I have started making some arrows, for some leisurley shooting at my own backyard archery range and at events. And shooting blunts are fun, you can put your favourite helmet on a stake and shoot at it and both the helmet and the arrows will sruvive!

At the moment I have some rubber blunts of various size and weight, but thought I would take it to another level.
I would however quite like to make a couple of blunts with more historically appropriate blunt heads, and was wondering what I could use?

What type of blunts where in use historically? Does anyone have any examples, litterature recommendations?
I know that Todstuff http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/theenglishcutler/g...blunts.htm have some beautiful reproduction horn blunts for sale, and I will eventually get some of those, but do we have other examples?

If this turns out to be a huge topic, let's say my focus is North-of-the-alps Europe from the Migration period to the 16th century.

Thanks, primitivearchery had a sticky for blunts. mostly modern made using shell casings and hex nuts, but it's a start!

I always forget my sources, but I have seen period illustrations (15th century I think) of arrows with a cloth padding on them. Just like the ones in the attachment (taken from gambeson.pl).

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That was interesting, kind of the 14th century cloth button on a stick!

Since squirrel-fur seem to have been a major export from Scandinavia, and supposdly other luxury furs such as ermine and marten as well (i guess martens where trapped rather than shot) well, there should be some evidence of this. I know squirrelshooting with crossbows is mentioned in period documents (Erikskrönikan)

For birds or rabbits I guess that the hardness of the blunt is not much of an issue, but for a small animal where you want the valuable skin intact (like small mustelidaes) a softer/rounder/larger point is preferrable

I will check the image database of historiska this weekend and see what I come up with there as well.