Jeffery archery

[Jcarroll611]

A guy at my local rod and gun club and I started talking about traditional archery after some Kessler and a few beers. He’s a retired boilermaker and 86 years old. He has the best hunting stories, anyway he’s always been a mentor of mine and told me to follow him home so he could give me a Jeffery bow. I wanted to pay for it but he wouldn’t let me. I think it’s a jeffery royal hunter? It’s a take down and has a set of 55# and 68# limbs. I have no experience with a take down. Do I crank the bolts down all the way and let it rip or does it require other messing around with? If both limbs are the same length can I use the same string ? Thanks guys I’m excited to shoot it.

[jrstegner]

Those are excellent bows. Tighten the limb bolts snuggly, but do not overtighten or you will crack the fiberglass. You can use the same string for both sets of limbs, although due to small differences in tuning I would prefer to use a different string for each set of limbs.

[mangonboat]

Congrats on your good fortune! A Jeffery Royal Hunter takedown was made by Jeffery Archery in Columbia, SC, the business of Owen and Tom Jeffery. Owen Jeffery is one of the great innovators and pioneers in traditional archery, designed many of the Bear models 1967-1971, e.g . the Kodiak Hunter,  and the patented Bear-Jeffery Omni Sight for target archers. He went from Bear to Shakespeare and when Shakespeare moved their operation to South Carolina, Owen went with them. When Shakespeare folded tent on its archery operation in 1976, Owen and Tom opened an archery shop on the east side of Columbia and started making bows, their own lines of trad and compound bows and they also made a lot of bows for other brands, PSE and Dan Quillen to name two . The design of the Royal Hunter has changed very little since the late 1980's, mostly materials and cosmetics. It is a solid, smooth shooter. VERY sturdy. Do not crank the limb bolts down too  hard...Jeffery limbs do not have reinforcement bushings and you can cause tiny cracks to form around the limb bolt holes. Owen Jeffery passed a little over 2 years ago at age 92. He was still coming into the shop every day when I last visited with them in 2016. The Royal Hunter takedowns are their most popular model but the Jeffery "Classic" 60"  one piece is a much desired ,sweet shooting bow.

[ksbowman]

Great background Mangon, Jefferies are very good bows. I have the Royal Hunter td and have had it for almost 20 years  with a set of 54# 60" limbs and a set of 54". One very good bow.

[Jcarroll611]

Thanks for the background info and the help... can’t wait to try it out.

[bluemelonchitlin]

Royal Hunters are great bows. You have a sweet bow.
Owen Jeffery was a class act in his own right.

[wapitishooter]

I had a royal hunter years ago, really nice bow it was well made stable ,comfortable grip. It was 64in and 45 lb very quiet bow not real fast but a deer killer wish I kept it.

[Pete Patterson]

I remember when they finished mine,25 maybe 30 years ago, Owen said. " It performs best if you snug the bolts all the way down then back each off a quarter of a turn".