The Sweetest Episode, Yet w/ Andreas Lorenz of Beiter Archery

“Nock, Nock!” “Who’s There?”

The Sweetest Episode Yet: Inside Beiter Archery & the Lore of the Jelly Nock w/ Andreas Lorenz of Beiter

Manisha: Hello, Archery Family. It's Manisha of the Archery Parent Podcast. Today, we have a very special guest. We are taking you behind the scenes of one of the biggest names in Archery, Beiter Archery. And today, our guest is Andreas Lorenz from Beiter, who is truly the face of the company. Andreas, welcome to the podcast.

Andreas: Hi, Manisha. Thank you for having me with you, and with all of the audience.

Manisha: Maybe some parents don't know, but can you just share who is Beiter and what do they do for the Archery community?

Andreas: The company was founded by Werner Beiter, who by chance is my father-in-law, so my wife is his daughter, in the late ‘70s. And he was, designing molds for other companies. He was always into sports, not into Archery, but when he started Archery, in between half a year, he already had a patent.

He invented the first served-in nocking point, and due to this, he said, "Well, maybe even the nock has to be redone." So he started with the invention of the Insert-Nock, then he invented the Out-Nock, then he invented, the PinOut nock, and all these things.

And at the end, the design of the product makes it unique. So although he had all these different nock types, the end of the nocks are always the same in all the nocks we produce. Now, why I say this? Because, in fact, we see it as the very precise product, the nock. It is a product that is conveying all the forces from the string onto the shaft.

So this little piece of plastic needs to be perfect. Needs to be in shape. Needs to be well done. It needs to be as sustainable as possible and as strong as possible, but also giving the best performance to to the arrow. So when he started this, he was into the medical industry. He was into electronics with his company that he built up from scratch.

I was lucky enough in the late '90s to join it and to develop it, especially on the Archery part. In the meanwhile, we have 3,500 SKUs. That means Stock Keeping Units. That means from colours, models, sizes of all our products. I think everyone in Archery knows the nock, but many others know the plunger and the clicker and the Compound rest and stabilizers and sight tunnels.

So we have a huge amount of product. Sometimes people not into Archery ask us, "Are you doing bows or arrows?" And I say, "None of those. We do exactly everything else."

Manisha: How many nock models does Beiter actually produce?

Andreas: How many nock models? I mean, we do nocks for every shaft available on the market. Worst case, I call it worst case, it's a pin nock because effectively, the pin is the universal nock.

We didn't invent the pin nock, but we adapted our nock system to the pin system invented by Easton. So we do have pin nocks for every arrow in the world, but we do fit maybe 90% of the arrows with direct fit nocks, insert, or out nocks. It's very interesting to know, I mean, shafts have a inner diameter, let's say, of 0.204 inches, approximately five millimeters.

We do have a 0.204" nock. We do have a 0.166" insert nock. We do have a 0.246" insert nock. We have 0.245" insert nock. So we have a wide variety of nocks in a pretty big variety of colours for the most renowned nocks, 18, by the way, 19 with the new Lagoon. And the fact is that the dealers are not able to stock everything, but everything is available, so we have a lot of dealers just reacting on the request of the market, of the Archers, and buying whatever requested.

Fact is, we have nocks for every shaft in the world.

Manisha: That's amazing. So does that include differentiating between Compound and Recurve, as well?

Andreas: Yes. That's the real incredible design of the Beiter nock. It was made for Recurves. It's an asymmetric nock. That means it's a nock which has an asymmetric throat because Recurve Archery is asymmetric.

We draw with three fingers, but at the end, the longest finger will leave our string the last, and this finger is under the nock, so the shot is asymmetric. And it's pretty clear that it has advantages to shoot asymmetric nocks. I think every Olympic medal won since the Beiter nock has been introduced was won with Beiter nocks, or at least with a Beiter product on the bow.

So the thing is, there is a symmetric way to shoot, which is the D-loop. With the D-loop, you hook behind the nock and you draw behind the nock, and that's in line with the shot. So therefore, we do have the Hunter nock, that's the name of our symmetric nock, which is designed for Compound and for hunting.

We have a variety in the models, that means insert nocks, out nocks, pin nocks, and so on, but also in the design for Recurve and Compound specific in both throat sizes.

We have a number one and number two throats. Number one is small, number two is large.

Manisha: Oh, I'm glad you brought up the asymmetry. How does that bring forward what Beiter thinks of when it's thinking of new products for not just Olympians, but for the general Archer who is ranging in skill?

