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billmac |
Horsebow advantages? |
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I mean, other than shooting from a horse? These things look super-cool, but do they have any performance advantages compared to other combo or laminate bows?
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sumpitan |
Re: Horsebow advantages? | ||
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I'm assuming you talk about present-day horsebows, not ask for comparison of ancient weaponry?
The modern mass-produced horsebow replicas (mostly from Hungary) are surprisingly inefficient weapons. They typically cast mid-weight arrows through a chrono no faster than average straight selfbows of similar pull. On the flight range they usually reach out to just 140 or so meters. Even a true Hungarian horn composite of such design, with a 80# pull didn't break the 200 meter barrier a couple of years back at our flight shoot, a distance many have reached using rough selfbows and less than optimal arrows. Well-designed, force-reflexed laminate woodbows are far, far more efficient from what I've seen. Most of these modern horsebows have extremely massive outer limbs and syiahs, no doubt due to liability issues. They look bomb-proof, but the several ounces of extra mass on the tips comes with a cost. Also, the unbraced profiles of these are deflexed like their modern counterparts, to ease manufacturing and bracing them, not reflexed like the original horn composites, with a big loss of performance right there. On the plus side, the horsebows typically have an extremely smooth pull - they typically feel several pounds lighter than they really are at full draw and digest surpisingly long draws per bow length. They are sturdy, dependable weapons that probably last for decades. No doubt many shoot theirs with great accuracy and all the power they need. Tuukka |
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BowWulf |
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Im buildin my modern day glass Horsebow with a reflex/deflex design, hoping it will improve performance!!
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dutchwarbow |
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Billmac,
some basics: if you make a bow twice as strong, it's twice as heavy. A (horn) horse bow needs the same mass for stabilisation for 50pounds, 100pounds, 150pounds. So they get more efficient for every additional pound, if properly made. Hornbows were develloped for war and heavy weights, wooden bows first for hunting, and were slowly built up to warbows. As tuukka said, the modern day glass-horsebows have really massive tips, wich decreases the performance alot. Thanks to the bowyer's bibles the wooden bows are being optimized, and they probably beat the lightweight-bigtip-glass bows. And once again, those big massy recurves make them sweet to draw... Nick |
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Redhorse |
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Even a true Hungarian horn composite of such design, with a 80# pull didn't break the 200 meter barrier a couple of years back at our flight shoot,
Did he use 800 grains arrows? |
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dutchwarbow |
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yap I bet the 'true' and heavy horn bows, from a similar class as 1000years ago, would beat most wood bows around.
too bad there's so little people working on these bows, and even less trying to improve them. This makes it an unfair competition against wooden bows, but since they're getting maxed out, hornbows ca do nothing but outshoot them in the future. Nick |
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Redhorse |
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They can never compete with same setup. Powerstroke, same as half bow length. If you take a wood bow and draw it half bow length it blows in pieces. So if they
are going to compare they will set up the rules so it fits the wood bow. A 70 inch bow should have powerstroke of 35 inch and arrow length of brace height plus
powerstroke, 39 inch. A horn bow can have 7 inch brace, powerstroke of 23 inch shot an 30 inch arrow from a 46 inch bow.
The advantage is that a shorter arrow can be shot at high speed. The shorter arrow is lighter and don't need to be so thick for the spine. That makes it to penetrate better as it has less area. To have same penetration from a wood bow you need heavier arrows, that needs a heavier bow for speed enough and that makes a thicker arrow for the spine, greater area. So maybe a wood bow need to be 2x stronger for making same hole Then there are other advantage that is more of intrest then killing power for us today in our world. |
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dutchwarbow |
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just keep them original, I think a well made hornbow, with it's 46" length and 32" draw shoot a 10/3 arrow as faster than a 67" selfbow with
28" draw, but we just haven't optimized these hornbows yet.
Nick |
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Jaro |
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This discussion always destiles to one point at which turkish bows are called to testify, because they are only group for which hard data has been collected
(thanks to glorious effort of Adam Karpowitz). There is off course a problem with fact tha there is many other types of hornbows, some of which, particulary
long eared bows as magyr, proto-magyar, manchu and some other chinese bows do not appear to be even designed to shoot light and short arrows fast, but heavy
and long arrows with big arrowheads at moderate speeds - something which a keen observer attributes directly to presence of hard armour on battlefields said
cultures once had engaged.
