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Anyone ever use a Native American bow?


Buckshot Bear

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I got to pull back an Osage Orange bow some. It had all the poundage I could draw at it's upper limit. Quite impressive but I cut my finger pretty good when the fletching went over it. It was a darn feather! How it cut me I'll never know.

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I have one, originally made from Madrone and heavily covered in dried deer sinew.  It was made by a surviving California Monache bowmaker, sometime around 1915 or so.  Somebody in the past wrapped the handle in string, replacing the rawhide that was originally there (Dang!). 

  I have very carefully shot it.  I'd guess it pulls around 35-40#.  There is plenty there to bring down a deer or even a black bear, if shooter was brave enough to approach one closely enough.  Typically, buck deer were shot I the  scrotum and the blood trail was followed out -- for  miles sometimes, according to Author Frank Latta. 

I'll dig it out of storage and attach a photo asap. 

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5 minutes ago, Michigan Slim said:

I got to pull back an Osage Orange bow some. It had all the poundage I could draw at it's upper limit. Quite impressive but I cut my finger pretty good when the fletching went over it. It was a darn feather! How it cut me I'll never know.

Velocity. Ever see a straw stuck in a telephone pole by a tornado?

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I learned to make them as a Kid, from Cree and  Blackfoot elders my dad traveled and traded with them freely...

This was before they became Whiskey Indians...

When most of them still Trapped and still lived at least partly of the Land.

I killed a Badger with one I made, with arrows I also Made.

 

Jabez Cowboy 

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3 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

Everything I've ever read about them says a draw weight of 30 lb. to 50lb.

I think their stiffness probably depended what they were to be used for.  Shorter stifferwere used for hunting large mammals and for war.  Longer softer ones for shooting fish or birds.

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11 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

Anyone ever use a Native American bow (alike ie same materials) ?

 

How much power did it have?

Style and materials varied from region to region and even time period to time period.

 

The Conquistadors that came through the Southeast wrote of the locals using long bows capable of pinning an armored man's leg to his horse.

 

Those same bows would have been useless to Comanches in the 19th century since they had become a horse culture and you can't shoot a long bow from horseback.

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2 hours ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:

Style and materials varied from region to region and even time period to time period.

 

The Conquistadors that came through the Southeast wrote of the locals using long bows capable of pinning an armored man's leg to his horse.

 

Those same bows would have been useless to Comanches in the 19th century since they had become a horse culture and you can't shoot a long bow from horseback.


tell that to the Japanese. 
 

 

 

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I have a self style bow , I did not make it , shoots pretty well made of walnut and poplar , IIRC 

 

 top limb is a little weaker than the bottom , so you have to walk the string 

 

  being a bit different I shoot carbons off it most of the time , I also tend to shoot carbons off the recurve 

 

   CB 

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I want a medieval crossbow, but it's difficult to find them for sale. Most of the options online are either purely decorative and the ones intended for use are plain wood and stainless steel jumbles that look like they were assembled in a garage being sold for hundreds. Something like this would be cool to own:

I1JeMlk.jpg

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6 minutes ago, Ezra Hawthorne said:

I want a medieval crossbow, but it's difficult to find them for sale. Most of the options online are either purely decorative and the ones intended for use are plain wood and stainless steel jumbles that look like they were assembled in a garage being sold for hundreds. Something like this would be cool to own:

I1JeMlk.jpg

Here you go https://www.by-the-sword.com/c-57-crossbows.aspx

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5 hours ago, Ezra Hawthorne said:

I want a medieval crossbow, but it's difficult to find them for sale. Most of the options online are either purely decorative and the ones intended for use are plain wood and stainless steel jumbles that look like they were assembled in a garage being sold for hundreds. Something like this would be cool to own:

I1JeMlk.jpg

 

I'd like something like that too. I really like the look of that one.

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