Good morning,

I am planning to assemble some javelins, and I am trying to familiarize myself with all my options for javelin heads. Right now I am favoring the Arms and Armour model, but what else is out there? I am interested primarily in the performance aspects of the javelin so I am willing to entertain pieces appropriate to just about any period.

I have 3 javelins from A&A and though I am no expert at throwing them, I can give you some of my observations.

I think it matters how you throw them because when I first tried them out I tended to throw them like a baseball with a little sidearm action. This did not work very well as the Javelins tended to hit the target sideways. I think that if the head were heavier, I wouldn't have had this problem as much. I found that by throwing the javelins directly over my head and trying to avoid the "side arm" motion, I had much better luck. Another thing that helped was to hold the javelin closer to the point versus its center of balance when throwing it. Which leads me to think that these javelins are extremely light and because there isn't a lot of mass, they don't travel very far. Although it could be that my technique just sucks.

I plan to purchase some thick leather pieces from Tandy and cut them into vanes in order to turn my Javelins into darts. I think that the vanes will stop the "turning sideways" problem the the absence of any decent throwing technique by me.

I bought three javelin points from A&A and I love them. The weight of the point will never rectify your curvature if you throw with the slightest baseball like motion. You have to learn to release the javelin in a straight line without any twist or lateral wrist movement. Proper leg work will help the velocity and distance, but not so much the precision, but the wrist, arm, and shoulder must at all costs remain in the true or straight axis as you release. Practice makes perfect.
For the wood I used ready made poles from a hardware store, most probably destined for some form of garden tool, about five feet long, which I sanded in such a way as to leave a bit more wood near the point, and also near the other extrmity. Think of an elongated wasp form, only not so exaggerated. They fly true when well thrown.
I have brought them to a few events where we set up targets and pass them around. Most new users will throw it wil a twist, but this is soon corrected when they see how a straight release improves thw accuracy and the velocity... and then there was this one fourteen year old who was a natural who put all the rest of us to shame right from the very beginning. He had never played ball and didn't have the tendancy to twist his wrist. Have fun.

Allen those are looking good...BTW do you have an Irish kit?

I think I recall seeing such on Mark Morrow's site www.swordsmith.net, though now details other than contact seem to say "site under construction". Mark's name comes up on roman larp site.

This reminds me...
Ever since I first saw those javelins by A&A, I've wanted to buy a dozen and make a large ballista for them. So many projects, this is one I'm probably not going to get around to....