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I know what you mean.....watching Mongol was painful!  A good film but very little shooting and all of it very, VERY poorly done.

I did notice that the bow in WOTA was unusually robust...from dog attacks to being used as a climbing ax, it held up with hardly a scratch!  I guess there's a little bit of Hollywood in Korea...;-)

I like the author's idea for a point.  Saves trying to put a taper on the bamboo or onto a wooden plug in the end. 

I have a dozen straightened, tempered and spined bamboo shafts on order from Rudderbows.  Great company to deal with....

Kanuck.

Incidentally, the FOCs came out at 24.6% for the 400, 26.6% for the 340 and 25.8% for the 300, all without fletching. Weight of insert and field point were 290gr, 305gr and 335gr.

Kanuck

Well, managed a few shots today.  I had full length carbon shafts in sizes 400, 340 and 300. Each had a 75gr brass glue in adapter filled with lead for an adapter weight of 145gr. Each also had a glue on field point -400 had 145gr, 340 had 160gr and
300 had 190gr.  These where bare shafts without fletching. Dynamic spine seemed similar for each. At 10 yards all flew straight, thanks to the high FOC balance. Considering they were all between 9 and 10 gpp, the apparent speed was very impressive.  My perception was that they shot with more authority than my 70lb Hill longbow at 28". Draw weight with the Hwarang at 32" ATA was about 65lbs.

Just for fun I also has some hickory shafts spined 70-75 that I use with the longbow. At 31 1/2" BOP and again with heads of 145, 160 and 190 overall mass was between 850 and 900gr. Unfortunately the thread wrap I put over the leading edge of the fletching struck the arrow pass quite severely to the point where I will have to replace it - that's what happens when you rush while making arrows. Anyways, they flew poorly because of hard contact with the arrow pass but they flew with impressive apparent speed considering it was 14 gpp or so.

The thumbring I am using will need more work and I will need to work on extending my draw length to get the last inch but the results of the initial preliminary test were quite gratifying.

Kanuck

I have no problem stringing the bow with the step through method (or similarly while sitting) but found it was different after using a stringer for so long. Thankyou all for you suggestions.

Kanuck

Bluelake

Thanks for the info. I'll reserve the string and see how it works.

Now I have to work on the use of my thumbrings....I'll have to build up my tolerance a lot.

Kanuck

So, I've unpacked and strung the bow (not easy to do with the step through method after years of using a bow stringer). Like others, the first thing I note is it's very low mass - 335g.  Second, I noted it's short length - 119cm overall.  It was marked on the upper limb tip as "28" 50#" which is as I requested.

The brace height from the grip to the string is 5" even.  Using the ATA method, adding 1 3/4" forward of the grip, the draw weight is as close to 50lbs as I can measure at 28".  The longest draw I can achieve is 32" ATA which seems to provide a draw weight of 64lbs, but my scale is suspect.

The finish of the bow is exceptional for the price but not perfect. There are a couple of minor flaws in the birchbark but the effect is minor.

One odd thing, the serving on the string is very heavy requiring me to modify the plastic nocks of my test shafts. With wood nocks on bamboo shafts there will be no problem, but I still want to do tests.

Kanuck

New bow just arrived. 36 days from order to delivery over the Christmas holiday so good response. Now to get it home and check it out.....

Kanuck

Raven

Short recurves evolved for use on horseback while moving.  They were used at maximum possible range to harass formed bodies of troops and at relatively close range - about 50m - to maximize penetration of armored individuals by punching through armor which long heavy arrows (from either the Mongolian recurve or the English longbow) could achieve.  In either case the long draw is key to achieving the needed arrow mass and penetration.  As far as speed of executing a shot in hunting or in war, first shot accuracy beats a half dozen rapid misses anytime....

Kanuck

While the curves and the areas under the curves are interesting and impressive, if you draw a straight line from brace height to maximum draw length, you will see that part of the curve is above the line (which is good) and part is below the line (which is not so good).  On average, the area under the curve for the longest of draw lengths will be very similar to the straight line "curve" - basically no advantage over a self longbow in terms of energy storage.  However, because the limbs are so much lighter than the longbow, the arrow speed with light arrows is terrific.  With heavy arrows, the recurve will still do very well also but no better than the longbow of the same weight if it is designed correctly.

The "design" draw length will be where the maximum amount of curve is above a straight line - where the curve first touches the straight line or anywhere from 20 to 24" for these bows.  Obviously, these bows are designed to draw far beyond that but it is interesting to see how the curve compares to modern bows and especially those that are built to a specific design draw length.

Ginni

Nice work.  Thanks for this information.  Are you measuring the draw length from the back of the bow or using ATA standards (distance to grip + 1.75")?  That may be part of the reason there seems to be a discrepancy between the marked draw weight and the measured draw weight.  It is amazing how much weight these bows gain the last 3.5-4" of draw - 25 lbs or more!!!!

Will Scarlet

The units used aren't so important as the shape of the curve to indicate the characteristics of the bow.  As for the stored energy, you have to know the speed and mass of the arrow to know how efficient the bow/arrow combination is.  No bow will be 100% efficient.  Besides, KE isn't a very good indication of the "power" of a particular arrow in terms of its effectiveness.

Kanuck