I do not believe that some of the "spear thrower" designs such as magyar will exceed the performance of the wooden bows of comparable weight and drawlenght since they carry huge syiahs, which with increasing drawweight have to be made reasonably robust and the limbs and handle wide enough for warbow designation to be stable and reliable in field. There is mind you an offset at which light bows perform just horrid, because they cannot be made with reasonably better mass/performance ratio. This seems to be somewhere between 65-80# for some fo the long eared bows and less for short eared, but long eared bows do not get rid of this problem entirely even if made much stronger due to engeneering problems which arise once you start to design really heavy reliable bow. It also makes sense since horsearchers typically do not need to engage enemy at long distance, that is what the horse is for and skirmishing tactitcs "close, engage, withdrawn" is well documented in most of these cultures. Nick, I think that you will be well pushing it with 46" of hronbow and 32" long arrow, I understand that both turkish and korean, being on short side are not well suited for this kind of drawlenght - (rather than 28"). And consequently I m not aware of long eared bows which work reasonably well so short and drawn that far, since e.g. magyar bows do seem to be as long as 60-68" and suited for shooting long and heavy arrows as well as many other asiatic designs, save some short eared bows, which appear to be few in type and family. Think of the fact that some of magyar and hunnic bows had syiahs in vicinity of 8-10" only 46" will not make the bow as we think they looked like. The calculation Redhorse gave above does not make any sense at all, and he is conveniently pulling numbers "out of turban" to justify his position, which is that of rabid horse archer. He cannot though make and shoot bows as heavy as in question as it was demonstrated in rather shamefull thread while ago. I advise to keep common sense - function justifies construction and when you reverese engeneer it is usefull to asumme also the reverse postulate is true = that the functionality will never exceeds construction limits of the item. Hence if a horsebow with wide, stable limbs and rather massive syiahs, which accumulates lots of energy, but which´s recovery rate of limbs is slow shoots normal arrows with rather mediocre results and not very far, then it is reasonable to assume that it was MEANT to shoot very heavy arrows over short distance during rushing horse attack, particulary when some of the arrowheads which appear to belong to same set of equipment are huge by any standart. (I m still having a picture of Rod´s indian skull crusher arrowhead, which might make nice 3000 grain arrow). Mind you, if you were capable to follow this tangled chain of thoughts up until here, you can probably make qualified guess on what is correct. Jaro
Last Edited By: Jaro
03/30/09 10:59 AM.
Edited 1 times.
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dutchwarbow |
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Jaro, It's good that you get these 'warbows' in the thread, some these over 60" monsters drew over 200# at their 35" draw, with
terrifying penetration.
well, this is about speed-designs, the skinnytips for wooden bows, the turkish/korean for h/s bows: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I was just talking about speed I was trying to indicate the fact that hornbows weren't made for drawweights of 50#, but more like 100#-200#, and logically, they would be the most efficient at those drawweights. As I said, the stabilisation mass for h/s bows is almost the same for both a 50pounder and 100pounder, so it's easy to see a 100pounder would shoot quicker with 10/3 than a 50pounder, right? A wooden bow would need the same mass, and if they're performing the same at 50#, this h/s bow would beat the wooden bow at higher drawweights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- now for warbows: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- we just have to compare the f/d curve of a hornbow with a wooden bow; and it's easy to see you'll draw a heavy chinese, tartar, magyar bow easier than a wooden bow. I wish I had some experience in this, but I'm really happy with my little wooden warbows, wich doesn't take away I'd love to make a heavy composite bow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- well billmac, as we probably all agree (here) is hornbows are quicker at higher drawweights, and they may be a better choice. The modern glass horsebows don't have those advantages. BUT: let's give some plusses and minusses for both wooden and horsebows: wooden bows are easier to make wooden bows are a little quicker at low drawweights horsebows are often more appealing to the eye horsebows are handier horsebows usually have a smoother draw myself, I would go for a horsebow, since I can make these straight ones easily myself, but it's totally up to you. Do you want to go for beautyfull curves, smooth draws, (alot of power with high drawweights), the nostalgy of the only tribes the romans ever feared; the mounted archers, or do you want easyness, simple performance, nostalgy of the old hunting tribes (and the old english warbowmen) ? if you're a target archer, you might just want to go for the smooth draw if you like clout shooting, long-distance shooting, you might go for the wooden bows if you prefer hunting, glass-horsebows, or wooden bows are a good alternative. Real h/s bows will have trouble with possible rain, and humidity for warbows, it's just your preferance. Wooden warbowarchers (like Jaro ..and me hope this helps a lil' Nick |
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Mr Kinjo |
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I just read this all, quite interesting.
