The Gurik Crossbow
The Bailey crossbow reigned supreme until 1965, when a man from Illinois, named George Gurik, showed up at the Nationals the year it was held at Purdue University in Indiana, and proceeded to rewrite the record book. He used a crossbow of his own make that incorporated a centershot prod mounted to a Match rifle-like stock…with no string drag on top of the barrel. He had corresponded with TNC President Fred Isles, in order to learn the rules for formal tournament shooting, but other than that he was unhearlded when he showed up to shoot in the tournament. The field of crossbowmen he faced were tournament veterans, all shooting Bailey or Bailey style crossbows. Most were too polite to say anything about his innovative equipment, but some did smother a snicker or two and then warned him that his bow would simply not work, that there had to be string drag against the top of the barrel to keep the bow string from fluttering on its way down the track. After all, Grandpa Bailey himself had tried making a centershot crossbow, but gave it up as a lost cause. Also, his bow, or prod as it is now called, was too delicate - the limbs needed more body, in order to dominate the arrows.
By the end of the tournament these same skeptics were examining Mr. Gurik’s crossbow with a magnifying glass, and asking him if he would make one like it for them. George Gurik had added 104 points to the existing Quadruple American record score of 2673 shot by Paul Eytel, from New Jersey, ten years earlier.
In the years that followed, George Gurik added still more points to the Quad-Am record, peaking in the year 1970 at the nationals in Greene New York where he amassed a total of 2929 points… a far cry from the first recorded Quadruple American set at the 64th National Tournament in Reno, Nevada in 1948, by one Elwood Perkins, with a total of 1842. (The very first national crossbow championship, held in 1947, was based on only two American Rounds and was won by a man named Paul Runyon, with a very respectable two-round score of 180 hits out of a possible 180 for 1300 out of 1820.
George Gurik attributed his fine shooting not so much to his marksmanship as to the preciseness of his equipment, his arrows and the way he made his bow string as well as the crossbow itself. The bow string had an aluminum sleeve at its center that fit exactly between the two claws of the release latch, against which his formica-faced hardwood nocks were positioned. Neither the hard surface of his formica covered nocks, nor the metal sleeve could change shape, like thread or monofilament serving was inclined to do as a tournament wore on. He left nothing to chance. Every step in the building process was either crafted by hand, or the power tool he used was custom rigged for the task at hand.
In a matter of a few years almost all competitors at the national championship tournaments were shooting Gurik, or Gurik like crossbows.
