If you draw and loose warbow without an arrow it can break, probably killing you in the proces. Its not safest thing to do.

Anyway - I wont explain it as it would take long writing, but I will give example. Take a bow, make a lots of arrows of different weight.
Shoot, start the heaviest arrows and chart the distance. At certain point lighter arrow will not go further.
This means that the limbs of the bow are reaching terminal velocity and wont go faster. Warbow has massive limbs, so this value which is called "dry fire speed" (its the WEIGHT of the arrow) is rather high (means youll end up with rather heavy arrow).
If you want to shoot for distance with light flighting shaft you dont need lots of energy, you need fast recovery speed of the limbs.
This is with any wooden bow in the drawweight of about 65# due to unique properties of wood itself. Heavier bows suffer from "law of dimnishing return" - they have more massive limbs and hence the recovery speed of the limbs is slower.

There is no such thing as "steppe bow" by definition, not even if reffering about it in ethnographic terms. The remark with stack is nonsense. 80´´ or 82´´ full circle tilered warbow dont stack at 36´´, why should it stack at 32 1/2´´ of drawlenght. It is so long not to stack and allow to be drawn comfortably even if very strong.

The bow with ears arent something like "better technology", majority of designs with exception of two (turk and korea) shoot not any better than wooden bows. They were first made in areas where no good bow wood was to be found.
Some of them are made short because the material allows it, some of them like chinese bows, or mongol can be as long as 70 -72´´ for a warbow.
Even turkish bows which are generally on shorter side can be 62-64 when made for war or target archery.

Now what is stack really - when you fasten the bow on the tilering tree and start to draw. Chart the distance and the force needed to pull into a f/d graph. In the moment the string reaches angle of 90 degrees there is a sudden grow in the force and this point is called point of stack. Now bows with ears are shorter when strung but they get longer as you draw them. This helps to keep the string angle somehow low for a while.
BTW. if you connect the points on the graph you get f/d curve and the area under curve is energy stored in the bow by drawing it.

Jaroslav

I m sorry if I sound very dry, I m trying to clarify some things as I m bowmaker and archer by trade.

When drawing warbow the good form is to start with bow beside you, rather than infront of you. Not only back, but big chest muscles do alot of usefull work. Hovever it is taxing to ellbows and even best and strongest archers like Simon Stanley suffer from this.
It is not healthiest occupation.

Go back to bickerstaff bows and check the main page. Mark Stretton has set a world record and drawn a 200 pound yew longbow.

Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jean: I m sorry, I m not very good diskuter on web. I m not that awfull in person, if you know me.

Mark Stretton is my friend. He is very fine person and very good bowman indeed.


I have a videoclip "how to draw a warbow" which we did in summer, I have uploaded it on rapidshare. Are you folks interested in the link?

Jaroslav

I will ask him if it was good to write the article.

I ll dig out the link for the movie. I uploaded it while ago.....

I have made a cross bow once but never a long bow. I think they are harder to do then the normal cross bow prod.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v653/Dougla...ossbow.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v653/Dougla...T00080.jpg
full draw.

I have a pic of the trigger but I just made the trigger up so i dont think youll find it in any history books

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v653/Dougla...CT0005.jpg

If you want to make a bow...talk to my friend on this site

http://www.slinging.org/forum2/yabb/YaBB.cgi?...1142987636

Oh yes all you need is a knife and your good to go. I have a draw knife that i love for bow and cross bow makeing. :cool:

My bow itself is not here yet, but it should be here in a couple of weeks. :fingers crossed: In the meantime, I thought some of you might appreciate this photo of my Mother's Day gifts. This is the scene that greeted me this morning. :)

The cube targets are from my 16 year old son, who also took the photo for me. The hand drawn targets are from my 10 year old son, and the lovely bouquet is from my dear sweet hubby. Everybody say, "Awwwwww!"

Don't forget to call your mother today!

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I finally got a chance to shoot my bow and my husband was lucky enough to capture the bow and arrow in motion at the moment of release. Pure luck, but a fun photo. :D The second photo is just to show what the bow looks like when it's stationery. (And, yes, I know, I shouldn't be leaning so far to the right. :blush: )

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At the moment of release, both the bow and the arrow are in motion.

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Still shot.

Pamela,
Those are some nice photos. Congrats on the new bow.

I have a bow on order from UC Crossbows(they now make hand bows and crossbows). 55# at 26' draw length and six feet tall osage backed with bamboo.
I can't wait to get it. I'll post pics when I do

-James

Pamela;

Good to see you having fun with the bow and maybe you can have a bout with Bill at 50 paces were he uses a longsword and you shoot at him as he tries to close in on you. ;)

Oh, to be nice: The arrows would have nice big rubber tips or my " joke " would be mean. :eek:

Might actually be interesting as long as the safety equipment is up to it.

Now you have got me tempted to get back into archery I've started asking questions about the UC Crossbows horsebow and you and I know that this is just the beginning of the slippery slope leading to a smaller bank balance. ;)

I already have a laminated recurve bow at 80# of draw that's been languishing in a closet for years and a modern pulley bow. So I'm asking questions about a 100# custom draw. ( Cost and advice might sway me to the standard max 75# they offer. )http://www.uccrossbows.com/2006horsebows.html

I want to try a real warbow without all the modern plastic arrow shelfs, sights, stablelisers etc ....... that I'm probably misnaming: With my recurve I used a minimum of this but I want to try un-assisted instinctive shooting.

So, are you starting to group your shots ? There is a learning curve with everything, and it is a new skill, but I would think that the concentration and focus you have developed with swordsmanship can transfer to another skill: The mind with no mind state is similar I think.

Well, take care and have fun.
Jean