On Fri, 21 Jul 2000 03:42:36 -0700, ryan constantine wrote...
>  Is it a function of body
> > height?
>   long bows are like 5 to 6 feet long.  short are more like 2 to 3 and i
> think were used mainly on horse-back.  they are partly a function of the
> users height, although if you think about it, even if you were 4ft tall,
> a 6ft bow wouldn't hit the ground anyway since you hold the middle up
> around shoulder height.  the japanese have a wild looking bow that isn't
> held in the middle.  holding it in shooting position, it sticks down
> about 3ft, and sticks up about 5ft, maybe more.  i don't know the
> history of the weapon, but it seems effective enough.  also, i think
> either ghengis kahn or atilla the hun(SP?),or one of those type, had
> 'steel' bows with 100lb+ draw that his horsemen used.  they'd strap
> their legs in so they wouldn't fall off and the arrows could pierce
> armor like it was paper.  another couple of types of bows previously
> mentioned are the recurve bow (named because it has the familiar bow
> curve but whose ends curve back to the front) and the compound bow which
> is the modern bow made of composite materials.  by the way, it's one
> thing to break a string on a regular bow, and quite another to break a
> string on a compound bow.  saw it once.  thank goodness for eye
> protection.

I saw somebody snap a riser on a three piece recurve job.  At full draw.  
He wasn't happy since it was a rather expensive piece of kit, but he 
somehow managed to avoid injury as the bow fell apart.

Oh, and when you say composite bow, I assume you're talking about the 
ones with eccentric cams and the triple length string?

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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