[Horsebow] Horsebow arrows

Raven's_Eye

Active member
Ironman
I have a Chinese horsebow but currently no arrows. As someone who likes making arrows (always made my longbow arrows, never bought any) I was wondering what the technique for working out the spine. With longbow its advisable to go 5-10 lbs below the poundage of the bow. Do you have to do something similar with horsebows or have the same spine as the weight of the bow?
 

BillM

Member
The generalisation is pound for pound but I find that is good for static spine. The dynamic spine will be determined by shooting arrows and what they comprise of - thickness, point weight, length, fletchings etc. The arrows that shoot best from my 52# horsebow are around the 50-53# spine but I can also shoot arrows down to 42# spine. These have 100gr point whereas the stiffer ones have 125gr points and this has evolved with me by trial and error. The main thing you will find is that the whippier arrows will impact at a different place if the same point-of-aim is used so I mark the spine on my arrows so I can check before I go round the field course and make whatever adjustment I need.

BillM
 

ChakaZulu

New member
Depends on the bow. Shoot 10lbs under from a Ghillie Dhu and it could go anywhere!

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
 

Berny

Active member
Depends amongst other things on design/speed of bow & type of loose.
Finger loose on modern Border bows often >= 10# over bow weight.
Finger loose (glove/tab) puts more torque on string than thumb loose (ring/tab) therefore also impacts
spine needed. Thumbring loose should also be cleaner.
For a horsebow I'd try spine at >= 10#..20# over bow weight (c.f. ChakaZulu's observation).
 

OrientalHero

New member
spined between a recurve and longbow

I was at Quicks buying a horse bow (Kaya KTB 40#) and they said that they found horsebows spined between a recurve and a longbow for the same draw length and weight.

IE Find the spine required for your drawlength and draw weight for the horse bow but use a recurve chart.
For the same numbers use a longbow chart to work out that spine.
The horse bow spine should be halfway between the two.
It worked really well for my mediterranean draw at 27" with 40# being the calculated draw weight.

So a recurve chart for wooden arrows gives me a spine of 45-50
A longbow chart for wooden arrows gives me a spine of 35-40

The arrow spine for a horse bow is halfway which is 40-45.

Hope that the above gives you a starting point.
 

ChakaZulu

New member
A chat with Sid suggests that the Ghillie Dhu needs about 20lbs over. Certainly my arrows spined at 10lbs over were way too weak.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
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