Interviews

EXCALIBUR OWNER: BILL TROUBRIDGE

INTERVIEW

1) Were you an archery hunter prior to building your first crossbows?

I bought an old Daco Hornet back in the early 70s to try crossbow hunting, but it was pretty poor in quality and performance so I got myself a Bear compound bow and hunted with that till around 78 when I decided I’d take a stab at building my own crossbow.

2) Did you work in the archery industry prior to building your first crossbows?

Nope, I was a maintenance machinist at my last job, working just south of the Yukon in British Columbia

3) What led you to build your first crossbow?

Honestly, I think that I can credit the recession of ‘81 which had me out of work with little hope for a job and Barnett Crossbows with the inspiration. I borrowed a fancy Barnett crossbow from a buddy and tried to sight it in. The prod split down the middle on about the third shot and when I took it back I was told that they wouldn’t warrant it and I had to buy one. That got me thinking that if I could use the knowledge I’d gained from my machining job and apply the same common sense design features and building methods I’d learned while building muzzle loading rifles I could make a better crossbow for myself. I had some pretty good experience from dealing with the previous two crossbows and the bow I built turned our pretty well.

4) Where did you build your first crossbows? (home, garage, another facility, etc.)

Our first year building crossbows as Excalibur I worked out of an old farrowing pen in a pig barn, and for the next two years it was out of the basement of our old farm house near Breslau Ontario.

5) How much R & D went into your first crossbows?

R&D? What’s that? I just built them the way I wanted them and things just fell together. That said, there were plenty of trial and error and in-process changes as we felt our way through the maze.

6) How long did it take to get the first crossbows up to your standards?

27 years. I’m STILL trying to get our crossbows up to my standards today!

7) When did Excalibur become an official company?

 We incorporated in May of 1983 but the initial prototype work etc happened late ‘82

8) Why the name Excalibur?

I liked it I guess, my background is Anglo-Saxon and I enjoy the tradition and mythology that goes with it.

9) What was your goal for Excalibur as a company?

 Heck, I just wanted a job. I figured that if I could make people happy by building a better crossbow and keep the wolf away from the door till I got a real job things would go OK. I never expected the company to become what it is today in my wildest dreams!

10) Was there much of a market for crossbows in the early ‘80's?

In the 80s there was only Ontario and Ohio which had viable markets for hunting crossbows. We only made 60 crossbows first year, 200 second year, and 300 third year. Back then hunters generally thought crossbow hunting was a joke, it wasn’t like today by a long shot.

11) Excalibur is known for making the best recurve crossbows in the world. Has there ever been an Excalibur compound?

 We participated in a joint project with Bear in the late ‘90s. They built us a limbset to a set of specs that I provided with the intention of having them build the limbs, sell them to us, and we would market it with our stock unit. After they built a prototype they were so impressed that they wanted to change the deal and buy stock units from us to sell in the USA under the Maxpoint name. We agreed and bought their limbs to sell with our stock in Canada as Paradox. It was a heck of a crossbow, by far the best compound crossbow made at the time, but we were not happy with some issues with Bear and pulled the plug shortly after they went chapter 11 and left us hanging.

12) Will Excalibur ever make another compound?

I’ll give that a solid maybe. We found that our roots and our passion is recurve and selling a compound crossbow diluted the message we preach but that said we are aware that things change, and if the market forces us to morph into compound at some time in the future we can’t say “never”

13) What can the consumer look for coming out of Excalibur in the future?

Wow! Tough question, if I told you all the things we were working on, they wouldn’t be surprises now, would they? I can say that we aren’t sitting on our laurels, but it’s getting to be tough to improve beyond where we are today. Let’s face it, the bolt action rifle was basically a done deal in 1898 and it remains the action of choice for the majority of deer hunters over a century later. When a design is right, it’s right, and no amount of changing will radically improve on it.

14) There have been rumors about Excalibur moving to the U.S. Any truth to it?

We recently partnered with a US firm to improve our access to the US marketplace as it grows. Part of these improvements involved starting a US Excalibur corporation. In the future Excalibur US may become a shipping and packaging center to help us out here in Canada, but I see absolutely no logical reason to stop doing what we do so well in Canada and move to another location.

15) You're the best big game crossbow hunter in the world. Can you tell us about your favorite top two hunts? (Please elaborate & include photos if possible)

I gotta disagree with that one. I’m far from the best big game hunter in the world, my claim to fame is simply that the company has allowed me to travel and experience hunting in a lot of remote and exciting locations and as a result I’ve been able to harvest a wide variety of critters. In the crossbow game I might have broader experience than anyone, but compared to some rifle hunters I’ve met, I’m a nobody! My favorite hunt, or at least my most memorable hunt, was the Elephant hunt in Zimbabwe. It was in a very remote and primitive part of Zim and that added a lot to the overall experience. We travelled by truck to our hunting area, but it was shoe leather that got us to the Elephants and we walked long distances in high heat every day. One thing I learned on this hunt was that Elephants aren’t very pleasant creatures and in my opinion there’s no hunt on the planet more dangerous than hunting these ill natured monsters with a pointed stick. Our ancestors made mammoths extinct with spears and stone tools, if you don’t think they were tough, think again! My other favorite hunt goes back to my roots, I just love hunting whitetails and turkeys on my farm in Ontario. I love getting out there with no cameras and very little emphasis on trophies. Just me and the game, and in the end hopefully some tasty chops in the freezer.

16) Is there a certain hunt, or part of the world, that keeps pulling you back?

Truthfully, what I want to do right now is to go back to Australia and hunt buffalo with my friends there. I had a blast 7 years ago there and I want to relive that one before I get too old. I only have one other hunt on my dance card now, and that’s to go to Alaska for Brown Bear next year. I’m looking forward to that one but it’s still 26 months away. Oh ya¼.I have a rematch in my head with a leopard some day in the future. I didn’t get one on my trip to Zambia last year and I’m a bit bitter about it. Revenge will be sweet if I ever get to revisit that one.

17) Is there a hunt you have not yet partaken in that you would like to?

I want to hunt Polar Bear one day, but I’m not very big on the cold and I haven’t been able to convince myself I want one bad enough to freeze my butt off yet.

18) I would assume that the majority of Excalibur's customers are whitetail hunters. Do you spend much time pursuing whitetails?

 I probably spend more hours after whitetails than everything else combined. I hunt em every way I can in Ontario and often get to slide down to Ohio to hunt with Dan and the Backwoods boys in the fall. I’ve hunted with a few high-fence operations in the past in Mexico and Texas, and it was fun, but nothing compares to going one to one with them in the real world. I love it!

19) Do you have a favorite deer hunting adventure?

I have way too many to try to put on paper. If you arrange a campfire and a few beers I could give it a try, but you’d better be willing to spend the night because once I get going it can take a while.

20) What advice do you have for people just joining the sport?

If you are just starting to hunt with a crossbow my advice is simply be safe, don’t have really high expectations about success and disappoint yourself and above all, have fun.

21) What is the most important thing about crossbow hunting, or the crossbow industry, that you would like to relay to our readers.

The whole sport of crossbow hunting is in the process of very dramatic growth all across North America. As crossbow hunters we are being watched carefully by a lot of regulatory districts that are considering joining the ranks of full archery status. Remember that everything you do and say, especially on the internet, can be used as ammunition either for or against us so please conduct yourselves accordingly, because you are all ambassadors of crossbow hunting in the eyes of the world..

Interview courtesy of Crossbow Magazine with permission. http://www.crossbowmagazine.com/