Belgrade firm Trophy Ridge on cutting edge of bowhunting sights

BELGRADE — The hot-selling products in this upstart manufacturing business are all Chris
Rager’s. The motif is strictly Robin Hood meets Henry Ford.

By TOM LUTEY Chronicle Staff Writer

A trio of record-size trophy heads hang above the assembly workers at Trophy Ridge http://www.trophyridge.com/ More than
likely, a souped-up fiber-optic bow sight like the ones the employees are cranking out had a
role in bringing the animals down.

Folks in the bowhunting business are crediting this year-old company with revolutionizing the
industry. The company can’t keep up with demand, which is good news for Belgrade and the
expanding company’s 24 employees.

"There’s not another sight made like it," said Jim Smith of Livingston’s Yellowstone Gateway
Sports. "I think its biggest selling point is the the view you get through the sight."

What makes Trophy Ridge sights unique is the arrangement of its distance-gauging "pins," the
bow-sight equivalent of cross hairs in a rifle scope.

Looking through any sight, a bowhunter sees five different points of fluorescent color, each
positioned on the tip of a plastic pin the size of a match stick. In a conventional sight, those
pins are lined up like fence pickets jutting out from top to bottom of the view window. Some
hunters find this pin arrangement problematic because it blocks a third or more of the view
window.

Trophy Ridge sights have vertically-stacked pins, which look like a single thin line running
through the center of the window, greatly improving visibility. The fluorescent points used for
aiming the bow are also brilliant with light reflected through strands of colored fiber-optic line.

All sights these days use fiber-optic lines and fluorescent points, but Trophy Ridge uses more
line, which absorbs more light and produces brighter points. Its top-end sight comes with
special glow sticks to light up the fiber-optic strands when natural light just won’t do the job.

There are other features on Trophy Ridge sights that only a bowhunter could appreciate. But
simply put, if this company made Swiss Army knives, their’s would be the only one with a pocket
chain saw. Depending on the model, the sights range in price from $49 to $120.

"I’ve had these ideas for years," said Rager, who three years ago put down his local construction
business to develop his bow sight invention. "I guess I’m just one of those people that has the
gift of coming up with a better way."

Industry insiders are starting to agree with Rager’s assessment, especially because in his second
year of business he’s unveiling other innovative archery accessories.

"It’s really a revolutionary concept," said Jeff Waring, associate publisher of Bowhunter
Magazine. "They’re not the first folks to do that, but they’re the most recent company to do
that."

However, the 38-year-old inventor who hitchhiked his way to Bozeman from Washington state
in the 1980s didn’t exactly come from out of nowhere. Rager is a diehard bowhunter and also a
former semi-professional archer, who was well sponsored by the industry during his competition
days.

Back then, Rager was getting off a thousand or more target shots each weekday in preparation
for weekend archery contests.

His archery reputation earned him a job as production coordinator and marketer
Tennessee-based High Country Archery in the 1990s. As an employee, he offered the sight
design to High County, but they weren’t interested.

Later, Rager left Tennessee homesick for Montana and started a construction company. But he
held onto his idea for a better bow sight, finally paying a Missoula machine shop $2,500 to
mill a crude aluminum prototype.

He showed the prototype to local architect and avid bowhunter Jerry Locati in 1999. Locati
quickly became a silent partner in the business along with Barry Bowman, a Bozeman
businessman.

Every fall, Rager heads to a undisclosed area in eastern Montana — larger than the combined
areas of several New England states. There, Rager stakes out a high ground that has brought
him the biggest game year after year. That area is known as Trophy Ridge.

Rager decided to the lend the Trophy Ridge name to his company once he got serious about
the bow sight.

The moment Trophy Ridge unveiled the sights at the 2001 national archery trade show in
Indianapolis, it was clear he had something.

"They were really all the rage, and caught a lot of attention from writers," Waring recalled.

As Rager tells it, Trophy Ridge arrived at the trade show with less than 100 sights and left with
more than $1,500 in orders.

"The show opened up at 9 a.m. and at 9:30 a.m. we were taking orders and we were
swamped," Rager said.

From the 2001 trade show to the following June, Trophy Ridge sold 12,000 sights and finished
last year with 34,000 sales.

The sights sell well, said Smith. There are probably 50 sights on the market. Yellowstone
Gateway Sports carries only the two sight brands made locally, Trophy Ridge and Montana
Black Gold, an established local sight manufacturer.

The market for bowhunting products is only about 3.2 million enthusiasts, Waring said, a small
group compared to rifle hunters. Bowhunting is growing in popularity, however, as bows
become easier for women and smaller-framed male hunters to handle.

The sport is also getting a boost in growing suburban areas where hunting with long-range
firearms is becoming too risky. Seldom are bow shots made from more than 40 yards.

If the trade show enthusiasm over Trophy Ridge sights spreads to the hunting public, the
company could be outpacing its myriad competitors.

Trophy Ridge isn’t outpacing the competition at Yellowstone Gateway Sports, but the product
and the brand are still new to hunters, Smith said. Word is getting around.

Trophy Ridge was back at the national archery trade show this year with its souped-up Matrix
model. The new sight was chosen best product at the show.

And Rager has more innovative products in the works. Tour the shop and he points them out
readily. That policy agrees with the hunters’ credo of showing off their best kills, but not
discussing where they came from. He’s not giving away is secrets until Trophy Ridge is ready for
its next shot.

"We have a couple ideas we don’t even say anything about to anybody," Rager said. "We’re
going to crush them."

Tom Lutey is at [email protected]

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