How does that precision be brought forward to all the different products?

Andreas: I'd say the background we have is not in Archery. Many other companies in the Archery world are Archers starting a business. We are not like this. Mr. Beiter came from outside and brought into Archery knowledge that was not in Archery.

We have the heritage to bring this knowledge forward. We have a philosophy that we follow, which is the philosophy of Mr. Beiter. Mr. Werner Beiter passed 12 years ago. Since these 12 years, we continued to produce everything in Germany. 100% made in Germany.

An interesting information, every Beiter nock is coming from one single cavity. That means every time the machine opens and the nock falls out, only one nock of this type is falling out, not the multiple. That means every nock is the same. Every. Every nock is the same. The highest quality and lowest tolerance. We wanted to produce as much as possible in-house.

And that's another thing. If we don't produce a part in-house, we let it - produce within 20 miles from our place because we want to have full control of the quality and of the precision of the products made. This is what we dare to give to our customers.

They have to pay more money than for other products, unfortunately, yes, but they can be sure to get the best possible product in their hands. New Archers, young Archers, parents know that the money spent will be spent in a product which [has] been developed and produced by knowledgeable hands in Germany.

Manisha: Did you say 20 kilometers or 20 miles?

Andreas: I said 20 miles, but it's kilometers. Every time I speak English, I think American, but it's definitely kilometers.

Manisha: I love that you have shared the importance of supporting local, but I also love that it contributes to sustainability and the decreasing of waste in the manufacturing process. What does that bring to the mission of Beiter and how it wants to present itself to the world?

Andreas: Well, in fact, a lot of times you talk about plastic, and plastic is negative.

In our case, we try to keep the waste at a minimum. For example, we have to use a virgin material to produce the nock because we need the highest possible quality of material when we inject the mold, but we have runners. A runner is the part that is liquified in the machine and goes into the cast and is getting hard in the mold, but you need a runner piece that is going from where it's heated up to where it's injected.

We use these runners to make other products in our line, for example, arm guards, target pins are all made out of recycled plastics, which is very important because we try to reduce the waste at the minimum. We know that the footprint of plastic production, or generally of any production, is there. We have to keep it as clean as possible. It's difficult because, I mean, plastic is made out of petrol, and if you lose a nock out there, it won't rot. You should recollect all the nocks that you k*ll because it will not rot. That's the point. That's maybe something for young Archers - to teach them when they start to shoot, yes.

Manisha: That's a great idea. I wanted to just go back. How long does it take to create a package of nocks?

Andreas: It depends. First of all, it depends on the size of the nock. It depends on the model of the nock. They have different times of production. And then we are packing them since four years now. Before, we were making packs of 100, but as we are facing the fact that our nocks were not visible in the shops, we started to pack them in 25 pieces in a semi-automatic production.

But it's not coming out of the machine. All the nocks that are produced are taken out of the machine, and they're controlled and checked, not one by one, logically, but randomly, before they are going into the packaging machine.

Manisha: And how many nocks would you say that Beiter produces in one year?

Andreas: Ha! It's getting more and more, luckily. We would like to make 10 times more. We are ready to do it. But in any case, we are very, very small company compared to other nock manufacturers that are producing them out of multiple molds in the US or in Asia. I mean, we are very small.

I always try to compare it, like, in the cars. You have General Motors, huge numbers. Toyota, huge numbers. And then you have Porsche and Ferrari. So we are Porsche and Ferrari, but everyone can afford it. That's a good thing.

Manisha: Yes. There's no specific vetting process to purchase Beiter products…

Andreas: Absolutely not….

Manisha: …like there are, I believe, for Ferrari.

You mentioned target pins. What is the connection between Beiter and the Olympics?

Andreas: Ha! That's a good question. In 1996, Mr. Beiter was in Atlanta and was asked to sponsor. At that time, it was not so difficult to get into the Olympic thing. They just needed pins, and he said, "I give them to you." It's not sponsored. It was a gift.

Since 1996, at all Olympics, Beiter pins were used, and since 2012, we are doing the pins according to the restrictions, but we are allowed to use the logo, and we are putting since [the] London Olympics. We do a limited number of target pins with the Olympic and Paralympic logo.

Last time was in Paris. Now we look forward to LA to do the same. I hope it will be, so it's a heritage going through. The Beiter target pin has just a big advantage. The arrow, if it hits the pin, will not be damaged. So if you hit a steel pin, the arrow may be damaged. And with the design it has, the straight design, it's deflected a little bit, but nothing happens.

