shortest useful length of horn

[stuckinthemud]

Morning!
I just received a large box of water-buffalo horn off-cuts for my crossbow project (yes, I finally made a start!).  Anyway, much to my surprise the box holds sixteen back-strips, some are relatively long, though not as long as if they came off whole horns - the solid horn has been removed before they sent the hollow sections to me.  Anyway, what would you reckon is the shortest useful length of horn for building a horn-and-sinew bow?

[sleek]

Lol, that depends on how long a bow you wanna build. And its stats. You would be better posting your hotn lengths, and ask what can be gotten from them and how.

[stuckinthemud]

Fair enough, let's say a 26" draw, 45# weight.

[Aaron H]

Typically, you are better off using narrow strips with Turkish type bows,  and shorter length strips work well with Mongolian and Hungarian bows.

[Bjoern Sofeit]

The shortest ones are Conquest Mongol bows, and Hungarians like already mentioned. The horns don't really need to touch in the grip, you can make a larger celik to match.

Generally, 35cm solid final thickness is the minimum, +40cm is better. E.g. 4 or 5mm thickness to the end. You can let the last 5cm towards the knee taper out, but having an even strip that you can taper down later is always better and more controlled.

Turks "can" have the horn run to half the kasan, but that depends on your sense for security.