Think like Jaro has said so far, it makes much sense. Korean bow would be drawn to 32" as most arrows I see are some 82 cm long. Length of bow seems around 126 cm vary with bowmaker.... Most big Chinese bows have 36" draw length and so short drawing would be quite meaningless for these large 60"+ monsters. Only hornbow maker I know now that probably are making best Chinese bow are Lukas Novotny and Jang Yokhua. Sure there are other, just dont know~ Well, some advantage I like for the composite bow over wood selfbow is you can make bow with relatively small pieces of material! It is possible to make bow with pieces no longer than 60 cm while you may need at least 150 cm to make bow at some 26~28" draw length. (well! maybe if you count bow made from billet, still you may need some 76 cm long billet of wood.) Much easier to find clean short wood the long wood. Performance wise....well, how about ability to withstand long anchor time? Other than that, seems you need some weight or extreme design to be better than wood bows. Or we just dont know how to make composite good yet? possible... |
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dutchwarbow |
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Yup Mr.Kinjo. probably the latter.
Lajos kassai keeps his (h/s) horsebow- building tegniques very secret, but in an intervieuw he talked about mixtures of glue, compressed and chemically treated cores, and said he thought there were alot of mysteries in the preparation of the core. There's just very little we know about them, and since there's only a few hornbow builders, and even fewer speed chasers, we won't take big leaps forward. the wooden bows are already more or less optimized, and the recently discovered heattreatment is one of the chemical treats we found out... Just as the optimized mantra design. With our hornbows, were just in the sixties. We know how to make them, but don't know how to optimize them. Hopefully a h/s bow-tbb will soon come, but I doubt it. nick |
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tunaboy |
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Here's a link to a site about horse bows http://www.atarn.org/chin...inese_bow/making_bow.htm im sure someone has seen this, but it
is about making Chinese style horse bows. the maker in the pictures is Yang Fuxi who appeared on the discovery channel as a bow making expert. NOTE its not
that detailed.
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Patrick St M |
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Heat treating is not new. It is just being re-used and perhaps explored and understood better. The whole idea was revived by a small article on bowyery in the
30's in a 2002 issue of PA that got us speculating on the process. Everybody was a actually initially a bit skeptical that the process could be that good
and even Marc was a bit dubious at first.
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dutchwarbow |
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patrick stM, that was what I tried to show. There's been so many (re) inventions in wooden bows, and there's alot of (re)inventioning to be done in h/s
bows.
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Dusan.traditionalarchery |
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Dutchwarbow- L.Kassai dont know anything more then all peoples who interesting closer to tho composites. Maybe he know more about epoxy /polyester bows , but
thats all... No one from magyars bowmakers dont know nothing more about magyars old bows then archeological founds fue bone plates from siahs and handle.
