The Modern Crossbow

by Terry Stewart

  The average distance at which you are likely to shoot the greatest number of bolts under hunting conditions is about twenty-five to thirty yards and practice shooting at this distance in particular will be invaluable. My favourite hunting crossbow has only two sighting elevations, adjustable for thirty and fifty yards; my system is that if I can't get within fifty yards of my quarry I don't shoot. If my range estimation places me between two of the ranges my sights are adjustable to, say perhaps 35 or 45 yards, I select the nearer sighting elevation to the range estimated and place my point of aim either slightly higher or lower as required to compensate.

  Experiment with various lengths and weights of bolts to ascertain which type will shoot from your crossbow with the best effect with regard to the one that gives the flattest trajectory combined with hitting power and accuracy. It is important to know exactly what distance your crossbow will shoot with the sights at the various elevations using a particular bolt, and to estimate those ranges accurately, bearing in mind the unavoidable differences in performance and range of small game bolts and the heavier broadhead bolt. A very light bolt will leave the stock with exceptional speed but after a certain distance is more easily slowed down by air resistance due to its lack of weight. A heavier bolt, while not having the same initial cast, will shoot a further distance and strike a harder blow at long range. This does not apply to heavy broadhead bolts but to the differences in performance between a heavy and a light small game bolt.

  A solid grounding of target practice with your hunting crossbow, with the added practice of shooting from sitting, kneeling, squatting and lying position, will be an essential preliminary to hunting.

  Your next step will be field shooting at targets on the ground at varying unmeasured distances to develop your ability at range estimation; these also shot at from varying positions. Field targets may be old cardboard boxes, stuffed with paper with a black spot painted on the sides to aim at, or for a bit more realism, paper animal target faces may be purchased quite cheaply. Excellent field practice may be obtained with a pocketful of balloons, especially if a slight breeze is evident, as this will cause the balloons to drift along the ground for practice at moving targets. Do use targets of this type that will not be rough on your bolts. Good bolts are not cheap, and shooting at tin cans, bottles and similar objects only ruins your bolts, and broken glass littered around is dangerous to cattle and people alike. You will have just as much fun and practice with softer targets and still be able to use your bolts again.

  Use blunt-headed bolts for field practice as these are not so inclined to bury themselves out of sight in the earth, as target bolts have the nasty habit of doing. After retrieving your bolt, and before placing it back in the quiver, examine the head for any ragged edge where in contact with the barrel, due perhaps to striking a stone, etc., If damaged, do not shoot that particular bolt, as the rough metal surface will tear strips off a wood barrel and leave score marks along a metal one.

  To shoot a bird on the wing with a crossbow calls for an enormous amount of skill and is usually only practicable on the slower flying birds like crows, rooks, etc. Shooting at flying birds may mean the loss of many bolts in the event of misses, an expensive miss at that.

  A good, cheap substitute for bird bolts is a 5" length of arrow dowelling fitted with a blunt head only, and having no fletchlng. This reduces your cost to a few pence as a 30" long arrow dowel will give you six lengths and only heads are required to be fitted. Usually these bolts are considered expendable, though the slight extra cost of crestlng the full length of the shaft with fluorescent paint has enabled me to recover many of these 'expendable' bolts. I find orange is the best colour for the shaft. With so short and unfletched a bolt you will not expect great accuracy at long ranges; however, up to about 40 yards this bolt is accurate and will leave the crossbow with exceptional speed and has sufficient power to kill within that range.

  If you are able to obtain gas-filled balloons and attach these to a string, you will find this good practice for shooting flying birds. If you intend hunting larger game such as deer, etc., you must do your field practice with broadhead bolts.

  Some people simply use a special bolt with a type of pile similar to a target bolt, but the same weight as their hunting broadheads, as this prevents damage to the blades. My personal preference is practice with the actual broadheads themselves, as you cannot guarantee that a bolt with a pile head will perform exactly the same as your broadhead bolts with their very much larger head surface, even if they are the same weight.

