The Atmos Compact Modern Longbow - The Ultimate Backpackable Takedown Bow

A backpackable bow? Aren't there plenty of takedown bows that fit into a backpack? Well, not quite. In fact when you start looking at which backpacks most people use and how long takedown bows actually are, you realize that the Atmos is a truly unique bow specifically designed to fit INSIDE a backpack.

With the huge popularity of our Tactical and Recon folding bows and numerous requests to design another bow that can accept sites and other accessories, we decided to design a new backpackable bow that felt familiar to compound, recurve and longbow archers with respect to the accessories they are familiar shooting; making for a quick and easy transition from their bows to a compact, backpackable bow when the need arose.

The challenge was to develop a bow that could pack down into a small 22" backpack, yet was long enough that it did not stack. Stacking is a phenomenon whereby a bow's draw force curve is smooth in the beginning of the draw and then suddenly shoots up at the end, making it almost impossible to draw it back further. This typically happens when a bow is too short for the archer or when the limb to riser ratio is incorrect. For a bow to not stack for taller archers, it needs to be about 60" in length or longer. And to get a 60" takedown bow into a 22" backpack is where the big design challenge comes in. That was a job for our lead engineer.

Why is 22" such an important dimension for "backpack-ability"? Well, most outdoorsmen prefer to carry 1-day or 3-day packs into the field. These packs are about 22" in length and are easier to move around with especially when on the hunt.

Our research showed that there are currently no 60"+ bows on the market that can fit into this length of backpack. Some come close, but the limbs are around 24-26" in length when taken down and just don't fit. Bows with 22" limbs are typically shorter than 56" and therefore stack fairly quickly when used by taller archers.

Another important thing to consider is that recurve limbs are not very compact nor robust when thrown around in a pack. As you will see later, we overcame the need for using a recurve limb to reduce stacking by using a straight deep flex composite fibre limb that allows for a smooth draw and an efficient stroke and is super strong to boot. Something traditional materials are just not as good at.

So we got to work designing a new bow and here are the first two videos in a series of videos still in development showing why and how the Atmos was developed. Our next video to come will show the bow in action as well as a bit more info on the bow itself.