Bear Kodiak (1959 Model)

Introduced in 1967 to succeed the original Kodiak, the Super Kodiak was Fred Bear's personal hunting bow for the last decades of his life — the bow in most of the famous photos from his later African and Alaskan hunts. That pedigree still drives its reputation: on Tradgang and ArcheryTalk it's routinely described as the smoothest-drawing production Bear, with a longer 60-inch AMO length that forgives sloppy releases and suits draws out to 29-30 inches better than the Grizzly. The two-piece shedua riser carries a black accent stripe and a full, palm-filling grip, and the crowned, cut-on-center shelf with bear hair rest and leather side plate shoots clean off the shelf. Unlike the Grizzly, its layered black-and-white glass tips take the included Dynaflight 97 Flemish string, so you get a modern low-stretch string's extra speed and quieter shot from the factory. The 3Rivers listing has accumulated 66 customer reviews, though no numeric average is displayed. Knocks are few: it costs $130 more than a Grizzly, left-hand weights are thin, and purists note today's Gainesville-made bow isn't hand-shaped like a Grayling original. As a do-everything hunting recurve, it's the flagship of Bear's one-piece line.

The Kodiak Magnum first appeared in 1961 as the treestand and brush hunter's answer to full-length recurves, and the modern reissue keeps the formula: a heavily recurved 52-inch bow with a shedua riser, black accent stripe, and maple-core limbs faced in distinctive arctic-grey fiberglass. It is the shortest, lightest-in-hand bow in Bear's one-piece lineup, which is exactly why ground-blind and saddle hunters love it — it clears shooting rails and brush that a 60-inch bow won't. The radiused, cut-on-center shelf with bear hair rest and leather side plate shoots off the shelf, and the layered tips take the included Dynaflight 97 string. The honest trade-offs are well documented on ArcheryTalk and Tradgang: at 52 inches the string angle gets steep, so shooters past about 28 inches of draw report finger pinch and noticeable stacking, and many shoot it three-under to ease nock pinch. Its light mass also makes it less forgiving to aim than heavier bows. It carries 13 reviews at 3Rivers with no displayed average, and as of August 2026 stock is spotty — sold out at Bear's site with a waitlist at 3Rivers. For short-draw hunters in tight quarters, nothing in the Bear catalog is handier.

The Bear Grizzly has been in continuous production since 1950, and the current bow is essentially the same design Bear settled on in 1964 — that heritage alone explains why it's 3Rivers' best-selling one-piece bow and the default first hunting recurve on ArcheryTalk and Tradgang. At 58 inches it splits the difference between stand maneuverability and forgiveness, with a shedua-toned hardwood riser, clear-maple-core limbs under black fiberglass, and a radiused, cut-on-center shelf with bear hair rest and leather side plate, so most well-spined arrows tune easily right off the shelf. It ships with a Dacron Flemish string, and Bear doesn't rate the tips for fast-flight material, so stay with B-55-class strings. Community sentiment is overwhelmingly warm: smooth to about 28 inches of draw, quiet once brace height is tuned, and tough enough to be knocked around a deer lease for decades — vintage Grizzlys from the 1960s are still hunted every fall. Complaints are minor: the grip feels blocky to some hands, marked weights can run a couple pounds heavy, and it stacks noticeably past 29 inches. At around $500 it remains the benchmark entry point for serious traditional bowhunting.

Bear's Alaskan XT is the value pick of this class if you want flagship-adjacent features without a flagship bill. The price shown is the common Ready-to-Hunt package street price (about $600 at Walmart; $679.99 direct from Bear), which includes a Trophy Ridge 4-pin sight, Whisker Biscuit, quiver, stabilizer, peep and D-loop; the bare bow runs around $500-530. The spec sheet punches up: 33-inch axle-to-axle for stable aiming, 335 fps ATA from the DHC-XR cam system, an integrated Picatinny sight mount, roller cable guard, and a light 3.5 lb bare weight. ArcheryTalk threads titled 'now that's value' capture the sentiment - most owners report a surprisingly smooth draw and tight groups, and it holds 5.0/5 across 10 Pyramyd Air reviews plus 4.8/5 at Walmart. Honest knocks: there is a quick buzz at the shot that the KillerWave dampeners don't fully kill (one owner found it livelier than Bear's own Whitetail Maxx), the 25-30 inch draw range excludes very short and long-draw shooters, and the RTH accessories are entry grade - most serious hunters upgrade the sight and rest within a season.

In the Bear lineup since the late 1990s, the Montana is the longbow most American trad hunters start with — a 64-inch, slightly reflexed D-shape design with a hard-rock maple riser, white maple limbs under black or grey fiberglass, and a supple leather grip with matching leather shelf rug and side plate for shooting off the shelf. The slight reflex and tapered limb laminations give it more zip than a straight-limbed Hill-style bow, and the 64-inch length keeps finger pinch and stacking away for draws up to about 29 inches. Lancaster calls it a longbow that 'performs well above its price-point,' and Amazon buyers rate it 4.4/5. Community feedback on ArcheryTalk and Trad Talk is largely positive but honest about longbow realities: there is some hand shock — mild by longbow standards, and mostly tamed with a properly tuned brace height, heavier arrows, and the included Dynaflight 97 string — and the sight window is not cut past center, so arrow spine selection matters more than on Bear's recurves. At $460-530 street it undercuts custom longbows by hundreds while delivering a genuinely huntable, quiet, lightweight package that carries all day.

The Cruzer line is the perennial rival to Diamond's Edge series, and the G3 is the fastest of the ultra-adjustables here: a dual-cam system pushing 315 fps with 10-70 pounds and 14-30 inches of adjustment, all Allen-wrench accessible. It sells as a Ready-to-Hunt package - Trophy Ridge 4-pin sight, Whisker Biscuit V, 5-Spot quiver, 6-inch stabilizer, factory-installed peep and D-loop - for roughly $350-500 depending on finish; $449 is the common price point at big-box retailers. Note that Bear released the Cruzer G4 in 2025 ($419-460, near-identical adjustability on a 29-inch frame), so the G3 is late in its retail life but still widely stocked. Testers and owners describe the draw as pleasant for a two-cam bow at hunting weights, with an honest caveat: the back wall is slightly mushy and the G3 runs a touch louder and buzzier than single-cam budget rivals - the price of its extra speed. The 3-pound bare mass is great for young shooters carrying it but amplifies hand feel. Trophy Ridge accessories are a cut above most bundled kits, and the whole package is legitimately huntable out of the box.