350 lbs Composite-Recurve Bow

who did use such a - weapon of mass destruction ?

who will shoot this bow ? or what ?

That's not a bow - that's a siege engine. I doubt anyone, anywhere in history has made a 350# draw hand held bow. Go to the junk yard and get a couple of leaf springs if you want that sort on nonsense!

What an arrogant American! You disgust me! I am ashamed to be a citizen of the same country as you. How dare you come to ATARN out of nowhere and ask someone to spend the hundreds of hours necessary to create a bow and then give it away. You have done nothing to warrant such a princely gift. You have contributed nothing to this organization to warrant such a gift.

You're just saying "Give me!" Shame on you!!!!!

You say "I have become obsessed about wanting to know about the performance of some weapons...but I don't have a lot of money to spare."

For those who are confused, I apologize for the confusion. Yes, this composite-recurve is for a crossbow.

KenH wrote:

That's not a bow - that's a siege engine. I doubt anyone, anywhere in history has made a 350# draw hand held bow. Go to the junk yard and get a couple of leaf springs if you want that sort on nonsense!

What an arrogant American! You disgust me! I am ashamed to be a citizen of the same country as you. How dare you come to ATARN out of nowhere and ask someone to spend the hundreds of hours necessary to create a bow and then give it away. You have done nothing to warrant such a princely gift. You have contributed nothing to this organization to warrant such a gift.

You're just saying "Give me!" Shame on you!!!!!

You say "I have become obsessed about wanting to know about the performance of some weapons...but I don't have a lot of money to spare."

:shock:
Woah, hold on there. I do realize that people should be paid. This was why I used the word "Rightfully"; I am well aware that bowyers should be paid for the hard work that they had performed.
This is why I am just asking around; I am not forcing people by saying things like "Give me!".

AZN; Why not start with a miniature crossbow and use it as a prototype to work your way up to the big boy? I have shot a #400 crossbow and it is a fearsome thing. I cannot see providing such a thing to anybody. I am sure you understand.

jack farrell wrote:

AZN; Why not start with a miniature crossbow and use it as a prototype to work your way up to the big boy? I have shot a #400 crossbow and it is a fearsome thing. I cannot see providing such a thing to anybody. I am sure you understand.

Thanks jack. That is a good idea.

TheAzn wrote:

Can somebody here create a 350 lb composite-recurve bow with an adjustable 4-6 inches brace-height and 26 inch max draw-length for me, please?

Where did you get this specification from? Did you read that someone shot bows like this?

Stephen,
I did some research into the maximum weight a person could draw with both feet and both hands relating to flight archery. Later I discovered that there are Han reliefs of soldiers cocking crossbows the same way. Depending on the weight equivalent of the measurements in some of the Han slips found on the Western end of the Great wall, there are records of crossbows of that weight range. Obviously a bow that requires both feet and both hands to cock would not be suitable for open battle, but it would be suitable for wall defence and use behind defensive structures like field fortifications.

I remember you discussing some elaborate methods for groups of soldiers to keep a stream of cocked crossbows coming forward to the front line.

Noted, Bede; but TheAzn seems to be looking for a conventional composite bow... :shock:

Stephen,
The heavy bows I read about were all military bows in use on the Great Wall. As I wrote, there has to be some restriction on how they were used.

Crossbows were also used for hunting and home defence according to one Ming text. it specifically referred to repeating crossbows as suitable for dealing with burglars.

I remember from some of your research that the ability to cast the elaborate bronze locks was lost after the Han dynasty and periodically rediscovered. Warring States and Han dynasty crossbow locks are considerably over engineered. I think I read of a replica being used with a ballista on one occasion.

In the other thread on this subject you illustrate a figure with a leaf spring crossbow. However, in surviving Han tomb models of watch towers, the bows are usually composite and large. I have not seen any studies of the efficiency of the leaf-spring bows, but I doubt that they would be comparable to good composite bows. The surviving Korean crossbow laths prove that a bowyer need not use expensive horn for the belly. Again, I have not seen any reports on testing replicas of these bows either.

The bows and arrows museum near Seoul is just full of reproduction crossbows powered by composite bows. These were made by living treasure status craftsman reproduced from Korean texts. Find their web site.

I remain confused about what the originator of this thread was after. Meanwhile, I have no problem with the idea the crossbows were pulled 350 pounds or more. Also, I am sure that many were made with a horn/sinew composite prod.

But why? Difficult to maintain; sensitive to damp and temperature... Crossbow prods don't really need to be pulled back far: almost universally the length of stock was equal to the distance between the prod tips and the prod was mounted at the end of the stock. That's not much of a draw and in later times, a self wood prod or bamboo leaf spring prod worked fine. Also although the watchtower crossbowmen are indeed armed with crossbow prods well set-back at the centre, all the actual Han crossbows I have seen had an aperture to take the prod that was rectangular.

I guess this has got off the original subject of the post. I'll split it later...

Azn states that the composite bow is intended for a crossbow.

Azn, a little time researching will save vast amounts of time on R & D.

Stephen, I have specifically mentioned, sometimes later in this thread, that this would be for a crossbow. I apologize for the confusions that I have caused. I will put the edit in the OP post.

jack farrell wrote:

Azn states that the composite bow is intended for a crossbow.

Azn, a little time researching will save vast amounts of time on R & D.

What's R&D?
And BTW, I have done tons of research. If I were to have found this forum much sooner(this forum does not turn up in Google for some reason), the vast amount of time that I have been researching would have beens saved. However, of course, researching has its positives; this is why I know exactly what to ask for.

