The most expensive recurve button you can buy. Is it worth it? Bow finds out.
The Wifler Industries MP-One is a plunger like no other, developed by US archer Alex Wifler, and one of just two products presently sold by his company.
Almost other buttons on the market work in pretty much the same way; a spring pushes against the tip, and a rotating barrel pushes against the spring. This goes for both the cheapest Chinese copies and the reference ‘standard’ Beiter button used by the majority of top archers. You are paying for improved parts, machining and tolerances.
I still like my Beiter button, but the proprietary plastic spanner required to get it on and off the riser drives me nuts, frankly. AAE also produce a button used by many top archers, and the Shibuya DX is a well-regarded standard which will deliver results at almost any level.
But almost all buttons use the same technology: springs, which are developed to certain tolerances but have various issues that mean they do not last forever.
The MP-One looks similar to most plungers, but uses opposing rare earth magnets, driven together in an aluminium barrel. Apart from that barrel, it has no moving parts.
The barrel and locking collar are locked down with two hex bolts, pleasingly, a size larger than the size used on both Beiter and Shibuya buttons, when meaningful, locked-down tightening often feels like you’re going to break something. The plunger tip is made from aluminium, which is supposed to treat your arrows better.
Wifler claims that rain and temperature have less of an effect than traditional plungers, and that the machined barrel has 48 micro adjustments per turn, making it the most ‘adjustable’ available if you are a serious tuning micro-tweaker.
The tuning process is the same; they claim it should be easier to get the bare and fletched arrows going to the same place. I certainly had no problems at all moving arrows around the boss with it.
Apparently developed after playing about with magnetised ‘Bucky balls’, it took Wifler three years to get a prototype working and a total of five years to finally bring the MP One to market. It is available either through his website (wiflerindustries.com) or Lancaster Archery in the USA.
It is not yet being sold through a European dealer, although that may change in the future. The MP-One has a small retinue of pro users at the moment including GBR’s Bryony Pitman and the USA’s Jack Williams, and is available in red, blue, black and a vibrant purple that would make Prince proud.
The simplicity of the button and the technology involved are intriguing, you can’t help but press and feel the resistance of the magnets working against each other. On the riser, it looks and feels solid, sitting tight – and shorter than most other buttons. The price, to be fair, reflects the relatively boutique nature of production.
Can it ever displace Beiter from the long-held button top spot? The answer may like in extensive testing carried out by an international team somewhere, and the long-term durability.
Me, I’m going to leave it here for a while and see if it can work any more magic.
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The problem I have with the beiter button is that it has rubbed my arrows leaving Mark’s on 5 of them. I waS TOLD THE AAE button does not do this. I would like to see if this is the case with the wifler button both being roughly the same price here in the UK
The magnetic button isn’t a new idea with variants available from Arc Systeme in France, possibly the first, and Gabriel in Germany. Both of which are less expensive, with another from Exe costing less again. So there have been alternatives to a spring plunger button for a number of years now.
Only a decade after the Arc Systeme ProMagn magnetic button (and about twice the price). That one uses a hard metal tip for carbons same a plastic tip for aluminum arrows so as to benefit from the reduced friction and wear from having dissimilar materials in contact. Very few high quality buttons using aluminum in recent years as it can sometimes “stick” to aluminum arrows.
Quite happy with my DX button. One of the selling points of the Wiffler and the Beiter is the ease of changing between arrows shafts (i.e. x7 to ace). If Im honest at quater of the price of the Beiter, I just have a button for each arrow type. Makes it super simple. What I don’t like about any of the magnetic buttons is the claim that technically its a smoother button. When people use the words ‘in theory’ or ‘technically’, it normally means they cant prove it. Also you have to remember when things are being recommended by pros is that to them a point on a WA720 is a big thing, I suspect for 95% of the people looking to buy this, they wont see any real measurable difference.