Archery Bows
With the evolution of the civilizations over the past few centuries, bows and arrows have also co-evolved. Today, there exist a vast variety of different types of ancient bows and arrows along with the new technically more pronounced types.
In the yester years, bows were chiefly of two types namely wooden and composite. The first bows were made from wood by simply cutting the saplings and carving it into the desired shape and then strung using the animal gut. The composite bows were made of wood and horn or some other material.
Today, there are about six different types of bows available based on their uses and the material used to create them. Here are some of those different types of bows that are used by the archers for their different practices like competitions, hunting and recreations.
Longbow: The longbow is the most basic of all the other types. It is very similar to the ones used by our medieval ancestors. The bows used by our ancestors were made of wood which also consisted of a hand grip. The shape of the longbow remains approximately unaltered since its invention in 9,000- 6,000 B.C. It is produced from a single piece of timber and the grip is usually made from a strip of leather that is wound around the bow. It is tall, not significantly recurved, but has relatively narrow limbs that are nearly D-shaped at the cross section and widest at the handle.
Shortbow: The shortbow is quicker to shoot, easier to conceal, requires less work and also less material. It does not allow the user to draw the string to the face or the body. Hence it stores less energy and consequently has a shorter maximum range. It is slower than the other types of bows and is chiefly used in Africa for hunting and for self defense.
Flatbow: The flat bow is a non-recurved bow with relatively wide limbs that are nearly rectangular in cross-section. They are nearly flat and resemble the classic longbows.
Recurve bows: The recurve bows are the only ones that are made of more than one kind of material. They are usually made of laminated timber, carbon or fiberglass. The range in length of this bow is from 1220m to 1780mm and is used in the in the Olympic Games. Recurve bows have working principles similar to the longbows. The defining feature of the bow is the forward curve at the ends of the limbs which increases the power gained from the bow and then smoothens the draw.
Compound bow: This type is specially designed to reduce the force that an archer holds and also increase the overall energy stored by the bow. Most of these bows use pulleys at the ends of the limbs to optimize the power exerted by the archer and to reduce the holding force of the bow during the full draw that is commonly known as let-off.
Crossbow: The crossbow has a small variation in its design. Instead of the limbs being held vertically, they are mounted horizontally on a stock similar to a firearm. The string is pulled using a windlass or manually and then locked into place. The energy stored in these shortened limbs is similar to that of the longbows but are packed into a smaller design which is also easier to aim.
These above mentioned types of bows and their varied uses are important for the new archers to select their type based on their requirements.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 9:31 am and is filed under Archery Equipments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.