THE AMERICAN CROSSBOW FEDERATION The American Crossbow Federation is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of ALL forms of hunting with ALL weapons, especially the crossbow. The American Crossbow Federation (ACF) was formed in 1996 as an umbrella group from within the shooting sports industry with the mission of educating and promoting additional crossbow hunting opportunities. Since its inception, many exciting new opportunities have fallen into place across the United States and Canada, as more hunters become educated about the benefits offered by crossbows to the hunting community. Now is the time for those pursuing crossbow hunting opportunities to join together and exchange knowledge on their shared interest. The ACF is focused on providing a proactive fraternity dedicated to uniting individuals from all across the continent who believe the modern crossbow should be just one more legitimate option for hunters in their pursuit of big game animals. The ACF’s prime objective is to educate game managers, legislators and the general public about the crossbow and its positive attributes as applied to modern hunting and effective game management. In the fall of 2001, the American Crossbow Federation launched its Individual Membership Program along with a new quarterly publication entitled the Horizontal Bowhunter Magazine. The premier issue arrived in the mailboxes of our Charter Members in September of that same year. Since then, it has continued to grow, providing the rapidly expanding number of crossbow hunters from across North America with a much-needed venue for sharing their passion; their ideas; and their personal experiences with the crossbow. The content of Horizontal Bowhunter Magazine is primarily of a hunting nature with a wide variety of writers from the membership sharing their adventures and knowledge with the other readers. Leaders from the crossbow industry contribute regular columns that cover an array of crossbow topics such as technical tips, crossbow politics, crossbow-hunting adventures and repudiation of many popular crossbow myths. As an ACF member, we invite you to share your ideas, opinions and successes with the other members in the pages of the Horizontal Bowhunter Magazine. This publication is your forum to share what’s working and what’s not with other crossbow hunters. It will provide you with an opportunity to share your stories and photographs with the young and the old, alike. It will also be our political bond, keeping its readers informed about the latest challenges and successes in the current struggle for complete acceptance of the crossbow and crossbow hunting. You will receive a Membership Card with your membership package and a new, updated card each time you renew your membership. You will receive an attractive bumper sticker that proudly proclaims that you are a Member of the American Crossbow Federation. You will also receive four quarterly issues of the Horizontal Bowhunter Magazine with each year of paid membership. The ACF endeavors to unite ALL hunters, while sharing the positive benefits of modern crossbow hunting. Already our Individual Members are asking us to take the lead in filling needs, which they feel are of genuine concern. Since our inception we have launched the ACF Big Game Register, which is the official crossbow big game record book. This unique record keeping system accepts entries of any animal taken with an arrow regardless of what kind of archery equipment was used in its harvest from any paid ACF members. It includes categories for every animal in the world, even including one for the wild turkey. A committee of ACF members designed and released the ACF Official Crossbow Shoot Rules for family tournaments. These guidelines have been designed to stress the fun and family value of shooting your bows together, rather than stressing the competition aspect. It encourages members to share their knowledge with their fellows in an effort to make them better shoo