Todays, or mostly 100 years old bows , this is that Chines , Mongolians or Japans bows what we know. But this is not the same range bows vith same design, technology , drawveight etc. like earlier bows we talking about. I love asiatic composite bows , but must say- here is no secret or shocking . Its all about real practis and war stile efectivity , and from this point, we cant talking about priorita woodbows. (From other side , asiatic archer use wood-or bamboo bows too...) 1. Composite bow can shooting haevy arrows, BUT CAN SHOOT LIGHT ARROWS TO-woodbows no. 2. Composite bow can be in strung position-when situation needed - 40-50-60 days vith no very power loosing , WOOD BOWS NOT 3. Composite bow can bowmaker gluid in big mass production, from very little 20-60cm pieces vith no problem vith material sources. WOOD BOWS ... 4. Composite bow can shooting long time , BUT WOOD BOWS HAD YOUR TIME BORDER 5. If we dont talking about extrem long distance turkish sport archers , but must agree that composite war bow have in all situacion LONGER DISTANCE KILLING EFECT THAN WOOD BOWS. 6. Composite bows is vith his specifik materials more elasticity and smooth draw more wholesome for archer THAN WOOD BOWS. 7. Specifikly short composite bows have two in one. You have short bow for horsearcher and can shooting fast in short distance , but if you need you can shooting in very long distance too - longer than wood bows. WOOD BOWS NOT. In the end, to the billmac question. Todays modern superb material laminate bows was close in technikal rekords , but this no shock effect , smooth draw when you feelin that you draw much more lighter bow ,is very importent for your arms and back muscles and joints.From this reason can practic archery in Korea 80 years man vith pleasure and shooting to the target in 145 m. |
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Jaro |
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1. No that is not correct. Largelly depends on type of bow. Some hornbow designs are clearly not intended to shoot light arrows and wont shoot them well
2. Unless you are horserider I cant see it as advantage. It is a inherent property of the design that it can be done, but it is not an advantage 3. Proper wording of this one would probably be "hornbows can be made in areas in which there is scarcity of wood" - that is how they actually emerged . not as something superior in shooing qualities, but as a means of making bows at places where is no wood. On the other hand, when it comes to wooden bows words "mass production" have entirelly different meaning. 4. Not entirelly sure what you mean? If it concerns the subjective archers fatique, then you probably havent had correctly made wooden bow. I have shot a shooting session with my late 100# osage/hickory bow which consisted of shooting over 100 arrows in series of 10 or 12 5. No we "must not agree". Citation is needed. That means you shall not provide generalisations or statements unless you support them with data. It is clear that some hornbows will be shooting roughly on par or worse than wooden bows due to high syiah mass and overbuild factor with high "law of dimnishing effect" problems 6. No that depends largely on the quality of workmanship. Well made wooden bows have smooth draw too 7. At least second half of this is not correct, or the data for it is not presented. There is no data availble that will proove that horsebows, generally regardless of type shoot better distances than wooden bows. That means all types through the spectrum. The only availble data there are are turkish bows by Adam Karpowitz and non experimental observations from korean archery which is very heavyly sporterised and has nothing to do with shooting "war arrows". Frankly if you want to discus, learn to discuss, otherwise I will be very unpleasant to you. There are some standarts when it comes to presenting discussing points such as logicall consistency and citation of facts, when necessary. [Note from Ken: Those standards should also preclude being rude or using antagonistic language. Your excellent point is completely diluted by your threat and subsequent vitriol] Untill some of you boys starts to shoot 50 gram arrows at 300 meters and 250 with 75 gram, with any hornbow type chosen (aside of turk and korean) this discussion is fairly pointless. I also fail to see any evidence that long eared high draw bows like magyar and protomagyar (e.g. Moschewaja Balka) will outshoot well made wooden bow pound per pound with the same arow for distance - mind you 400 yards with lb is nothing unheard of. J.
Last Edited By: toxophileken
04/07/09 9:02 PM.
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Dusan.traditionalarchery |
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Hi Jaro,
nice to see you here in international place . Our discusion in czech boards is about same theme. You talk about , like you have any experience vith high range composite bows made vith old technique ?!? You need citation, or logical consistency... I have MINE PERSONALY experiences .Not of all what i say , but some , yes. And if anybody from "composites"fan citation historical sources about composites - your answer is - "Its false" ... I am not from this , who adore composites in high haeven. Composites have your problems ( humidity, unstable , twisting etc. ) but if have any advantige , that you must acknowledge this. For precise - we dont talk -like in other discusin is normal- about plastic replicas or todays chines or mongols or not very good construction replicas todays bowmakers. We talking about best representats of historical composites bows. Yes , i havent this tipe of bow in mi hand. But i try made miself and some of mi bows have interesting results. If you have a time , you can read book from Adam Karpowitz. Here is some real facts/no citation/ for you. For me is stil this 7 points right .(sorry but 100 arrows in 10-12 series is not what i mean "long time shooting" , wood bow smooth draw is very lóóóng distance from this point , what i mean about draw good composite bow, 60 or more days strung bow is not advantege ? Ok your opinion...) |
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Jaro |
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"You talk about , like you have any experience vith high range composite bows made vith old technique ?!?"
