The Montana is one of three longbows offered by Bear Archery in their lineup of traditional archery bows. The other two, the Ausable and Patriot, are newer reflex-deflex designs. The  Bear Archery Montana Longbow, which was introduced in the late 90s, sports a more conventional appearance with somewhat reflexed limbs and a very basic handle. But don’t let the simplicity of its design and the entry-level price deceive you — this bow shoots like a dream.

The Montana bow draws smoothly and, if you do your part, places arrows where you aim it. Form, especially with traditional bows, is of utmost importance. But slight forgiveness doesn’t hurt either, and this bow, with recommended brace height between 7.5 and 8.5 inches, provides that in spades. Its 64-inch length also ensures that finger pinch and stacking are not issues. (The former occurs when an acute string angle during the draw pinches the fingers on your drawing hand; the later means that the effort of drawing the bow gets suddenly and progressively harder during the last few inches of draw.)

Bear Archery Montana Longbow

The Montana’s narrow shape allows for a very near center-shot, off-the-shelf arrow rest too. That means it works well with a variety of arrows, since archers paradox (the way an arrow has to bend to get around the handle) is less of a concern.

As noted earlier, the Montana has been in the Bear line up for a while. This means that it has been refined and proven reliable. Like all traditional longbows, it’s not a speed demon, but it is a very stable shooting platform that will put meat on the table if you take the time to get good with it.

I happen to think it’s a pretty bow too. Its limb laminations are tapered clear, white maple. These are sandwiched between satiny black fiberglasse. Each limb tip is built up with layered black and white fiberglass which, in addition to the Dymondwood riser and the inlaid Bear Medallion, makes for a elegant bow that turns heads.

It comes from the factory with a 64-inch AMO Dynaflight 97 Flemish string. This helps make the bow very quiet, even without string silencers. And while hand shock is sometimes an issue with longbows, it is imperceptible on the Montana, even though it is exceedingly lightweight.

It is one of two Bear longbows that are also made for lefties — the Ausable longbow being the other. In left handed configurations, it comes in 45-, 50- and 55-pound draw weights. Right-handed models are available in 30-, 35-, 40-, 45-, 50-, 55- and 60-pound draws.

We know you can hardly wait to stalk through the deer woods this autumn with the Bear Archery Montona in hand.