Bow Types and Styles
   Information on the Types and Styles of Bow including Longbow, Compound Bow, Recurve Bow, Hand made Bows and more

   The bow and arrow is a weapon consisting of two parts; the bow is made of a strip of flexible material, such as wood, with a cord linking the two ends of the strip to form a tension from which is propelled the arrow; the arrow is a straight shaft with a sharp point on one end and usually with feathers attached to the other end.

Longbow

The longbow was first accepted as a formal military weapon in 1252. The longbow has a very narrow limb and a thick core. The longbow is extremely stable and can be easily shot when canted or tilted. These bows can be made to shoot varying draw weights and are surprisingly fast shooters. Longbows are light in weight and generally hand made. They are shot without sights.    Longbows were not as elaborate as other weapons of the time, especially those commonly used by the wealthier members of society such as the nobles. Swords, axes, shields &c. were built to last, and were often elaborately decorated. An archer, on the other hand, would generally work through several bows during his life, and at most may have painted his bow, or attached some carved nocks to keep the bowstring in place. Younger archers were usually more likely to decorate their bows than were the grizzled veterans, and occasionally a wealthier archer would have some extra armor, or maybe even a full set of armor, but his bow was never significantly fancier then the rest.    A longbow was usually full of knots and bends. A great deal of patience had to be put into tapering these imperfections to produce a usable bow. Every knot and knobble had to be either followed carefully to eliminate weak spots, or ‘raised’ without causing any weakening of the bow. Although the longbow was a work of great artistry, it had none of the frills that you might see on a crossbow, with a complicated mechanism to fire the arrow, a fancy grip, and a fancy arrow-plate to prevent the arrow from wearing a groove.

   Longbows were generally self-nocking, meaning that the nocks for the string were an integral part of the bow. Some of the fancier bows had horn or ivory nocks fastened to the end, but otherwise the nock was part of the wood of the bow. The bowstrings were generally made of good quality flax or linen, and were impregnated with beeswax to repel rain and dew. “The bowman would watch his string carefully and if it showed signs of fraying, especially at the loops, he scrapped it before it broke. With a good yew bow, a broken string often meant a broken bow. Spare strings were always carefully broken in at practice - a new string never shot at first in the same way as the old one; archers were required to carry two spare bowstrings

Recurve Bow

Recurve bows are very similar to the longbow. The main difference is that the tips of the recurve bow are bent forward.    A recurve bow is a bow that, in contrast to the simple bow longbow has ends that curve away from the archer when the bow is held in shooting position. An unstrung recurve bow can have a confusing shape and many north American aboriginal (Indian) weapons were incorrectly strung and destroyed when attempts were made to fire them.     The recurve shape in effect can reduce loading at full draw (let-off) and will impart more energy to the arrow than a longbow The longbow of similar top draw weight. A recurve will permit a shorter bow than the simple bow for a given arrow energy and this form was preferred by archers who were forced into environments where long weapons could be cumbersome: e.g. in brush and forest terrain, on horseback, etc

Composite Bow

   Around 2800 B.C., the Egyptians developed the "composite bow." Using this device, archers mounted on light chariots became a devestating military force. A composite bow is made of various materials (wood, horn, sinew) glued together so as to increase their natural strength and elasticity. The composite bow gives superior accuracy, velocity, and distance in comparison to the longbow. Using a modern bow, target archers of equal skill can score an average 30 to 40 percent higher than they can with the longbow. The modern composite bow shoots farther than the longbow: a maximum distance of more than 850 yards has been obtained with it, compared to about 300 yards for the longbow. The efficiency (the percentage of energy in a fully drawn bow that is transferred to the arrow at the moment of loose) of the modern bow doubles that of the longbow, the velocity of the arrow with the new bow reaching 212 feet (65 m) per second as opposed to 150 feet per second.

Compound Bow

   One of the biggest advantages to the compound bow is that the shooter does not have to hold the "pull weight" when the bow is fully drawn. This is a result of eccentric cams. The benefit is that the hunter can hold the bow at full draw for a longer period of time. This gives the compound bow a mechanical advantage over other bows.

   A modern compound bow or composite bow is a special type of bow made of laminated wood, plastic, and fibreglass. It is affected little by changes of temperature and humidity and gives superior accuracy, velocity, and distance in comparison to the classic longbow

   In addition to the composite, the compound has pulleys set on its limbs, usually at the ends of its limbs. One or both of the pulleys is a cam This enables the shooter to hold the bow fully drawn with less effort by providing a mechanical advantage