Kviljos crab bows

[Adam Karpowicz]

Yes, the difference in draw weight can be attributed to the greater reflex in the grip and the siyahs and to the horn, which covers the whole belly in my bow (and can also be flatter as well). The grip reflex forces the limbs to bend further up and the bow stacks more. I did not chart the f-d curve, but when pulled on the tillering tree, the bow felt stacking past 22-23 inches and over 25 becomes pretty bad adding to the weight very fast.

The other thing is the drying of the bow - there is a difference betw. months and years.

How long is the string in your bow?

Adam

[Kviljo]

The string was 96 cm long when I did the F/D-curve and the brace height was 11 inches. After that I lengthened the string to 99cm, where the string knots now rest a little on the "kasans". The brace height is now 10 inches.

The initial impression with the string is that it is far too short for the bow, hehe.

I did measure the bending sections again, and they are in fact 11,4mm in the middle now. That ought to make up a little for the low weight too.



Going back to my confused thoughts on the design again, it still does not make any sense to me. If it is like Bede has suggested, that these bows were designed to stay braced for long periods, and that the dimensions of my bow is not too far off from the norm, it would seem like they had a rather low draw weight too. 56 pounds at 27 inches, used with arrows of 28-29 inches length, does not comform well to the general notion that most war bows in most cultures would have been drawing around 100 pounds.

Could it be that the mughal bowyers had some trick with the sinewing to make it stiffer and better at compressing? Maybe they used some glue-mixture that was better at compressing, and maybe the mango-wood performs better than maple in these bows?

What I'm thinking is that it is hard to believe that the very finely crafted original bow that I studied would have had similar performance to my bow. On the other hand, maybe this is simply the hard reality, that these bows did not have to evolve into being superb performers. Maybe a 60-70-pound bow did the job too? What was the arrow-protection like in the period? I suppose the bows were used along with gunpowder, which could indicate that most warriors did not have the equivalent of the western medieval plate armour, and maybe thick textile padding (which is very good for arrows) was not common either?

On second thoughts, I should not assume that the 2mm of belly sinew would not influate the draw weight of the bow. From 11,4 to 13,4mm could probably make the draw weight rise quite a bit.

[MJuingong]

I have long suspected that the horsebows used in the late 17th-early 18th centuries might not have been as heavy in draw weight as those of earlier periods. The growing use of better gunpowder weapons would have made those, in form of pistols and carbines, better for armour piercing. Armour itself would have been either very bullet resistant, and therefore arrow-proof, or have been lightened to the point that it was mostly protecting against shock weapons such as the sword only.

I think that bows, in the later period, would have been used mostly for skirmishing. They would still be useful at ranges well beyond pistol shot (at least most pistol ranges), and would probably be more accurate than carbines; as well as capable of faster repeat shots. There wouldn't be that much armour to contend with; and at closer ranges, pistols would be used to deal with armour.

That said, do keep in mind that even in its heyday, the composite bow would come in different weights. What is useful in dealing with soft-skinned animals, including tigers, wolves, maybe even bears, might not defeat armour. but would be easier than the heavy pulling bow.

So, the bow you have made, and the bow you imitated, might be reasonably typical.

[Bede]

McEwen told me he had made Mughal style bows is heavy weights conforming to the standard dimensions. He used normal glue mixes and construction methods that are well authenticated. My guess is that there may be a few techniques that modern bowyers will discover with experience and experiment. Don't stop at one bow.

Regarding 17th and 18th century archery, bows fitted into a niche that wasn't filled by firearms until the invention of the modern cartridge and breech loading carbines and pistols. Bows were primarily used by cavalry because of the difficulty of reloading muzzle loading guns on horse back. The Manchus in a gunpowder rich environment used very heavy bows because bows had become a short range weapon. They had to put down their man before he could retaliate. The Crimean Tatars, who eventually became the largest part of the Ottoman bow-armed cavalry also used heavy bows. In India, Ottoman style tactics with artillery within a lager of some sort were standard. Cavalry would have had many of the same pressures as in the west. The demise of archery was probably because they were using heavy bows and the training was becoming too onerous rather than the opposite.

I have Indian arrows that spine at over ninety pounds on a modern spine tester; they are not more than 7 mm in diameter. Shot with a thumb ring, I do not doubt they could be used on 120 lb bows.