Ok. All is now clear. I had missed some parts of the post. Mea culpa. :oops:

If your objective is to study the outcome of shooting from a crossbow with 350 lbs draw-weight, I suggest that you avoid the expense and fragility of a horn/sinew composite. You would be paying (or asking someone to provide for free) a valuable item that is quite likely to break during your experiments.

I suggest we ask other experts on the forum to suggest a feasible alternative for getting the same outcome at less cost. Fiber and carbon are both hi-tech and expensive. Maybe a self bow would do the trick - there are articles (not on ATARN) about a 200lb self longbow. I suspect that you could make a bamboo leaf spring (or even steel?) that could get up to 350lbs without too much cost.

Or there are alternative designs, like the one below :wink:

Stephen wrote:

Crossbow prods don't really need to be pulled back far: almost universally the length of stock was equal to the distance between the prod tips and the prod was mounted at the end of the stock. That's not much of a draw and in later times, a self wood prod or bamboo leaf spring prod worked fine.

There are a few assumptions here that need to be assessed.

Crossbow lathes are bows and subject to the same physics as hand bows. The longer the power stroke a bow has, the more energy it can impart to an arrow. European crossbows went down a strange developmental path with shorter draw lengths and more massive bows to compensate for the reduced power stroke.

The length of the stock in the 1:1 ratio proposed is relative. Longer bows would end up with longer stocks. Qin crossbows, the immediate predecessors of Han crossbows, have quite large bows. Han pottery models of watch towers have model crossbowmen with substantial lathes with curvatures that imply they were composite.

Later crossbows are often considered to have been inferior and technical information suggests that they also used weaker and less sophisticated locks. Ming texts describe crossbows with ranges that are much shorter than previous dynasties. The large bronze and iron arrowheads used in the Qin and Han would have hardly travelled far if used in later crossbows. In fact, the military encyclopaedias show poison to have been used in the later dynasties which would have been unnecessary with some of the Qin and Han weapons.

This leaves the pottery figure to be explained. There are Han Dynasty reliefs in tombs showing small bows and crossbows being used to shoot birds in trees. It is possible the figure represents a hunter. There is good reason to believe that crossbows were common weapons and there is no reason to think that hunting and civilian bows would not have been of a lesser standard than the military weapons. You don't need a bazooka to shoot a turkey.

Regarding the multi-bow siege crossbow, McEwen made a replica of one of these using self bows. I think with the complex string path he ended up with a 42 inch draw. He made the two rear bows 40 pounds draw weight at 14 inches and the front bow as 20 pounds. This created a machine with a 100 pound draw weight at 42 inches. McEwen calculated the relative stored energies of a straight bow of 100 pounds at 14 inches, the experimental bow and a projected reproduction with composite bows. The two actual comparisons show a much greater stored energy for the multi-bow machine because of the long draw. The article is in Vol. 28 of the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries.

A wooden prod would have to be rather huge to store 350#. The yew prod on the picture below was drawing 100# when it was just made. It is probably drawing around 80 now after a few years not having been unstrung.

It's thickness is about the maximum of what it's length and draw lenght will allow (as I have found by breaking a few that was slightly thicker). A 350# version of the same length and draw length would have to be 3,5 times as wide as this one. (about 15cm wide at the middle) It might work for giving a few indications of the power of such a weapon, but I doub't it would have any historical reference. Not even in Asia :wink:

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As for the original purpose of the topic, I think the answer is much more easily found in the litterature. "The book of the crossbow" by Ralph Payne Gallwey (which I probably misspelled) could perhaps be a good start? I think he wrote of some tests of a steel 1200# crossbow, at least.

Payne-Gallwey definitely discusses heavy crossbows. There are also good German and Dutch references. Apparently, some traditional Italian crossbow societies use steel bows that have been measured in excess of 2,000 pounds.

Short wooden bows are not a good way to develop extra heavy crossbows. Even with composite bows, the construction is not easy. As the bows get thicker, any flaws in building it become more likely to cause failure. Modern Korean crossbow builders had scaled up hand bows rather than trying to use the form of traditional crossbow laths. The highly reflexed and thick bows in the Military Museum at Seoul are not easy to reproduce.

The AZN, I didn't understand one thing, do you need some exact replica? You didn't precise what kind of crossbow,classical mediaeval European or some ''siege machine''.

I am sure, as you said that you have the time for hobby, you could do some research, or visit some museum and to explore. I don't know how about hornbow as part of crossbow, but you can do experiment with wood/steel bows.I assumed ATARN is the place for traditional archery,making and exploration traditional materials and equipiment and i hope it will be same in the future, without ''space NASA stuff''.
All you have to do is to find some good,best traditional pattern and work on it. As first time bowyer will break some of the bows,doing a lot of mistakes it is same in exploration of future crossbowmaker.
I know a guy from California who makes his crossbows(for SCA purposes) but i should ask him about his possibilities.

Also i am sending one picture from Military museum in Belgrade, crossbow with a wood/steel as combination for the bow.It is not recurved one but you can try. Am not sure horn/wood combination could stand 350lb. Sorry if i didn't understand what was your purpose.
Greets and God bless you all
Zoran

Zoran,
The European horn/wood/sinew composite crossbows were very strong. I would not be surprised at bows well over 500 pounds. The design criteria in Europe required a short draw and the result was an escalation in bow weight. The adoption of steel bows for cross bows was probably for convenience rather than because they could not make horn bows over 1,000 pounds.