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what lbs makes it a warbow insted of a longbow

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youngbowyer:

--- Quote from: alanesq on March 03, 2009, 12:41:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: youngbowyer on March 03, 2009, 10:51:07 am ---a warbow is a SELFBOW.

--- End quote ---

A warbow was a self bow - but is it now ?

i.e. are you saying that if your bow isnt a self bow with natural string and sidenocks etc. then you can't call it a warbow ?

actually - to take it to the extreme then a warbow is basically one of the Mary Rose bows - anything else is a replica


--- End quote ---
tu

No. What I'm saying is a laminated bow is not a replica but it would be a warbow but a true warbow is a selfbow. So here is my opinion: It's 2009 and not 1415 technology has advanced and people now make laminated warbows instead of selfbows. My opinion is that if you want a true warbow you should buy a selfbow. But in my eyes a laminate bow of high draw weigth is a warbow.

alanesq:

Yep - I would agree with that :-)


That is the point I was trying to make myself:

there is a replica warbow (which should be a self bow, sidenocks etc. as it is supposed to be as close as possible an exact copy of the bows of old)

and there is a "modern" warbow (a bow based loosely on the bow above which is similar to shoot/use but not necessarily made of the same materials etc.)

Justin Snyder:
I have to agree with you alanesq.

How many of you got a new Ferrari when you first started driving.  I didn't, I started with a broken down 20 year old truck.  For me laminated bows are cheaper to make.  Lets say I want to make a 200# MR replica. I need to buy a $400 high quality yew stave.  The problem is I cannot pull 200#.  Well I'm not going to buy 10 $400 yew staves so I can work my way up to 200#.  I am going to make a 100# laminate then a 110, 120 and on up to my goal.  When I can shoot my 200# beautiful yew MR replica selfbow it will be great.  But I can get there with $200 worth of laminates not $4000 worth of imported yew.  8) To me the laminate don't look so bad, I just wont call it a replica.

Back to the original question, "What lbs makes it a warbow instead of a longbow."   Maybe he wants to start as low as he can and still maintain controll of the bow with a reasonable amount of accuracy. Yet if he goes to light some people will give him so much crap about calling it a warbow that he will switch to another sport and go away with the attitude that archers are jerks.  I think it was a legitimate question.

Let me offer something up for thought.  The original English war archers were not shooting at armor.  That came later and the weights of bows increased to compensate.  So were the earlier bows not warbows because they were lighter than the later bows.  Did the English longbow become a warbow when it became the standard bow used in war or when it penetrated armor. Justin

youngbowyer:
Well said Justin!

stevesjem:
Just to throw my thouhts into the mix,
A true Warbow or a longbow designed to be used in a war situation....well we only really have the MR bows to go on and these are all self yew bows, there is evidence that they were side nocked and very heavy draw weights,..140+lbs, personally I believe the draw weights were a bit higher but 140 is a good starting pont.

laminates cannot really be classed as "True warbows", 1stly because there is no evidence of laminated woods being used for bows used in warfare in the middle ages in England, however replica heavy weight bows are made nowadays which bend full compass in the characteristic manner of a medieval warbow and can and do shoot heavy arrows a long way with great power, however these are a modern representation of what once was and as there are no heavy weight longbows used in warfare nowadays they cannot be classed in the same way as the self yew warbow of the medieval period.

The heavy weight self yew replica "warbows" that are made today, again are exactly that "Replica's" of what was once used in medieval warefare, these are not real warbows but accurate representations, there is evidence of sidenocks on the MR bows, there is also pictorial evidence that front facing horn nocks were used, the one common factor of the nocks is that they were of cow horn.

Anyway back to the question, in my opinion a "Warbow", this is a bow made for the purpose of killing people in warfare in the middle ages, some of whom may be wearing plate armour, needs to be a very heavy draw weight.... 140lb+, probably more like 160+.

Steve

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