So this was the connection, and it's used in all Olympics since 1996, and since 2012 with the logo.

Manisha: And is there anything special that Beiter does for the champion of the Olympics?

Andreas: Yeah, you're asking me questions. It really happened, but it's not something we do on purpose. It started in 2012. The Olympic champion at that time, Ki Bo Bae, came to me and said, "Oh, I'd like to have a nice colour, a special colour."

So we made the colour. "What is the colour you would like?" And she said, "Oh, I would like sky blue." So the sky blue in Beiter is a Ki Bo Bae colour, based back in 2012 for Olympic gold medal.

We made a special colour for Mete Gazoz also. We have a good connection to Mete, and he also got a brown plunger, a brown anodized plunger. We have some special people having special products, and Brady is one of those. He is one of the few persons, together with George Tekmitchov, to have a gilded, Beiter plunger, not gold colour, but really, 24K gilded plunger. So we sometimes do something special, but really, really special for special people.

Manisha: I was listening to Bernardo's episode that you were on of the Shoot Off Archery podcast, and you shared that for the Paris Olympics, I believe you said 125 of the 128 Archers on the line were using some kind of Beiter product.

Andreas: Were using the Beiter plunger and the Beiter nocks and the Beiter clicker.

It makes us feel that we do something correct. It never happened that we made contracts with any Archer. We know that we do a good product. An Archer that wants to use our product will get it at a pro staff price or whatever.

We get a pro staff condition, but we don't do contracts. It's not like a bow manufacturer, one year you shoot this bow, next year you shoot that bow and you shoot these arrows, you shoot that arrow. We don't have the contract. We believe that we do a good product. We trust in the Archers, using them well. Using our name well, and we are not the ones paying people to come and shoot our products.

Manisha: We're going to talk directly to parents now. Archery, when you're getting into it, I mean, I speak as a parent myself of an Archer, it can be very overwhelming with all the different products, the number of pieces, and the things that they need to have, and you're just kind of getting thrown into this. If a parent has a limited budget, what would you say would be the top one or two items from the Beiter line up that you believe would be most beneficial to their Archer?

Andreas: I would like to say generally. Generally, there are some parts that have to be well thought about when you buy them. The bow will grow with the young Archer. So you buy a good handle, a good metal handle. You won't buy the best limb at the beginning because it will be every six weeks you need to buy a new one because if they're growing.

Arrows the same. It’s difficult to advise to buy a very expensive arrow if you don't need it in that moment.

It sounds strange that I'm saying it, but for sure as a Recurve Archer, a good plunger.

I know a story from Michele Frangilli, I don't know if you know the name here.

Manisha: Yes.

Andreas: A top, top guy in Italy, and he shot in the morning a tournament with a high-end bow, Recurve. In the afternoon with a school wood bow, but with the same accessories than his Olympic bow.

So that means he just changed his metal or aluminum handle and the high-end limbs with wood handle and cheap, glass fiber limbs. Well, instead of 596, he shot 575, but I dare to see any, any Archer to shoot 575 with a wood bow.

Manisha: Mm-hmm.

Andreas: Definitely, it is important to have a high-quality bow, but before you don't shoot 575 with a wood bow, you don't need a metal bow maybe.

Some things are growing with you. Every part of your bow is important. It's just that where you can save money, it's probably at the beginning the bow itself. But for sure, in the moment you get at a certain level, you have to invest in the best possible gear, whether it is the sight or the bow or the plunger or the clicker or so on.

But step by step, and I think some crucial things are definitely, uh…. It's definitely the plunger on a Recurve bow.

Manisha: It is easy to make mistakes. What sort of mistakes do you see people, parents, Archers making when it comes to purchasing equipment?

Andreas: I am not direct into it because we don't have a shop. I just see what happens in our club, and in Germany, there is a, a strange habit. You go to a shop and say, "I want to start shooting Archery." Perfect.

In Germany, you rent a bow. You buy the arrows because generally you break them and whatever, but the bow is rented, and every six months you're allowed to change limbs at no cost or at a minimum cost. If after one and a half or two years you want to buy a bow, they will even refund you the last rental.

Manisha: That's amazing.

