Apropos of Nothing: Heaviest bow draw yet

Oh, sure. Lots of people draw heavier bows. But this one is the heaviest I’ve been able to even attempt – mostly due to lack of opportunity. It’s an 85-lb handmade longbow. Well, not that long.

The form makes a big difference. If you hold the bow out and simply pull, it’s a lot harder than a proper warbow draw, which is a lot of legs and back and motion.

Or, as a friend said: “Is that your bow?”

“No. Not yet.“

I also got to talk penetration and Lars Anderson with the proprietor of Grey Goose Bows (he also has a YouTube channel), so a good time all in all. He, of course, made the bow I’m drawing.

If I use the design features of The Deadly Spring, I can model this as 85-lb bow that should be made of walnut (I think that’s what he said) and needs to be 73″ long or longer to give a 30″ draw. It’s modeled as a straight/D-section bow about 0.85″ square. Firing a 31″ poplar arrow with a lightweight armor piercing point (about 680 grains), I should be able to fire an arrow to 305 yards. It will do about 1d penetration to about 200yds, then 1d-1 from there onward. The velocity of that arrow should be about 207fps on release according to the model.