draw weights on horseback

Zarasp · Post by **Zarasp** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:32 am

Ashbow wrote:Zarasp, I would believe that your calculations are quite accurate, the range of 80 to 150# appears to be very credible.

What bows was the statement that there are no stonger bows than 110# reffering to? Up to 200# sounds possible, I don't have a clue if for horseback use too, though. You can find a lot of biased statements, or some that don't have any reasonable back up.

hey thanx! i am glad that its a correct measurement, i am VERY new to the current worldwide market, and archery on internet, i stated that because of the current market....

Zarasp · Post by **Zarasp** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:41 am

PjSingh wrote:The man Is still used in India ....and the old pehalwans....
P.J.

wow , interesting similarities, Pahlaw, is a old word we use to describe a strong warrior type man, also family name, the words Pahlawi & Pahlawan have same roots,

it might be interesting for you that in Iranian Shahne families (including mine),a male child learns Pahlawi language, although i am told it is not used since Sassanid times, other rather mysterious traditions include long beard & hair...

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:53 am

interesting language similarities... this Pahlaw word must be very old, because i think ,our slawic word "Pohlav?r" -same lik yours- strong man -leader- is not chance...

Zarasp · Post by **Zarasp** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:46 pm

today i went to see a professor of Ancient Iranian culture & literature, as a part of the reasearch we are doing for our horseback archery school,we found some very interesting things in books, regarding archery & persian traditions in warriorship, i will post them very soon!

as a note: he also showed me a book of old Persian words, used in countries like Poland, Hungary & Slovakia. "there is a deep connection which goes way back befor the time of Ottman empire", he said.

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:01 pm

I know -its off topic , but this linguistic game was more than 5000years old - not only 400 from the Otomans...

IanS · Post by **IanS** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:17 pm

Sorry to necro thread, but is the general feeling in the horsebow world that bows shot from horse back are hardly over 100lb as that doesn't seem to be very heavy.

Is there any period evidence that we can use to determine the weight.

Zarasp · Post by **Zarasp** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:36 am

Update:

I have talked on the phone last week to a very old man who i have never met but i hope to visit in the near future, he knew my family very well when he was young (he is my grandmothers uncle).

although we had a difficult time talking since he cannot hear well & needed an assistant , i think he might have a better answer for the conversion of the old units, when he heard that i used "maan" he said with laughter "bow is not measured like barley" , apparently they kept a separate measuring unit, i hope to visit him & talk to him in person.

on an unrelated topic , he is an extremely fun person to talk to, he just moved to live with my grandmother & her daughters, because he cannot live alone anymore, he asked me about women in the capital & if i can find a good young wife for him

, he still remembered in much detail the horse that my grandfather gave him as a present, talking to him reminded me of how fun & healthy the non-city life was.

hcspng · Post by **hcspng** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 10:56 am

Zarasp I'm very happy to hear good news from yoعز

I wanted to know do you have any bows from your grandfather?

Alejandro · Post by **Alejandro** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:26 am

I am curious to know if archeology has found that historical arrows agree with the use of draw weights over 70#? If the archeology is yielding thin, low-spine arrows, I think we could have a mismatch in evidence. I realize that we can?t measure the spine of an ancient arrow, but I believe we could at least surmise a range by looking at the diameter, length, wood species, and construction.

I bring this up because of my personal experience with wooden arrows. My three-finger draw is just over 28.5 in. But, my thumb draw with the same bow is 32.5 in. Thus, my thumb draw arrows are 33.5 inches. If I were to use a 70# bow with 33.5 inch arrows, the wood arrows would need a spine of 90 ? 95#!

To use a bow heavier than 70#, the horseback archers of old either used thick arrows or short arrows in comparison with what we use today. I saw some pictures in another post that showed 24? historical Turkish arrows. 24 inch arrows imply a 23? inch draw for horseback archery.

So, if we have a 70# bow being 70 pounds at 28 inches, and it is only drawn to 23 inches, that would make it about 45-50# at that draw length. Is it possible that both sides of this discussion are right? Is it possible, that the historical bows were indeed heavier at 28 inches, but were not actually used at that length because of limitations to the arrow shafts?

I read some great archeological research posts in this thread. For those who have the archeology background, what does the historical arrow shaft evidence support? Thanks.

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:50 pm

Do you mean the arrows would break ? I made 33 inch bamboo arrow (10-8mm diameter) with a ~20 gram warhead and shot it repeatedly with a 80lbs@28 bow but at 30-31" draw - no problem only the arrow is of course not as fast as the lighter ones. there is however some fishtailing for 20m or so (the fletching is quite short)

Alejandro · Post by **Alejandro** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:14 pm

I wasn't originally thinking the arrows would break, but thank you for bringing up the point. Also, thank you for giving me an excellent example of the strength of the bamboo arrows. I am definitely impressed.

Overall, I am curious as to the arrows that the archeologists find with these 70+ pound horseback archery bows. Do these historical arrows have the length, girth, and construction to support that they were being shot at higher than 70#?

Dan · Post by **Dan** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:15 pm

Certainly bamboo is pretty strong stuff. I have 60-70lb spine bamboo arrows that are significantly thinner than 5/16" wood shafts.

I'm also curious about arrow spine but I suspect there may be a shortage of evidence.

Out of interest, are you sure that the 24" arrow was for horseback? I mention it because Turkish flight archery used arrows that were far too short for the bow. The archer wore a device on his bow hand/arm that acted like a shelf for the arrow, allowing a 24" arrow (say) to be drawn well past 24".

Alejandro · Post by **Alejandro** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:59 am

Nope, I am not sure in the least as to the use of the arrow. I have next to zero knowledge of historical bows and arrows. As you mentioned, the arrow I measured may have been a flight arrow for use with a siper; however, the fletching would have been unusually large for this purpose.

The arrow to which I referred earlier may be a poor example or be completely irrelevant to horseback archery. It's mention only served to suggest that an assumption of historical bows being consistently drawn to 28" may not be accurate.

I am hoping an archeology guru will chime in with some measurements from a few digs. I hope that if enough of a bow survived for draw weight measurements to be taken, then there is a good chance that any accompanying arrows would have also survived.

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:51 pm

examples of archeological finds from MN:
http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2109&start=15
http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t ... c&start=15
rather strong arrows or ?

Alejandro · Post by **Alejandro** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:52 am

Thank you for the links. Fascinating!

Those arrow builders had some amazing skills!

draw weights on horseback

Hello