Andreas: It's an amazing system, so you don't make many mistakes in this. You don't get a new bow, by the way, you get a used bow, but, I mean, it works. At the beginning, you don't have to invest a lot of money. You rent bows. I know a dealer close by that, has a 550 rental bows out.

It's a system that is running since 45 years since I am in Archery. I know this, and it's working. And, logically, not everyone is doing it. Somebody wants just a new product, wants a new bow. It's much easier to resell something once you have used it. That was not possible 45 years ago, but here it's already integrated in the system. I think to do it by scratch now in the US or in Canada or in the Americas will be difficult.

I cannot tell you a real answer to your question because we don't have this problem, generally. Fact is that once Archers start to become better and better, they want to have the best possible gear. It's normal. It's absolutely normal.

Maybe the wrong thing is to buy something online and not going to a shop and have just a good chat with the guys knowing what they're doing. So I think you can buy online if you know what you want, but not if you try to make a big deal. I mean, you save the last buck, but at the end you spend it twice because you don't buy the right stuff.

Manisha: I share with our listeners how important it is to work with an Archery pro shop opposed to going to some of these bigger box stores that just have Archery in a little department. It's so important to work with people who really know how the products work, what availability there is, and how to actually set up your bow specifically for the Archer.

So how does a good setup lend itself to confidence, but also limit the possibility of injury?

Andreas: For example, you have to change the vanes when they're breaking or the nock, how do you see if a nock is damaged? Is it safe to shoot a damaged nock? No, it's not. It's not safe. Is it safe to forget the arm guard and shoot without an arm guard?

No way. You have to use an arm guard. It can happen. If a nock breaks, the arrow, will uncontrolled eventually hit your arm. So yes, it's important to have a dealer-pro shop helping you. It's important to have an instructor in the club helping you and informing you and telling you how to do it.

We can see it as you want, but a bow is a weapon.

I mean, people [are] hunting with it, so it's a weapon. But generally, it's a tool for sport, and if we control it, if we know how to use it, it's a tool for sports, and we will avoid any issues. You cannot do it by buying online. I mean, you need to have either the instructor in the club or the teacher, whatever it is, or the pro shop taking care of you.

Manisha: Let's talk about maintenance. How often should an archer check their nocks?

I actually know of someone who could not figure out why their arrows would not go where they were intended to go. It was only several practice sessions later that this Archer realized that half of their nocks were cracked.

How often should someone be checking things like nocks?

Andreas: After every end. The nocks after every end. The arrow and fletching after every end. You check them always. I mean, there could always be some fissures or some whatever on the nock. Take them out and change them.

But now, if I wouldn't have Beiter here, and I would tell you, "Change the nocks before every big tournament," you would believe me.

If I say it as Beiter, logically you say, "Hey, you want to sell double the nocks."

But the fact is, on an important tournament, be sure to have your newest products on. Fletches have to be good. Nocks have to be good. The arrows. The points have to be straight, and the points have to be well done, and everything.

The brace height, you have to check the brace height every…. I don't say every end, but often. If you see that you are not grouping sometimes it's just that the string became longer, and you have not the same way to shoot out the arrow from the bow. So fact is you have to check everything, always.

And, not just to be confident that everything is good.I'm talking more about Recurve now. You understand that talking with me, I'm 90% Recurve. I try to do Compound, and believe me, I highly respect those guys. How good they can shoot and everything. I'm a real Recurve shooter. I am.

Manisha: Yes. And I am a Recurve Mom. Reece has been shooting for just over 11 years. I appreciate the beauty of the Recurve bow, especially Barebow. That to me is just exceptional.

Let's talk a little bit about tuning. I recently interviewed Douglas Denton of RamRods Archery. And we did talk a little bit about the importance of tuning and specifically using Beiter blocks. Can you just share what are they and how are they used?

Andreas: The Beiter Blocks, as they are called in the Americas. We call them Limb Line Gauges, which explains also what they are doing. They're gauging the alignment of the limbs and the string. We have different ways to use them. The easiest thing is you put the limb line gauges at the end of the riser on top and bottom, and you see the alignment.

When they are centred, you look at the centre shot of the arrow, but you see how the alignment is. Generally, you can put a second pair further away and see if the limb is tilting away because it's not straight. Therefore, Mr. Beiter developed the Limb Tip Line Gauges, which are little blocks that you put between the string and the tips at the end of the limb.

So if you have the Limb Tip Line Gauges and two blocks on top and bottom, you can perfectly align at a fraction of the money that it would cost to have a laser. You perfectly align the string and the limbs on your bow. You can easily check this and so on. This is the way to static use them.

