the bows he himself built and used.

    Hill was a tinkerer of sorts, trying lots of different ideas during his lifetime in archery.  Some ideas he cast aside, some he kept all his career.  His bow designs changed a little over the years, mostly in the construction and materials aspect than in how the bow looked.  Fellas today will look at the seemingly archaic bows that Hill used and wonder how anyone could be so accurate with so primitive a weapon.  Well, he got used to the style of bow, didn't change it and let it perform as he knew it could.  It's kind of like in other sports where accuracy is learned through using the same equipment over and over.  Quarterbacks use the same type of football all their career.  They know how it will perform because there's no variance.  All quarterbacks use the same ball.  All basketball players use the same size ball.  All soccer players, the same.  Can you imagine handing a world class soccer player a ball that was 2" bigger and 10 oz. heavier and tell him to go play as usual?  Or doing the same to a basketball player?  Or for another scenario, give a good skeet shooter a new shotgun...with a 6" longer barrel and see how he does.  Doesn't make sense does it?   Yet archers, especially traditional archers, are always changing around their tackle on any given day.  Different bows and arrow combinations, different weights, different styles and they never really get good at them all.  Rare is the individual that can shoot such a variance with a great deal of accuracy at any distance over 15 yards.  Oh yeah...traditional archery is a close range sport.  Uh-huh.  How did a guy like Hill or his protege's Schulz and Swinehart shoot so well at long ranges? Much longer ranges that most traditional archery shooters nowadays. They shot the same kind of tackle, same bows, same arrows, day after day, year after year and they knew their equipment inside and out. Their bows became an extension of themselves.  They knew where the arrow was going when they shot.   But I digress....

    Hill kept his same equipment basically unchanged all his career for the shooting that really mattered.  The bows he kept, he wouldn't part with for any amount of money.  He knew how they'd shoot.  Bows that were his and somehow ended up in others' possessions were not his bows of any consequence.  Either they were trial and testing bows, or new models or such.  Bows like the touted reverse handle longbow that is seen in three known photographs of Hill.  Everyone wants to say a reverse handle is a Hill style.  Yet two of the photos showing him shooting one were at the same 1957 Verdugo Hills shoot in which there's also other photos of him shooting his preferred longbow style.  So how much did he actually use one? As an aside, if you look closely at the photos, the bow is actually a semi-reverse style.  Anyway, this bow design is touted as a Hill style, yet he doesn't use one? Never is one seen in any animal success photos or in any films.  I asked John Schulz about the reverse handle longbow idea...he said he only made a few, and quit, like Hill, when he realized that the reverse handle longbow didn't fit in with the feel of "old-time archery".  So if you want to claim the reverse handle bow as a Hill style,  you'll be off-base a little.    It's actually pretty easy to see and tell the type of longbow Hill preferred, which we can honestly say is a Hill style.

    The Hill style of ASL is probably a more refined version of longbow.  Schulz actually termed it the Hill style of ASL.  What was that?  Well, from what we know, the bow had narrow limbs that bent all the way down into the handle, with a very short handle, probably string follow (although he did try backset bows off and on), deep cores (a necessity for any kind of performance with a string follow and his preferred bow weights), a narrow deep handle, fiberglass belly and back, or not, and very minimal sight window of there was one at all.    This narrow scope of longbow termed as a Hill style is actually more specific than just the ASL.  So the ASL terminology opens the door for more options and it can still qualify as it were.  Longer risers, sight windows, dished or pistol shaped handles, limb tip overlays, reflex, even slight deflex/reflex or reverse handled bows can loosely fall under the term of ASL but to be honest, are not a Hill style longbow.  Nothing written here to detract from either style, but there are current manufacturer bow offerings that are termed "Hill style" and the bows are obviously flat limbed, deflex reflex, long deep sight window and sport pistol grips.  Hill didn't use that kind of bow as his choice.  Why then call it a Hill style longbow?  Let's call apples apples and oranges oranges.  

    This post is an attempt, not to disparage any kind of bow or bowmaker, not to hurt feelings, but to set the record straight, to make it known what kind of bow Howard Hill used and promoted.  That's the kind of bow that needs to be called a Hill style.  Nothing else.  Let's quit muddying the waters or the newcomers to the sport will be more mixed up than ever.  Call the other bows straight-limb longbows, or ASLs or modern longbows or whatever, no problem.  Now that we know what a Hill style longbow is,  we'll dig into the Hill style of shooting, and other elements....in a future post.  For now,

Shoot straight.