Shooting with a mongo

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cecile

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A friend of mine made me a wonderfull mongolian bow:

It is only 32 lbs, however very nice to shoot.

I tried it first with the X7 arrows that I shoot with my Martin X200 recurve bow (35 lbs). It was almost desastrous. The slightest weakness in the bow hand or in the the form and the arrows scattered everywhere on the face and even outside...
So, I decided to make my own wooden arrows and started to buy a set of 12 cedar shafts some turkey feathers. A friend gave me ends of cow horns that are cut by the farmers. Another one gave me ostrich sinew and organic glue. Last December, when I got in China, I bought several reindeer antlers.
I had then all that is needed to make arrows that will fit very well with the bow.
And here are my first wooden arrows for my lovely mongo:

(Yellow ones where my first attempt with modest shafts. White feathered one are much better with very good shafts and a lot of application ;) )

The time spent to make them was worth it! These arrows are much better fitting than the aluminium ones. Unfortunately they tend to be slow and I have difficulties to shoot long ranges with so weak a bow...

I'd like to know how to improve things so that I'll have arrows also fitted for long ranges... Please, any hint around here?
 

English Bowman

Well-known member
Smaller fletchings. That'll increase the speed. I'd suggest keeping the length but making them much lower and see what happens

Daniel
 

Schme1440

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Fonz Awardee
Ironman
Yes oversized feathers are one of the biggest causes for slow arrows. Also maybe try slightly lighter points but that will affect the arrows so just trim the feathers for now.
 

cecile

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For now I will try with the feathers.
I thought maybe making thinner ends to the shafts like for ACE arrows. I saw that once on wooden arrows... Did anyone try this ?
 

FlightyRachel

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Fonz Awardee
Hi Cecile I think your bow and arrows look lovely! :) I don't know anything about mongolian bows, but I do shot a longbow, and I recently changed my arrows for ones with tiny feathers. Much as I love the look if the big barred medieval type ones, my poundage just won't let me have them! :ashamed: The smaller feathers have speeded me up!

You can see my stubby little fletchings here. Sorry about the feet! :yuck:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/relv/000_0621-1.jpg
 

steve58

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Smaller feathers definitely faster! I think the advantage is probably more marked the greater the distance, up to 60 yards I prefer my biggest, heaviest arrows with 4" fletchings and 125 grain points but they lose interest by the time they get to 100 yards! They will go that far, but they don't like it. Tapering the shafts is also good, I have just made a set with a rear taper and small fletchings (2.5") and am itching to try them out at 80 and 100, they fly flatter at 60 so the signs are good. There is a thread somewhere with lots of good advice on this
 

steve58

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Hi Cecile I think your bow and arrows look lovely! :) I don't know anything about mongolian bows, but I do shot a longbow, and I recently changed my arrows for ones with tiny feathers. Much as I love the look if the big barred medieval type ones, my poundage just won't let me have them! :ashamed: The smaller feathers have speeded me up!

Hi FlightyRachel! Nice arrows, maybe the ones with the bigger fletchings will be good indoors?
 

vics

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nice arrows, would shoot great indoors but idealy smaller fletchings would be better outdoors.:cheerful:
 

ThePinkOne

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Out of interest, traditional Mongolian fletchings are very long and low -approximately the same height as the diameter of the shaft, and the same length as the bracing height of the bow - usually 7 - 9 inches.(http://www.atarn.org/mongolian/mn_nat_arch/mn_nat_arch.htm).

I've tried them on my Mongo and they work well - good stabilisation without too much loss of speed.
Yeah, I made a set like that, used very long lower profile flechings (I seem to recall that the Mongolians used TAIL feathers not wing feathers to fletch). They did fly well, I also left the shafts full-length- flew much better than the other arrows I built which were "correct" length and supposedly spined for the bow.

The replica Mongo broadheads flew well with those fletchings too... :D

P.
 

cecile

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Thanks all ! I will definitely try low and long fletching for my new arrows (I've still 8 to make) and certainly keep the large ones for chort distances. ;)
 

Mrs_Radar_UK

New member
Interesting thread this as I have just bought a Hungarian recurve.

What shafts and piles are you using Cecile?

I spent the afternoon at Carol Edwards on Tuesday trying out different arrows as I need to make some. My bow is 43lb at 28", I have a draw length of 24" so the poundage is probably more around 36lbs.

I took some of Leigh's longbow arrows to try which are 5/16ths with 100g points as well as my AFB arrows which are 9/32's with 63g points, I was thinking that I would need at least 5/16 for the recurve but after trying my arrows and some of Carol's we decided I should stick with my 9/32's, the only change I've made is to use 4" fletchings instead of 3" to give the arrows more stability.

I took the bow to Co 60 yesterday and used my AFB arrows, I was surprised at how fast this bow is and had no problems hitting targets at 80 yards, but I did find they had a habit of swishing about (probably the wrong terminology but I know what I mean! lol) so I'm going to make some of my new arrows up today to try them out over the weekend, I'll let you know how I get on.
 

