The above right rest was the first viable prototype. It was soon scaled down to the left upper version also with the perpendicular arm to axis. Left was first version after eliminating the perpendicular arm. Dropping the pivot a couple millimeters more was the last functional change besides magnetic strength options and a few purely aesthetic changes.
The first of the Anodized Rests and glorious colors.
In June of 2024, I decided I wanted to build a drop-away arrow rest that was strong and dependable enough for the rigors of archery hunting—especially one that could confidently support heavy hunting arrows without accidental drops. At the time, I wasn’t trying to manufacture a product for other people. I simply wanted a rest I could trust for my own setup.
That summer, I went through several prototypes that were complete flops. One early version even used a second Beiter plunger to apply adjustable pressure to a cam supporting the arm. It was far too complex, had too much friction, and didn’t function well. It also lacked any aesthetic appeal. For me, simple has always been best—so I went back to the drawing board to create something cleaner, more graceful, and more reliable.
The turning point came when I began experimenting with magnets.
Magnets can be oriented by attraction or repulsion. When oriented by attraction, magnetic force increases as the magnets move closer together. This is ideal for the holding mechanism of an arrow rest because as the arm-lever drops away from the holding magnet, the magnetic force naturally diminishes. That behavior is the opposite of what happens with a spring. With a spring rest arm (or the elasticity of a thin wire, as seen on many horizontal swing rests), force increases as the arm is depressed. Those forces build until they overcome the downward load and rebound—creating the “bounce” that barebow archers fight, especially at longer crawls.
After a couple of trials with magnets, the first working prototype was born. It barely supported a 300-grain shaft, but it worked well enough to warrant further investigation.
Those early prototypes also included an arm that was perpendicular to the axis of rotation, which resulted in an oddly angled bracket. At the time, I believed that feature was important because it made the forces through the mechanism more direct, and therefore more consistent.
I posted a couple of those early prototypes online, and almost immediately there was strong interest. People began asking to be first in line if they ever went into production.
One of the first people to reach out was Ryan Rossing of Rossing Archery. I knew of his bows, but I didn’t know him personally. What stood out right away was that Ryan noticed very specific design attributes that no one else had even mentioned. He understood what I was trying to accomplish on a deeper level, and it quickly became clear just how much knowledge he had in barebow, competition, and especially tuning.
I knew I needed to send him a rest.
Once he received it, he confirmed that it did a great job reducing crawl inconsistencies—but it barely supported his 400-grain arrows at brace. He also found that the pivot location was a bit high, causing the arm angle to be so flat that the arrow didn’t want to sit properly against the plunger. Refinement was clearly needed. Ryan knew exactly what the rest would need to meet the demands of stringwalking and barebow.
He was a patient teacher, sending long explanations of his findings and his tuning philosophy. Honestly, I could publish a book from the text messages he sent me. I will forever be indebted to him for the knowledge he shared and the help he gave in testing the rest.
There were points in the design and manufacturing process where I was ready to give up, but Ryan believed in the idea and always had insights that helped me push through the obstacles. In the end, he tested three or more additional prototypes, along with multiple magnetic strengths.
The rest produced excellent crawls with very strong magnetic force—when paired with a proper tune. And even now, this remains one of the biggest debates surrounding the design. With around 500 rests in use (as of January 2026), I have users on all sides of the argument. Some try a lighter option and prefer stronger magnets. Others go the opposite direction with similar arrow setups.
Our conclusion has been simple: maximum guidance comes from using the strongest arm you can tune without bounce or contact. What that “strongest arm” is varies from archer to archer.
Another early tester, Matt Yacca, was firmly on the “light” side of the debate. Thanks to his early insights, I was pushed to produce the lightest magnetic arm possible with this design—the single-magnet adjustable version. Without that feedback, I believe many archers would have been left wanting more options.
Over time, three magnetic configurations emerged as the most popular. The perpendicular pivot-to-arm design was eventually abandoned because the current geometry proved more adaptable to different bends, and the rest as a whole became more elegant without it.
Eventually, the design came together—and I set out to produce them in small volumes.
The rest is extremely simple in concept, but from a manufacturing standpoint it is surprisingly complex. Both the bracket and the module must be oriented three different ways during machining to produce them. With over 30 steps required to make a single rest, I couldn’t produce them efficiently in my home shop.
A little over one hundred of the first rests—with anodized aluminum brackets—were made entirely by me. But it eventually became necessary to outsource the brackets to a U.S. machine shop with better manufacturing capabilities, and to produce them in stainless steel.
Total overkill for the design—but that’s how I operate.
Ants are small, strong, and consistent. And in barebow, small things add up.
Special thanks to my brother for allowing me to use his workshop during development and spending long hours turning my CAD drawings into machine programs. And thanks to my wife and kids for putting up with me through the process.