"Horn Bow Performance....."...

[Pat B]

...has been moved to the Admin and Mods Discussion area. When I get more than a few requests to shut it down it's time to pull it for the Admin and Mods review and discussion.

[JW_Halverson]

Thanks for sweeping up the mess. 

[dylanholderman]

Thanks for sweeping up the mess. 

Agreed thanks for moving it, it was starting to get rather aggressive.

[wizardgoat]

Good call

[NOMADIC PIRATE]

Now I'm curious and wanna read it  wish I did when it was on

[blackhawk]

Now I'm curious and wanna read it  wish I did when it was on

Manny...ill sum it up for you..it was 6 pages of this

"Theres no way you can piss that far"

"Yes i can"

"No you cant"

"Yes i can"

"No you cant"

Etc....etc....

N dats about it 

[redhawk55]

I hope we can go on more serious.
As I stated yesterday I really found hornbows overestimated. Why should hornbowery be an art and selfbowery nothing but a primitive craft? This is almost like an affront for all those great selfbowyers whose bows we can admire here in the forum. I guess serious tillering  a selfbow is at least as delicous as tillering a hornbow.
If one takes into account availability of the raw materials, the making of and usability of a hornbow, you end up with a very ineffective kind of bow.
Nevertheless it is a very delicious  and challenging job to do. Every type of bow made of natural materials is a kind of marvel to me.

I guess hornbowery is almost something like a historical error.
Hornbows came up in great quantities when former nomads(Scythians, Mongolians, Osmanians...) tried to built empires. For to boost their military power they decided to standardize their military strategies and so their weapons. The multitude of the nomadic life was gone.
This was the first historical trial to standardize the bow and error- system, the second trial was much more successful( glass, wheel.....). Finally the Scythians, Mongolians, Osmanians,...................had been defeated heavily. It is very interesting and sad to see nomads fail, when they tried to built empires. Hornbows had been almost gone forever.

To me a selfbow and its making of is a kind of nomadic technique, nomadic craft which offers and charged a living variety of possibilities. You never know exactly how you' ll end up with a stave. That's what I will never miss.
Hornbowery is to much bureaucratic.
So to me the horn- vs. selfbowery- thing is much more a question of lifestyle but performance: bureaucrat vs. nomad, fences vs. open range, standstill vs. moving, uniformity vs. multitude....................
Michael

[PatM]

Michael, how far do you actually think they could shoot?

[redhawk55]

I guess you mean hornbows?
I' ve given it up to wait for a nowadays bowyer to shoot these 600- 900 yards history is telling us. Call it propaganda for the powers or whatever, there is no actual evidence hornbows could shoot that far.
Monus and Koppedrayer have shot 340- 430yards with their Osmanian style hornbows, Dan Perry shot 340yards with his primitive selfbow 50lbs. at the Salt Flats. Look here: http://www.usflightarchery.com/pdf/2014%20USAA%20Flight%20Records.pdf.
That's the numbers I would expect and call down to earth.

Michael

[John32r]

That's the numbers I would expect and call down to earth.

Michael

Agreed, those are the numbers that are down to Earth.... Using arrows that couldn't kill a cheesestick much less a man.

[PatM]

I guess you mean hornbows?
I' ve given it up to wait for a nowadays bowyer to shoot these 600- 900 yards history is telling us. Call it propaganda for the powers or whatever, there is no actual evidence hornbows could shoot that far.
Monus and Koppedrayer have shot 340- 430yards with their Osmanian style hornbows, Dan Perry shot 340yards with his primitive selfbow 50lbs. at the Salt Flats. Look here: http://www.usflightarchery.com/pdf/2014%20USAA%20Flight%20Records.pdf.
That's the numbers I would expect and call down to earth.

Michael

  Yes. But you know that  straight up wooden bows have shot 500-800 yards in the past and nobody has come close to those recently.

[redhawk55]

Yes I know. Steve Gardner and Alan Case came up every now and then with those numbers and we all get crazy about them. I' ll give them a try!? I guess it is possible with wooden bows, but.....................how?
Hornbows seem to be to limited by their heavy weight.

I agree flight- arrows are for flight.
Michael

[Marc St Louis]

The rules for flight shooting have changed over the years.  If they still had the same rules for primitive flight that they used 50 years ago you would see records being broken.  The arrow speeds that Adam was getting with his horn bows could easily launch an arrow well over 500 yards if they loosened the rules.  I remember Thomas Duvenay posting on the old DC board a distance shot he took with his 50# Korean Horn bow and a siper of over 500 yards

[PatM]

Adam just needs a shooter, he's already reached over 560. Why can't he find a shooter?

[loefflerchuck]

I'm sorry I never got to see the original post. Ryan filled me in on things said about me. I honestly don't think I would have been offended. before I made my first sheep horn bow I read previous authors describing how their 3' sheephorn bows shot plains style arrows 250 yards. After 20 some attempts I realize this is just a myth. The last one I made was 30" tip to tip with a 70# draw at 18". I could not get the speed much over 140fps and the arrow was well below 10 gpp. I have never claimed these bows can do more than they can. I consider what I'm doing as a few year study on all the styles of the few remaining sheephorn bows left in museums. A sheephorn bow needs to start with a lot of reflex and be overdrawn to match a regular wood bow because of it's weight and materials. That is part of the appeal of these bows. You make a bighorn bow to have a bighorn bow, not because you expect it to outshoot your compound.
 There are talented bowyers on this site as well as writers who have been at this longer than me and I've learned a lot from. I know all about composite vs simple wood bows, so obviously there is another reason I spend 60  hours making a bow that some people will never understand, but the people who used these 2000 years ago to today do.