But then you're also interested to see when you open the bow, if the limbs are working in a plane or if they are twisted. So we have a brace. It's a stick that you put between the string and the handle. You can change by half an inch the opening by putting more or less blocks in between. You see the dynamic work of your limb. You see when does the limb start to flip away; when is the string not anymore in the centre of the groove.

And specifically, due to the fact that you put these Limb Tip Line Gauges between the string and the limb tip, the string is not going into the groove. So if you draw it and release it, if the limb is twisted, you will see that the string is off and not in the centre. If it would be a groove, the groove would always try to snap in the string.

So the Limb Tip Line Gauge, the Limb Line Gauges, and the brace are, in my eyes, really something that at a higher level, when you need to tune, fine-tune your bow, you have to have, or at least your instructor has to have.

Manisha: I also wanted to ask you, as someone is learning to fletch their own arrows, one common tool that is often used is a Tri-liner.

Andreas: Mm-hmm.

Manisha: Can you explain what is a Tri-liner?

Andreas: The Tri-liner was designed to put lines on a shaft, then apply spin vanes, or Spin Wings, or Jet6, or whatever. So you have a line drawn 120 degrees, one to each other very precisely. Not only - the Tri-Liner gives also the chance to have this 120 degrees positioned by turning the nock in the Tri-Liner itself. You can adjust the position of the vanes in the position needed.

When you shoot with a plunger, Barebow or Recurve, whatever, but if you - in the moment you shoot with a plunger and an arrow rest, you don't need these two vanes to be off the line because when the arrow is flying not straight, it will have the Paradox of the Archer, you know?

The arrow is not going straight. It will bend. And due to the fact that it bends, the vanes when the arrow is well-tuned to the bow, will not touch the bow.

We always say that was something you can do with the Tri-Liner, to come back on this. We would like to have the Y position of the vanes. So the guidance vanes look to the bottom, and the other two vanes look to the top. And then you have 120 degrees of free space between the plunger, the arrow rest, and the arrow.

So the Tri-Liner allows you to draw these lines according to the nock position to any position you would like to have it close to this Y position.

And then, you also have some red Tabs that allow you to put the line exactly where you want it. I mean, you don't have to draw a line long - 10 inches. You just have to have it as long as the vane is. And that's all done by the Tri-Liner. It's very easy, very precise.

Manisha: It is important for an Archer to learn to actually assemble their arrows and learn how to fletch because it allows them to have more control over their whole process. At what stage would you say that an Archer should start learning how to fletch their own arrows?

Andreas: The earlier the better. I mean, let's say age-wise, I mean, if you are 15 or 16 or 17, you can learn it immediately. Logically, an 11-year-old Cub should not start be doing this or have to do it. He has the parents, the father or the mother, that learns to do it. And when he's or she is 15 or 16, they should be put into this knowledge.

I mean, a young adult should definitely be able to do his own stuff on the bow.

Manisha: As an Archer yourself, do you often test some of the equipment before it goes to market?

Andreas: We test everything. Luckily, Mr. Beiter, invested in the Werner and Iris Centre. So we have a 70-meter indoor hall made for testing. We had here the Czech team with Marie Horáčková, the World Champion 2023, last week. Mete Gazoz is coming tomorrow for some tests. And, Nick D'Amour, maybe some Americans know him. He will also be here next week - or this week.

And we use these Archers sometimes to test our products, especially when we developed the V-BOX. Before it was introduced to the market, we had months of testing here. I tested it. My engineer is also an Archer. The engineer at Beiter is also an Archer.

So when Mr. Beiter passed away, we had to look for a new engineering person, and we found a talented Archer. That we already had two patents with him in Archery: the V-BOX and the Lock-System, which is a fast, quick disconnect.

We are testing everything, definitely. We have a high-speed camera where we can see how everything works.

I'd like to say that probably, yes, we know how Archery works. Started from Mr. Beiter. [In] '86 he started, until he died, and after he died, we continued to have this knowledge, yes, and to pass this knowledge further.

Manisha: And, to connect that to long-term development, how can parents use what the pros do as inspiration for long-term development of their Archer without feeling the pressure of having to buy everything immediately?

Andreas: Little story maybe about it. Mr. Beiter always said, "If I bring a product on the market, it has to be the best possible product. In the moment I place a product, and three years later, or even before, I have another new product which is better than the product I made, I made a mistake.”

