Medicine Stone
Our History

Our History:

I apologize for being a little tardy in getting our website up but in response to everyone who asked, here we are.


In 1988 Jim Hansell and I developed our first target archery sight and introduced ourselves to the world at the World Archery Festival in Las Vegas Nevada early in 1989 as Hansell Sights. The original sight was based on a preset dead-stop turret principle that worked great but was a little intimidating to archers who were just not ready for radical change. As a result we introduced the Medicine Stone Accurate Archery Sight in 1991 that while a little less radical was still as different as night and day from what was being manufactured at the time. In the hands of some of the finest archers in the world the Accurate has been used to set and tie a number of world records. We still manufacture this sight on a custom order basis. At that first Las Vegas shoot in 1989 we introduced another product that sent us down another path...one that we are still travelling today...set up equipment. We introduced the String Level a level that attaches to the bow string and is the start of a perfectly set up bow. It shows the only true vertical on the bow and allows you to transfer that forward to your bar sight so that these can be set perfectly parallel...an absolute must in your setup if you are going to be accurate at both the close yardages as well as the long yardages.


Here was another problem...how could we demonstrate to the archers the value of this tool without them seeing it in action? We made the forerunner of the Medicine Stone Super Tuner out of wood and while it didn't do everything that we wanted it to do, it did adequately demonstrate the value of the String Level. In 1995 we addressed this problem and had our first prototype of the Medicine Stone Super Tuner (then called Bow Vice) made and introduced at an archery shoot in Wassaw Wisconsin. Some archers have ingenious methods of setting up their bows and sights and can do this very well, but here now was a portable device that could be clamped or bolted to most any table or bench quickly allowing the archer to see and set up all axis of his sight...particularly important for up and down hill shots.


At that shoot, an archer approached me and said that he was having problems and couldn't understand why and could I put his bow in my Bow Vice and perhaps see what was wrong. This I did and immediately he could see that he had bubbles going every which way. I asked him what he would like me to do and he asked if I could fix it. I said that I could but reminded him that he was in the middle of a shoot and did he really want me to adjust his sight? He said he couldn't get any worse and so I set about adjusting his sight (not one of ours!). The next day he came quickly to my booth and said that the adjustments had brought him up 29 points in the shoot and he was ecstatic! Does it work? Absolutely!


Up until that time we had no intention of making a production run of these tools but it soon became evident that it was exactly what the archer needs. The first ones we had made were farmed out to different machine shops but in an effort to keep the quality up we decided to bring it in house. Jim was a screw machine man with well over 30 years in the industry and so we purchased the necessary machines and set about making our own products. A week after everything was set up in our shop in Winona, Minnesota and with orders coming in, Jim had a massive aneurysm in his brain and lay dying in my arms in the shop. He never regained consciousness and passed away the next morning. I had lost my dear friend and partner.


The choice I now had was to let Hansell Sights die with Jim or move everything north of the border to Canada... and to start making the Medicine Stone Series Sights and set up tools. This I have continued to do until present introducing along the way various tools like the Advantage Arrow Level and the Center Shot Arrow Level which allows you to set your mechanical center shot and the Medicine Stone Micro Target Sight, a shortened version of the Accurate Archery Sight.


As is often the case, other companies have introduced their version of the Medicine Stone Super Tuner (which by the way was named by the archers using it and not me,) and this has been good for me because guys will buy the less expensive models and if they are truly competitive, will then come to me and say, "Steve, I've tried all the others and should have bought yours in the first place." Nice complement.


I've met a lot of great people in this wonderful sport of ours and hope that I can continue to supply the products and the quality that people have come to recognize as being synonymous with Medicine Stone.


Stay Warm,
Steve