Long Arrows

[bradsmith2010]

I saw this the other day, and thought the length of the arrows was interesting,,
I figured to get the arrow spine right the longer arrow was needed ,, with the lighter stone tips,,and found the bow interestiing as well,, maybe I should have put it in arrow section,  but it had a bow so got confused

[Bob Barnes]

It does look strange to see such long arrows for such a short bow and short draw... but... It must have worked for him.  A friend gave me a set of wood arrows recently that are spined around 60#.  I shoot a 45# bow most of the time.  These arrows are 31" long and shoot great for me, so maybe longer arrows are more "forgiving" or maybe I just think they shoot well... LOL

[bradsmith2010]

well it does reduce the spine as they go longer,, so I was just guesssing he left them longer to shoot out of that short bow,,, have seen some long west coast arrows, I assumed that shot better that way,,always curious,,the quiver is very interesting as well

[BowEd]

Without knowing the type of wood those arrows are made out of any assumption will be taken out of context.
One other thing longer arrows will do is add mass to less dense material.
He made them to suit his objective.

[bradsmith2010]

maybe cane.. so woould be hard to scrape them thinner,, and maybe light so the extra length was needed for the mass,, I wish I could shoot it, to see,,

[bownarra]

when you play around with the long arrows you quickly realize that it was to pretty much take spine out of the equation.
If you leave arrows at least 10" longer than your draw you will wish you never bothered buying that expensive spine tester on your bench.
100% - longer arrows are WAY more forgiving. There is a solid reason most 'native' arrows are super long.  sure it adds a bit of weight but making spine more or less irrelavent is the reason.
Can you imagine how many shafts would be junk if you had to spine every shoot.....long arrows only need to be 'stiff enough'.

[GlisGlis]

zooming the bow it looks hollow
that's the first one I see in a "historic" picture

If you leave arrows at least 10" longer than your draw you will wish you never bothered buying that expensive spine tester on your bench.
100% - longer arrows are WAY more forgiving.

+1
it is also more forgiving if the arrow is a little bit crooked

[Aksel]

primitive arrows where looong. Spine gets less important with long arrows, especially on close hunting distances. Ryan Gill has some nice videos on the subject where he shots arrows spined between 40-70lbs on 15yrds and also hunt boars with really long arrows.

[BowEd]

Longer arrows work well.
I've seen shows in the amazon by natives using very long arrows.Extreme amount of mass goes with those arrows for penetration.

[gutpile]

those are relatively short arrows compared to South American tribes that typically shoot arrows up to and over 4ft long foreshafted with bone or fire hardened tips.. gut

[BowEd]

Yep.

[PaSteve]

In Papua New Guinea some of the tribes hunt Rusa deer with bamboo bows up to 84" in length with a draw weight of 70+#s at a common 27" draw length. The arrows made from cane can exceed 50" in length with 6"+ steel points forged from rebar. The arrows have no fletching, exceed 2000 grains in weight with some having as high as 40% FOC. From what I read they are very accurate with these bows at a distance of 25 - 30 yards. The higher FOC allows for no fletching as long as the arrows are tuned to the bow. So yes, the long arrows do allow for better arrow flight. I also read this type of bow and arrow was also common to some East African tribes.

[bassman211]

That is interesting Steve. On the flip side  Lakota Souix arrows were short with longer fletching, but were used a lot for Buffalo on horse back at short distances.

[bassman211]

West coast  tribes  used 26 to 29 inch vibernum, dogwood, and Hazel shafts, and when they used 26 inch reed arrows it would be  with 3 to 8 inch fore shafts. Kiowa ,and Commanche used 22 to 26 inch dogwood shafts. Souix, Crow , Black foot used 22 to 25 inch shafts made from red osier, wild rose,dog wood, and choke cherry. East coast tribes used 26 to 29 inch arrows made from dogwood yaupon ,hazel, and vibernum. This taken from Jim Hamms... book.... bows,and arrows of the native Americans.

[upthecreek]

TBB 1 Western Indain Bows by Steve Allely shows Pacific Northwest tribes used 30" -36" arrows.