So the Beiter plunger was developed 1987, and it's 2026, 39 years later. [It’s] still the most used plunger worldwide at high level. Yes, it's important to keep up with novelties, with new things, but not every new broom wipes better than the old one.

Manisha: I appreciate that analogy. What traits do you see in successful Archers, aside from equipment, that can lend itself to their success in not just Archery, but in life?

Andreas: So basically, Archery, yes, it's important that the equipment, it's well-tuned and well-adapted to the Archer. That's one thing. That's something the Archer itself cannot change, but the mental game, the physical game are at least as much as important at the higher level than the bow itself.

Archery in Asia, it's a more philosophical thing. In our Archery, you learn how your body works, you learn how your brain works, and if you start as a kid to shoot, you will have a certain discipline that will help you in the future. A disciplined Archer will be a successful Archer.

He or she will have a successful work life because of the discipline learned by this sport, and the discipline is something in Asia. It's much higher than in our region, in Europe or in the Americas. Sometimes I say, you know, Archery is the sport for stupids. You have to do the same thing time by time. It's idiotic, easy-peasy.

We are making it difficult because we are human beings. We are not perfect. We do mistakes, but the easiest is to shoot every arrow the same time by time. What is the problem? The problem is here. We have to think. We think too much. We say, "The bow is not well-tuned”. “Oh, the arrow has a problem.” "Oh!" It's never the Archer.

So we have excuses if something doesn't work. Instead of concentrating on one thing, which is the motion, the action. That has to be the same time by time. So that's why I say you don't have to be a smart person to be a good Archer, but generally it helps if you are smart.

Manisha: You've mentioned that there, like the clicker, have been classic pieces that really have not changed over the last almost 40 years. Especially with so many changes happening on the AI front, 3D printing, how do you see those two things coming together to still benefit future generations of Archers?

Andreas: You say about 3D printing. The thing is you always have to have the right combination of material for the product you are producing.

Plastic is not plastic. I mean, there are thousands of different options and raw materials, and a 3D printer can use a fraction of it. And normally it's not the plastic that you need for the highest performance. So you could say, "I can 3D print an armguard," for example, if you have it. Do it, but probably that plastic will not be 100% compatible to your skin.

Manisha: But what are you seeing in the industry right now that is going to be the future of Archery?

Andreas: I would say, what is the “threat”? The threat is cheap products. Don't trust them. Don't believe them because they have not to follow laws or certain regulations to produce their product, so you don't know what plastic or what aluminum or whatever you're getting to get.

Threat for future is to trust and believe that the products you are using are the best possible products for your personal use. That you know, if I use these things, I have the best option. I have a service. Something breaks, I can repair it. This is something, for example, for Beiter, very important. Any Beiter product you have can be repaired or replaced. We have spare parts for everything. I mean, in the plunger, nothing - not much can break, but definitely we have spare parts for the Compound rest. We have clicker caps. I mean, you can 3D print a clicker cap. Well, it will break much easier because it's not made out of that specific material, because it's a special material.

So the pairing of the materials is very important and will become and will stay important also in future. And if people believe that a 3D-printed product can replace [an] industry-produced product, well, he's not on the right side in my eyes.

Manisha: You kind of answered one of the questions I was about to ask, but I would like you to expand on it. Talk about that replacement and fixing. I don't know if I ever knew that.

Andreas: Yeah, I just say that something breaks even after six or seven years, you will be still have a chance to repair it. For example, that's a hint. On the plunger, we have a spring ball that allows the clicks on the plunger. You know to turn the plunger is a click, a spring ball. People want to tighten this with a…. I have no idea why they want to tighten it, but the fact is they tighten it with a screwdriver, with a flat screwdriver, and break the spring ball. That is a thing that costs 15 bucks. You can replace it. You don't need to buy a new plunger to have again that clicking on the plunger.

And I could say, every parent, check on the Beiter YouTube website, if they're interested in a Beiter tutorial on the plunger. How to use it and so on. Look at this. It's perfectly explained.

Manisha: What is one tip that you would give parents about starting their investment in Archery?

Andreas: As I said, it's important to go somewhere and have the information on site [of] what to buy. Not just to buy something that you think could be good.

Eventually not to save the last $50, if it comes up to equipment that could last more than the life of the bow and the arrows. That's my advice. A sight, for example, is a very important thing. I had sights in my Archery life. I moved five clicks to the left and five clicks to the right, and it was not in the same position.