- And you talk like you have any experience with high draw wooden bows made by respectable maker "I have MINE PERSONALY experiences .Not of all what i say , but some , yes." - Which is useles as we dont have any details, or at least "what you have or not have" Anecdotical evidence at best. (Anecdote here is "jedna paní povídala" type of argumentation, not "joke". "We talking about best representats of historical composites bows." - No we do not. That is what you do and it is a type of strawman. You claim that turkish or korean are typical representative of hornbows, which clearly they are not. They are cherry picked group. "Yes , i havent this tipe of bow in mi hand. But i try made miself and some of mi bows have interesting results." - Which does not tells us a squat until you post them. "If you have a time , you can read book from Adam Karpowitz. Here is some real facts/no citation/ for you." - I actually have the book. Hovever, you are acting like if all the hornbows had performance of high end otoman turkish bows, which is frankly laughable claim. ( In this context "citation" mean that you should present some data) - Improve your english. "For me is stil this 7 points right ." Which makes you either dishonest or daft. I m trying to present my points to actually make sense, whereas you did not provided any facts at all until now. All you do is to present claims as if they were universal truths. Understand that "It is true because I say so" is not an argument at all. I m still awaiting clearly worded logical aguments. "(sorry but 100 arrows in 10-12 series is not what i mean "long time shooting"" With a bow of 105# at 31" it is "long time shooting", but obviously you have no idea what I m talking about. Explain me why all the hornbow makers and shooters keep making them and shoot them at weights we usually refer as "target or recreationall" - (generally though there are exceptions like yokhua ) "wood bow smooth draw is very lóóóng distance from this point" That is subjective to any archer and will varry between the bows respective of type. I have actually shot grozers horn turk and I liked his TRH version made of modern materials better - which again proves my point - that craftsmanship and bow type will determine what is "smooth" and what is not. " 60 or more days strung bow is not advantege ?" It is not, unless something prevents you to string or unstring bow for 60 days. Imagine if I wrote (a perfectly valid) : "Hornbows are dificult to brace as it requires in many cases wooden former, carefull heating and excersising to achieve good braced and drawn shape, hence they aren suitable for field use at all." - See using the same logic you have no problems at all to use, I just have turned general property you are speaking of in reverence, from advantage to disadvantage. Understand this - a long wooden bow used usually by infantryman is so easy to brace, in seconds of time, that this point is rendered completelly irellevant. "For me is stil this 7 points right" " Ok your opinion...)" - Stop being ass. I m so fed up with czech hornbow wankers. People who are unable to make wooden bows, much less hornbows, who shoot carbon korean "replicas" in target bow weights and carbon arrows. I dont recall discussing you, just Mysa, who is above all tall teller. I dont even go to that server anymore, I m fed up with sunny people, who demand respect as it was universal right, yet behave in most assinine manner in terms on what grounds DISCUSSION shall be led. |
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Jaro |
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All you have to do to prove your claims is to make hornbow replica of type which we usually perceive as disadvantageous in terms of engenering to turk and
korean. Say - Tartar, Magyar, Moschewaya Balka (which is proto- magyar) in 120#, some replica arrows and check the performance against the data collected by
english heavy bow squad (they are public and everybody can acces them) and compare your results with Adams turkish bow tests. Until then a claim worded as
vaguelly "Hornbows outshoot wooden bows for distance and ll are equally suitable for shooting both light and heavy arrows and all are on par with
performance of turkish or korean designs" has legs of clay to say least.
We shall agree that whatever any claim is true can be only determined by experiment, which should be verifable and falsifable (to keep scientific standarts. My position of sceptic though is easier, because only positives need to be proved, which means that burden of proof lays largelly on you. Jaro
Last Edited By: Jaro
04/04/09 5:08 AM.
Edited 1 times.
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Redhorse |
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Draw weight? As we see from the poll most wood bows are light bows. But still Jaro claims that h/s bows are weak. Of course modern man shot light bows. There are more light wood bows then light h/s bows around. But what do we know, God has spoken.
Last Edited By: Redhorse
04/04/09 5:40 AM.
Edited 2 times.
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