There are several stories I want to tell in this post so bear with me please.
Every year an Army ammo depot hosts a 2 day traditional archery shoot. Sat is for any bow without cams. Sunday is for self bows and wood arrows only. Sunday is the day I attend. My son Daniel is now 7.5 yrs old and can hold his own with a bow. He can pull a 20 lb hickory bow I made from one axe handle and is pretty good. So this year he came with me and my buddy Nathan.
Mojam just ended as everybody knows and Salvador from Paleoplanet came by for a visit. I gave him 4 bundles of raw switch cane arrow shafts in return for some shafts he gave me years ago. He also gave my son a yucca stalk quiver he had made, which my son made very good use of at this shoot. Thanks Sal my son loves it and appreciates it very much! Heres a pic of him and my best bud walkin the 3d trail.
I asked on this site about how to make some arrow heads and wanted to show what we came up with. We used the largest duplex nail Lowes had, 3 inches long and weighing ( as best as I remember 120 gr ). We chucked it into my friends metal lathe and turned them down into some very nice bullet points.
Some of the cane shafts inside diameter were larger than the nail was so I rolled paper onto the nail shaft to make it larger and squeezed it in there with hot melt glue. There were 25 targets, every one requiring some trick shot. Despite more misses than I will admit to and hitting many a tree only one arrow broke. I didnt wrap a single one at the base and thats why. The head split the shaft.
Nathan is also shooting a bow I made from hickory axe handles only his is made up of two handles than just one like Daniel's. This is him warming up and testing his two fletch arrows before the shoot the next day. I am still amazed such a short bow goes back so far....
At the shoot they gave all the children a medal for participating. My son though hot and sweaty in the 90+ degree heat after a 2 hour hike and shoot was still very excited. He even told me it was the best day ever and wanted to keep shooting long after Nathan and I were tuckered out.
Heres a few shots we made. The goat was about a 40 yard shot through trees and into a pile of rocks. Lots of broken arrows everywhere. Despite choosing our worst arrows for this shot, we hit it. My buddy hit the leg and I got the eye. Good times.
My son is the only one of us to hot the turkey. My shot was an inch low and hit a branch defecting an otherwise perfect shot. Such is life, but Daniel sure had a hoot at being the only one to hit it!
Heres a few more shots
