Recurve, I used to hunt rats with one, at a friends dairy. We used a six foot piece of copper tubing, thick stainless spring wire, we got at a hobby shop, and plastic golf tees. It isn't the bore diameter, so much as the length. The longer it is , the more velocity you get. When I worked as an electrician's helper, we would shoot wire nuts at each other through ten foot pieces of EMT, (electrical metal tubing), and let me tell you when you can knock a big dent in a metal stud, and warp it a bit, it leaves a big welt! We would take fresh cement, and pack it into a short section of pipe, and wait for it to almost dry, and then gently push it out, and then break it off into about 1 inch sections, then when it was dry, we would put it back in the longer piece, and shoot the plumbers, at another building, and they would start cussing the plasterers, and then we would take plumbing putty, and whack a plasterer, and they would start cussing the plumbers. They never did catch on it was us. But we were consistently hitting them from the third story, down to the first floor, of a building, on the other side of the court yard. You can send a piece of that cement out of sight. When it hits, it hits with authority. So go with a minimum of six feet, but prefferably 8-10 ft. You don't need poison to kill grouse, squirrels, rabbits etc. It you get good enough, shoot a turkey, in the head. The Indians did. They were exceptionally accurate with them. We would flatten out the wire, and file and grind them into broad heads, and then hone the edges to a very sharp edge. Did a number on rats. The beams of the barn, where the feed was stored, looked like they had christmas decorations.
When I get to Montana, and get settled, I am going to make a Cherokee style blow gun. Made one a long time ago, and it worked well. I used a small eighth inch thick dowel, about 12 inches long or so, and deer fur for the seal. You can use thistle like Hillbilly said. The Indians would gather them, and pick the bulbs, green, and place them in a split stick, and tie the end, and wait for the thistle to dry, and then pick out the thistle, and then the seeds, and line the thistle up in the palm of one hand, and then with thread stuck in a small split in the end of the dart shaft, and the other end of the string in their mouth, they would push the shaft, into the thistle, and and upwards, twisting the shaft, and winding the thistle around the shaft in a spiral mode, then they would tie the string off after using a small loop, to put the tag end of the string into, and then pull the loop, and bury the tag end of string in the wrap. Then they would stick the dart into the end of the blow gun, pushed down a little ways, and trim off the excess thistle, and then they would all be the same. I got some bamboo from a friend of mine, to make some. I want to make one for my Chiropractor in Montana. He hunts grouse with a single shot shotgun. I told him I plan to hunt them with a blow gun, and he got very interested in that, so I told him I would make him one. I have a lot of thistle around my shop. My dart wrapping was not the greatest looking, but it performed very well. Yeah, I have also read where they would split the bamboo, or cane, and knock out the nodes, and then smooth and polish the insides, and then glue and wrap the two pieces of tube.Recurve, by the way.......spell check is free on here.
If you are going to try for college, you better get your spelling down.......
Trust me, they look for that, on entrance exams. Not only in college, but in interviews, and job applications. Ya know whut I mean Vern?
Wayne