Nowadays, top brands like Shibuya or Axcel. If you go there and click five and five, it goes back to the same position. This is something I wouldn't buy some cheap crap that doesn't work because, I mean, if you move the sight, you want the arrow to follow the sight.

Manisha: If parents or archers wanted to learn more about the products, where can Archers access different resources for Beiter information?

Andreas: Well, generally, Archery on YouTube, our own channel is working. I have to admit, we are very slow, in this. We are a very small company. People think Beiter is a huge company. We are not a huge company. We are just, I think, a very well-known name worldwide, but we are small. I am in charge of sales. I am in charge of marketing. I am in charge of buying. I am in charge of even social media sometimes.

I have just no time to do it. I could make many, many more videos. I just don't have the time to do it. Some interesting videos are online, especially on the nock, on that single cavity thing, on the different nock types. That's on our website. The Plunger, it's on our web. The MicroKlicker, it's also an invention that was made five or six years ago to micro adjust the clicker. These things are developed and shown on our YouTube. It's just worth to, to check this out.

Manisha: You have shared, I believe you said Beiter is in 63 different countries?

Andreas: Directly, but we are sold over the whole world. Over 200 countries.

Manisha: Are there any final thoughts or any bits of information that we haven't covered that you would like to share, or anything that we've missed?

Andreas: Well, I think we covered a lot of things. At the end, I have to say, we have a beautiful sport. We have a sport that you can do outdoors, indoors, on a field, in the woods. You can shoot 3D, you can shoot a target.

The kids can shoot with their grandparents. This is amazing. There are not many other sports where a kid can pass the whole weekend with the grandparents and the parents on the field and have fun.

Women and men They're shooting together. We have mixed teams. We have inclusion with the Paras. We have Archers on wheelchairs on our line competing against us, and they are better than us sometimes.

We are 100% inclusive, 100% family-friendly, and 100% a nature-loving sport. So what do you want more? This is what gives me power for the future.

For me, Archery is not just Target Archery. For me, Archery is not World Archery.

For me, Archery is IFAA, ASA, IBO, or whatever it is. It's 3D Archery. It's bow hunting. It's fishing, everything. In the moment you use a bow and an arrow, you're an Archer, and you know what you have and what a great sport we are into.

Manisha: Agreed. So Andreas, I often end the episode with two specific questions.

As someone who travels extensively throughout the world, what is your best travel tip when it comes to Archery?

Andreas: So, I had dreams traveling. So one of the dream was to compete at the Olympics. I wasn't able to compete at the Olympics, because three weeks before the Olympics, I had a medical check that didn't allow me to go to Seoul to the Olympics.

They said I had a little hole in the retina and that preventively they wouldn't send me.

So I was World Champion at that time, Junior World Champion, but I didn't go. So my dream was always to go to Korea and shoot in Korea and to shoot the Olympics.

Well, in the meanwhile, I have been at seven Olympics working. Athens until Paris.

I was able to shoot in Athens on the Final field, and I was able to shoot in Korea during the Finals day of the World Championships. I fulfilled my dreams, and I set my dreams personally. So shoot the Olympics. Well, I was at the Olympics. I was not competing, but I, I was shooting at the Panathenaic Stadium. And I shot in Korea, which was something I missed in 1988 at the Olympics.

And that brought me up that there are so many places where Archery is getting into history. When I visited Japan, for example, we have, temples, Archery temples. Beautiful. George Tekmitchov was with me. We had a beautiful trip to Kyoto. And [it was] beautiful.

This is just the history, the heritage. I would suggest to anyone to go to Lausanne to see the World Archery Excellence Center and the Olympic Museum, if you ever go to Europe.

I always said I also would like to shoot everything. I haven't been hunting yet and fishing, because in Europe it's not so common. But I shot a 24-hour tournament. I shot a Vegas tournament. I shot World Championship, European Championships. I shot Bundesliga. We have a league in Germany, like football, like soccer, football. We have a league for Archery teams. Beautiful thing. And I shot all of this. I said, "Just set your own marks worldwide.”

Meet with people worldwide that share your same passion that you have, and you will find them all over the world.

Manisha: That's a beautiful answer. My second question is, as, again, someone who travels extensively, what is the one thing that you never leave home without?

Andreas: My passport. No. Nah, I think there is not one thing. I mean, there is something you always have to have: the travel adapters, toothbrush, and all this stuff. But fact is, you cannot travel without passport. That - that’s the point. Passport and credit card.