FlightyRachel

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Fonz Awardee
But what do you call "not very impressive"? One of our coaches reckons anything over 300 for a portsmouth with a longbow is respectable
Oh dear :faint: forget 'not very impressive' then and replace it with 'totally humiliating' ;)

I'm better with my 3Ds, honest... I really need someone to teach me to gap shoot. :)
 

Macbow

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I have to say that most of the asiatic-style horsebows I have owned or tried were disappointing. Both the Grozer scythian (the one quicks sell for around ?120) and the Kassai Vazul were particularly unimpressive. OK at 20 yards and smooth drawing but no comparison to an AFB with less draw weight, even with ultralight arrows. Admittedly my only experience of these designs are the cheaper models with fibreglass limbs wrapped in leather. There are good ones out there made in the original wood/horn composite way but hugely expensive and requiring very careful storage.
For me, my bows performed better when shot "instinctively" pulled across the chest in a mounted archery style which increases the draw length (Kassai's Horseback Archery book documents his shooting style - he is a very impressive horse archer). Use full length arrows, spined about 10# less than bow weight, light points and small feathers. Bow hand position is critical as there is a sweet spot where it will perform best.
Saxton Pope's excellent book Hunting With The Bow And Arrow has a fascinating section on bow design where several bows from around the world were compared and in some cases tested to destruction. Pope expressed great disappointment in a 98lb tartar bow which managed to shoot 175 yards with a special flight arrow. He managed 291 yards with a horn composite 85lb Turkish bow using superlight arrows. Compare this to 250 yards with a 75lb English longbow using a heavy hunting arrow, 300 yards with a 65lb ELB flight bow and 205 yards with a 48lb yana native american indian hunting bow.
They are good fun however and those curves are beautiful. One day I'l get my hands on a Saluki and get the looks plus the performance. http://www.salukibow.com/
 

Quadratus

New member
The Grozer/Kassai type bows are very variable in their performance, model to model. Since none of the fibreglass ones are particularly accurate historical impressions, even allowing for the use of modern materials, I decided to get the one that, by reputation, was the best shooter - the Grozer "Hungarian of the Middle Ages". It is, of course, nothing of the sort. It is a loose impression of a generic Sino-Mongol bow - a fantasy bow, if you like - but it does shoot!

Using full length POC shafts, spined for 75lb (ie 50% over, not 10% under) with 6 inch feathers, a 140 grain point and a draw of approximately 50lb/31" to my ear (shooting off my thumb) I am only one-and-a-bit-knuckles-up at 90m. I don't know how this compares with your AFB, Macbow, but it compares very favourably with my 60lb BLBS longbow and my modern 54" 45lb one piece recurve.

Anyway its been voted "Coolest Bow in the Galaxy" by the club junior contingent, so that does it! :cheerful:
 

ThePinkOne

New member
I see others also use full-length shafts, and I really found these were the best option. My shafts were spined about 5 to 10lb under the bow weight too.

I found shooting off the thumb I kind-of found a "floating anchor" further back than in (say) longbow, hand could easily end up near/behind my ear somewhere. In many ways, the reference and hand position is closer to the reference I use on a compound.... :eek: certainly I found the horizontal hand position in shooting off the thumb let my arm be more relaxed and I guess that's why I got it back further.

I've not shot the Scythian but have the Grozer bow Eagle sold a year or two back as a "Mongolian" but which is actually closer to the Hungarian form without string bridges. It is a sweet bow to shoot mind you.

As an aside, I also have a long-term project ongoing to make a "real" composite bow, based initially around the more relaxed (therefore less critical to build) angles of the Hungarian form. So far, I have cut the horn and laminated it onto the limbs and carved the siyahs and centre section. The wood core on limbs is actually made from two lams of "construction veneer" rock maple of 2mm thickness. Horn slices for limbs were cut (by me) from a matched pair of water buffallo horns (from Highland Horn). Siyahs are African Padauk, OK not authentic but it's strong and I like the colour and it carved nicely. All glueing with hot hide glue- I use a mix of 1 part fish to 5 parts hide by weight of dried material. The Axminster electric gluepot is a godsend for this sort of work...

The glue on the limbs has cured for a while now, and the limbs have been left for well over 6 months trained to formers to remove the twist form the horn....so far so good. Maybe this summer I'll assemble it and start sinewing as the weather warms up, although I have to say separating out the sinew fibres from the dried sinews takes a while.... still not got enough done for the bow yet. Nor have I any clue to what final weight the bow will end up at!

Watch this space...

P.
 

Macbow

New member
Sounds like a major project P and well done for even attempting it. My Traditional Bowyers Bible has a section on horn composite bows which makes for fascinating reading but well beyond my capabilities. It mentions in the book that Mongol bowyers who made a bow which broke in battle seldom got a chance to make another one - tough career choice. Anyway good luck with the bow and please let us see the finished article.
 
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