Composite hornbow is here!

C

christcl

Joined
Apr 13, 2004
Messages
438
hey forum family! I still poke my head in from time to time to check in, but today I thought I would share something that's been literally years in the making.

My Chinese (Ming dynasty) horn composite bow is here. I needed a strong bow at or over 60lbs at my draw 30" from the back and one that would be a powerful statement of a cultural artifact and heirloom for me to help promote traditional Chinese archery here in the states (people have called my glass laminated bows "fake") so here it is finally!

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Detail of siyah with smoothed string bridge/pad

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Detail of horn belly and decorations

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Unstrung alongside my friend's Saluki bow, also a Chinese Ming dynasty large ear design hornbow.

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Shooting together.

Cheers!
 
You must have the muscles tuned in all the right places. 60+ lbs takes some effort to pull back and hold like that.

Great looking bows.
 
Still getting used to the poundage; it's actually #65-67 at my draw length!

Thanks! I thought you guys would enjoy handwork involving horn and wood and sinew!
 
I see your basically using your hand for an arrow rest. You don't ever get cut by the fletching?
Also the arrow is on the wrong side but I think we talked about that before.

We recently got my wife a recurve bow, she shot one someplace at a fair or something and decided she had to have one.
Was going to order but thought we better look in person which was a good thing. Had to drop all the way down to 20# before she could pull it. Hopefully she'll shoot it more when things warm up around here a bit.

I found I sure need to start digging post holes too, I used to shoot a 75# but now even the 20 is an effort. I guess I lost whatever I had.
 
Bawanna said:
.... We recently got my wife a recurve bow, she shot one someplace at a fair or something and decided she had to have one. Was going to order but thought we better look in person which was a good thing. Had to drop all the way down to 20# before she could pull it. Hopefully she'll shoot it more when things warm up around here a bit....

I found I sure need to start digging post holes too, I used to shoot a 75# but now even the 20 is an effort. I guess I lost whatever I had.
Click to expand...

Pulling the bow involves muscles in a way that they're not used to, including some of the small muscles in the shoulder that aren't very strong but are necessary to carry out the movement. I'll bet that if your wife enjoys the new bow and uses it regularly, soon she'll be able to pull 30# or more. I had a similar experience with my first HI khukuri, which weighed 31 oz and was the heaviest knife I ever handled up to that point. It felt very heavy to hold and to swing. After a few days it felt more natural. Nowadays a 31 oz khukuri doesn't feel heavy at all. The body adjusts.
 
I remember my introduction to archery. A co worker had me to his house to try out some compounds. He had 3 sons.
He said we'd try his youngest sons because it was set about 50 pounds. I could sense he was fixing to laugh at me thinking I wouldn't be able to pull it.
Well before that job I had been putting up fences and digging post holes almost every day and I was in shape.
Took now effort at all. Long story short we ended up trying his that was a bit over 70# and pulled it like nothing as well.
I helped my dad who built fences for awhile when I was in school and I could beat anybody in school arm wrestling too. Guys twice my size. That post hole digging must work the same muscles that run the bow or arm wrestle.

I got a mountain goat using my 75# compound and in preparation for the hunt I was shooting at least 50 arrows a day, standing, kneeling, sitting, out the window of the pickup. No way the pickup was going up where the goats was, not sure why I bothered with that.

Course that was yesterday and today I'm just a mere mortal half man. No more heavy bows for me.
 
I dug a couple of post holes a while back. The digging tool is fairly heavy and every time you pull it out of the hole with a load of soil the movement is somewhat like drawing a bow. It's not going to be 50 lbs, but if you dig enough post holes it will strengthen the right muscles, as you discovered.
 
How close is this to the Mongol design? Ming dynasty superseded the Yuan dynasty, which was led by Mongols. The mongols conquered the world from horseback using bows that looked similar.

And Bawanna, I understand that a trick of horse archery is to release the arrow when floating, not at the bottom jarring point when your rear (or feet in stirrups) hits the galloping horse. This technique could generalize to truck hunting of mountain goats if you drive the truck off the top of the cliff, then shoot them through the window as you pass by in your serene, weightless state.
 
The Chinese dashao or large ear bow design is very similar to the long ear Mongolian bow of the Yuan and Conquest era. In fact, large bows are a design shared by many different cultures with their own take and distinct style. Personally I think the design with its relatively long and thin ears and comparatively wide working limbs lends a great, all round, stable bow design.

The Ming were familiar with many different kinds of bows from smaller bows that would be very similar to Crimean Tartar or Ottoman Turkish bows, the large Manchu design was known in the late Empire by the Jurchens later Manchus and Qing, and they were contemporaries of the Mughal with their own composite bow designs, and of course the Japanese yumi and Korean bows during the Imjin War and suppressing wokou pirates.

Howard Wallace said:
How close is this to the Mongol design? Ming dynasty superseded the Yuan dynasty, which was led by Mongols. The mongols conquered the world from horseback using bows that looked similar.

And Bawanna, I understand that a trick of horse archery is to release the arrow when floating, not at the bottom jarring point when your rear (or feet in stirrups) hits the galloping horse. This technique could generalize to truck hunting of mountain goats if you drive the truck off the top of the cliff, then shoot them through the window as you pass by in your serene, weightless state.
Click to expand...
 
davidf99 said:
I dug a couple of post holes a while back. The digging tool is fairly heavy and every time you pull it out of the hole with a load of soil the movement is somewhat like drawing a bow. It's not going to be 50 lbs, but if you dig enough post holes it will strengthen the right muscles, as you discovered.
Click to expand...

Everyday rain or shine for 10 years. Wish I had a dollar for every hole I dug, wouldn't be rich but it would be a tidy sum.
 
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