Manisha: Truth. That's definitely true. Was there anything else that you wanted to include?

Andreas: Well, I would just say that any one of you listening to this podcast, don't forget that you are into a sport which can be with you from your child age till the old age.

I started when I was five years old. I'm 55 now. My father, through him I started. Started when he was 34, and was shooting until he passed away at 86 years old. So we have a beautiful sport in the nature. Let's just enjoy it. And from the Beiter side, I would say enjoy it with the proper material, with the best possible material that you can afford. It makes it easier.

Manisha: Andreas, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to everyone at the Archery Parent Podcast. And George, if you are listening, I would love to have you on for an episode.

Andreas: We have to convince him. He's a great guy.

Manisha: There's so much I have to ask him about arrows. So again, Andreas, thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us today. What is the website?

Andreas: We have the www.wernerbeiter.com. Then we have the @BeiterArchery on all social media, and we have a hashtag which makes us unique, is the hashtag #TheNockBrand. We are The Nock Brand. We do many other products, but the nock is what Beiter is.

As you know, what is our best tool we have in our marketing? The Jelly Nock. Yeah. Even the Jelly Nocks, you see?

Manisha: I forgot to bring up the Jelly Nock! That's actually how a lot of parents - might be the only way that they know about Beiter, is the Jelly Nock. How did that start?

Andreas: That's interesting. In 2023, we had the World Championships in Germany, and I was talking with friends of mine and said, "What could we give as a present to these Archers coming from worldwide?” I mean, “what is typical German?"

So we were talking about chocolate wrapped in a Beiter logo or candies, you know, and, "Oh, candies. Gummy bears. Let's do packaging of gummy bears with Beiter logo on it."

And then I said, "Listen, why we do gummy bears? Let's ask Haribo if we can do gummy nocks."

And then Haribo was not interested, but we have a second largest brand in the world doing those strange gummy things. It's called Trolli. I think Trolli is known all over the world as well. They do those sour worms.

They have OEM production, which is 100 kilometers from us. So I went there with the nock and said, "Hey, listen, I'd like to have nocks." And then they said, "Yes, it's possible." We can do it." It's not 100% a nock, but you see that it's a nock.

And so [they] said, "Okay, let's do it, but you have to do 1,500 packs." I said, “Fu-!" I - sorry. I will never get rid of those 1,500 packs before they get out of the date, you know, because it's an edible thing, so you have to eat it in between one year. Well, two weeks later, during the championships, they were gone.

We had to reorder them. Lancaster is selling them. Dealers are buying them and selling them. So in the meanwhile, we had over 45,000 packs made and sold or given away at tournaments. So Beiter Jelly Nocks are huge, and it's just a way to show, yes, we are even good to eat, not only to shoot, and they are vegan.

Manisha: When was the official release of those?

Andreas: 2023, in August.

Manisha: Because I remember watching - because I follow a number of Archers and associations and events, I remember seeing all of a sudden everyone is posting about these Jelly Nocks, and I'm thinking, "Okay," and I'm thinking from an equipment point of view, "How is that going to work? “Is there a stability? Do they do extra gelatin?"

My brain is going in all these different ways, like, how…? Does it leave a mess on the string? How does this work? And then someone's like, "Manisha, they're to eat." Yeah. I think Reece just looked at me. like, “Mom!"

Andreas: Yeah. Yeah, but it was a, a gimmick.

It was a marketing idea, and now in the meanwhile, it's a product that we continue to produce because people like them. And it's the best giveaway we can have at tournaments. And, at Lancaster, I gave away at least 400 packs. So I'm out of it until April now.

Manisha: Wow, how many runs would that be then?

Andreas: It - 11, 12, 13, 3,500 to 4,000 packs we have to order now to get them and…. But, I mean, the company's close by. We take our truck, pick them up, and take them whenever they are ready. That's good. I mean, even this is made locally. The clothing, we cooperate with Erreà, which is the Archery clothing company made in Italy. It's an Italian brand. So we are local. Even our caps, hats are made in Poland.

Manisha: Thank you, Andreas. I'm Manisha. That is Andreas. If you have any questions, either contact us or contact Beiter. Until next time, we'll see you again.

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Read the accompanying blog to this episode with Andreas of Beiter. You'll find additional resources and links to references and some additional tips. 

Beiter Archery @beiterarchery #TheNockBrand www.wernerbeiter.com