Love Hoyts .. you in the Wallet

Samick ILF with dovetail and limb bolt.

Hopefully everyone knows that in Star Wars there is The Force with its Dark side and its Light. In archery the "Dark Side" is usually considered to be compound (feel free to boo and hiss here). However, there is another shadowy entity in archery and its name is "Formula".

Lets start with a little background. Up until the 1980's, every recurve bow manufacturer had its own way of attaching removable limbs to risers. There wasn't much interchangeability, so if you bought your riser from the Acme Archery Company (CEO Wil E Coyote), that's where you bought your limbs. Mid 1980's, enter american bow maker Hoyt Archery.
Their newly devised system involved a dovetail joint and limb bolt. The dovetail fits round a bolt on the riser and the limb bolt slides into a slot on the riser. These two points of connection were more reliable, precise and adjustable than anything before so it was instantly talked about as the next big thing. Today Hoyt call this the Grand Prix system .. back then it was just the Hoyt or dovetail system. So groundbreaking was Grand Prix that virtually every bow manufacturer jumped on the innovation as it was ..
a) a great system that everyone agreed on
b) gave everyone access to the Hoyt market share as they could now supply limbs to Hoyt riser owners.
These suppliers usually undercut the pricey Hoyt options so were very popular with archers. You can imagine this pee'd Hoyt off royally. And to add an additional slight, the name Grand Prix was never embraced by the archery community and so the ILF (International Limb Fitting), that we know and love today, was born.

Formula to the left, ILF to the right

Roll forward 20ish years to 2009 and Hoyt introduce the Formula limb configuration. At its simplest, the distance between the limb bolt and the riser bolt/limb dovetail was extended by about 1.5" (37mm). The difference is clearly visible in the pic to the left. This increase in length should, in theory, increase the stability of the limb via the principals of leverage. In practice, the improvement is presumed marginal as there is little actual evidence to quantify any improvement. The second modification was the limbs have a built-in bushing for a doinker/rod so allowing the suppression of vibration in the limbs directly post shot. Again the improvement over a standard ILF riser seems minor since just about every such riser has at least one bushing for a rod/doinker at either end. Formula HAVE to have the bushing in the limb (visible in the pic left .. in the middle of the Formula limb) as there is no room for a normal rod/doinker attachment point - the Formula configuration limb pockets taking up so much space at either end of the bow. The picture at the bottom shows the formula limb pocket in detail.

Building on the above claims, Hoyt make the case that the draw of Formula limbs are smoother than ILF. They cite evidence for this in the limbs draw curve - that’s what you feel when drawing the bow. This is, however, a little disingenuous mainly as Hoyt kit tends to be pretty expensive so had damn well better be smooth. When a comparably price ILF limb is used in a comparison, there is usually very little difference in the draw curves. It should be noted that around 2010, just after Formula was introduced, quite a few Hoyt limbs failed. By failed we mean explosively delaminated while being drawn. The GA field party saw one set deconstruct itself in spectacular fashion during the 2010 or 2011 Scottish Championships at Craigholme. Poor quality control was rumoured to be the underlying problem. There was also a murmur that the Formula system changed the stresses on the limb requiring a bit of a tweak in the manufacturing process. Whatever the cause, Formula took a reputation hit. Time passed and for a decade there wasn't a problem til the "ghost of limbs past" reared its ugly head at the Tokyo Olympics when a Finnish archer had his Hoyt Formula limbs fail (perhaps twice!). There has been no high profile re-occurrence since so perhaps this was a one off.

TBH, no matter which side of the argument they stand, most archers do eventually agree (after much bickering obviously) that the differences between the two systems are marginal. Acknowledge there's little difference between the two configurations and that there’s no great benefit to be had .. then Formula is really just an attempt to lock down Hoyt's market slice. At banker shocking cost! The retooling of Hoyts considerable production line from Grand Prix to Formula would have been eye wateringly expensive. However, in retrospect, it’s a move that has proved extremely successful for Hoyt since few other manufacturers have embraced their new configuration. This is certainly due to the cost, effectively ringfencing Hoyt's market share which is considerable especially in 'Murica. A side effect of the ringfencing has created 2 camps. Hoyt and everyone else and is therefore another reason for banter ... as if we needed more!

Ultimately, where does that leave us archers? The Grand Prix/ILF limb fitting was groundbreaking and Hoyt really do need the hat tip for this innovation. However, Formula just seems to be the work of a marketing department’s Monday morning brainstorming session. With the introduction of the Formula system, Hoyt lock their customers into their kit in a way that doesn’t happen with ILF. If you want to change your Formula limbs, 95% of what’s out there is made by Hoyt and will be pretty expensive. Hoyt don't do entry level and this is the key difference. With ILF .. want to change limbs? Every price point is extremely well covered as ILF has many, many manufacturers with considerable ranges. Win & Win, Uukha, Samick, Mybo, Fivics, Kinetic, WNS, Sebastion Flute, MK Korea, Gillo to name but ten. Then there's your gradual improvement costs. You can't do the slow grind up the limb poundage, 2lbs at a time, as you do with ILF. With Hoyt .. the cost would be extortionate! Unless you have deep pockets, you need to take big steps when increasing poundage and that's asking for overbowing.

When Hoyt is your daddy!

And don’t be swayed by Hoyt's slick marketing machine either. Their "congratulations to ARCHERX who recently won the YYYY championship shooting a HOYT bow" adverts aren't the glowing recommendation they seem to be. Hoyt sponsors dozens of archers (Pro Staff) who are the top shooters in their classes .. otherwise they wouldn't be Hoyt shooters. The fact they won with Hoyt is really just an afterthought. Guaranteed they'd do as well with ILF and there are a lot of Hoyt Pro Staff, all of whom can get onto the podium. Its a numbers game to trap gullible archers (i.e. all of us! ;o) into buying shiny things.

So, the TLDR ... Is Hoyt's Formula kit good? No question. Can it be overpriced or at the least painfully expensive? Without doubt. Does it allow you choice? Absolutely not. If you want flexibility, ILF is for you. Love the Hoyt brand and image? Knock yourself and your wallet out.

But as one competitive archer was overheard saying when bantering with a Hoyt owner on his target ... "You buy Hoyt, it’s like luggage. You've got it for life!"**

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** Actually, the quote was ruder than that but we are a family website and are never rude! :oD

Hoyt's Formula Patent US8365712B2

wallet by Andrew Khoroshavin from Pixabay