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I Forge Iron

New Crossbow!


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Well, after spending a bit of time working on it, my brother and I put together this medieval (styled) crossbow. It has a recurve 150lb prod.

It was a pain making the nut/tumbler and tickler meet correctly:mad:. This one has a steel nut, but for the next one, we'll probably use delrin. I hear it is a suitable horn substitute.

The pictures are mostly self explanatory. What do you think?:cool:

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The bow should be placed so that there is no string pressure down against the stock---the string should ride about the thickness of a 3x5 card above the wood.

The nut is *not* supposed to be supported by the bolt through it, that's just to keep it from falling out when you turn it upside down. The nut runs in a "bearing race" so that you can have quite strong loads on it without the danger of the pin through it bending or binding. Is yours set up that way?

You may want the tiller longer and closer to the stock. Also remember that the stock of a crossbow was not placed against the shoulder like the stock of a rifle is today.

And most importantly *EVERY* state I have lived in that allowed crossbows for shooting deer in season required a positive safety and so that bow would not be legal to hunt with and the laws are quite draconian on the subject!

(built my first crossbow around 1985 using the plans in "The Crossbow: Its Military and Sporting History, Construction and Use" (ISBN: 160239010X / 1-60239-010-X) Payne-Gallwey, Ralph---who was a curator at the British Museum when he wrote it...)

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The bow should be placed so that there is no string pressure down against the stock---the string should ride about the thickness of a 3x5 card above the wood.

The nut is *not* supposed to be supported by the bolt through it, that's just to keep it from falling out when you turn it upside down. The nut runs in a "bearing race" so that you can have quite strong loads on it without the danger of the pin through it bending or binding. Is yours set up that way?

You may want the tiller longer and closer to the stock. Also remember that the stock of a crossbow was not placed against the shoulder like the stock of a rifle is today.

And most importantly *EVERY* state I have lived in that allowed crossbows for shooting deer in season required a positive safety and so that bow would not be legal to hunt with and the laws are quite draconian on the subject!

(built my first crossbow around 1985 using the plans in "The Crossbow: Its Military and Sporting History, Construction and Use" (ISBN: 160239010X / 1-60239-010-X) Payne-Gallwey, Ralph---who was a curator at the British Museum when he wrote it...)
-I like that book. It helped in inspiring me to make a rolling nut styled crossbow.

About the string touching the stock, that is what my brother said, after we made it.

I had not planned on hunting with it, just target shooting (and maybe getting rid of backyard pests:rolleyes:). There is no safety on this bow.

Do you have any pictures of a crossbow that you built that you would be willing to share (to use as visual aids to a few things I may be doing wrong)?

I appreciate the good advise, thanks!
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Not bad for your first crossbow, have you shot it yet? if so how was it? did you make your own bullets (arrows) or are you buying them?

welder19


I have shot it a few times now. It shot very strongly.

So far, we have made our own bolts. We put a REALLY heavy head on one bolt so we could see it flying, but after it fishtailed miserably, we put a smaller head on and it shot a lot straighter. I may buy some bolts, but for now, homemade bolts are doing the job.


On a different note, I thought I should add his part for people wanting to use dacron strings. I learned that dacron strings should NEVER come into contact with oil. It makes the dacron "gummy" and more prone to break. This is why I ONLY wax the bolt track, never oil it.
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