  The broadhead bolt is for use on large game only and should be selected for maximum cutting power and penetration, as the broad head kills by haemorrhage, severing the large arteries and blood vessels. The greater the penetration combined with maximum cutting surface, the more certainty of severing more vital arteries and bringing a speedy, humane death. The broadhead bolt has remarkable penetrative powers, and you may expect the majority of bolts striking big game to pass completely through the animal, and in many instances even if striking the bone. A broadhead bolt has no shock effect such as that delivered by a bullet, so you must not expect your game when hit by a broadhead to drop on the spot unless you deliver a heart or neck shot. Your game may travel from 10 yards from where it was hit to miles if a non-fatal shot, so aim your shots carefully. A lung or heart shot will quickly drop it within a few yards. If you only wound your quarry it is your sole responsibility to find and dispatch it as quickly as possible.

  A well designed broadhead will leave a good blood trail that should be easy to follow, if you ever find it necessary to trail your game. Broadheads are wasted on small game, rabbits and the like. A rabbit penetrated through the body by a broadhead will somehow manage to make it to the burrow where it is irretrievable and will die miserably, whereas a blunt-headed bolt will kill it instantly by shock no matter where on its body it is struck, though do aim for a head or shoulder hit in preference to anywhere else. This also applies to target bolts with their sharp pile points; they have the nasty habit of disappearing deep in the earth, having great penetration, and should be reserved for use only on regulation targets which are designed to stop that type of bolt. Each type of head has its own particular use and is best employed for that use.

  There is practically no creature on the face of the earth that cannot be killed by the crossbow bolt. Game large or small will all fall to the crossbow -- deer, cougar, antelope, elk, foxes, rabbits, crows, etc. The largest species in Britain are deer and it is possible to hunt for them in various parts of the country. Apart from various game birds and animals there are the creatures classed as vermin or pests that practically any farmer or landowner will be pleased to allow you to hunt for, in particular crows and squirrels that cause incalculable damage to crops. Neither of the last two mentioned are easy game and it will take all your hunting skill to show a successful bag.

  The entire contents of this book could easily be filled with the many varied and interesting phases of crossbow hunting, and in fact many excellent books on bow hunting are available on the market and though not devoted specifically to the crossbow, the information will be of untold value to the hunting crossbowman with practically every aspect applying to hunting with the crossbow, and the reader will find it to his profit to study these books.

  Loading a Hunting Crossbow

  A Hunting Crossbow with steel bow

  Chapter 7

  RANGES

  Often I am asked what range one may expect from their hunting crossbow. It will naturally vary considerably, according to design and the other factors mentioned in earlier chapters. As an average, you may expect the range of a good hunting crossbow shooting a normal target or small game blunt bolt at an angle of 45� to be over 300 yards with a range in excess of 200 with the heavier broadhead bolt. The effective hunting range is probably not more than 100 yards at the very most, yet your bolt would kill at over 300 yards if it hit its mark. Why is the range limited? The reason lies in the abovementioned phrase '
if it hit its mark'. You will not hit with certainty at much over 100 yards and therefore will not risk the loss of a bolt, or a maiming, non-fatal shot by shooting. Another reason is the high trajectory at 100 yards and over. A rifle's flat trajectory will enable you to shoot at an animal that may show itself behind the overhanging branches of a tree at 80 yards, knowing that your bullet's trajectory will only be about 1/2" high at that distance. With the crossbow, your bolt's trajectory at that range may be from 18 inches to 2 feet, perhaps causing your bolt to strike the overhanging branch you are aiming below.

  The average 'point blank', or flat trajectory range of a crossbow shooting an average weight 15" long target bolt or small game blunt is approximately 25 yards. This is the distance at which the bolt will follow a perfectly straight path before its velocity is slowed down by gravity and air resistance, resulting in it following a slightly downward curving flight. From this it will be seen that to hit a mark over 25 yards away it will be necessary to aim to some degree above the mark for the bolt to follow its curving, path downward to strike the mark. As a crossbow with fixed sights would only be accurate up to flat trajectory range it is necessary to use vertically adjustable sights to shoot accurately over this distance. By using an adjustable sight to aim at longer ranges the stock will be elevated above the mark to be hit. Sights are simply an accurate method of elevating the stock by a required amount; keeping one's sights on a fixed mark or point of aim. The rear sight, when elevated and looked through at the foresight in line with the target, causes the required amount of stock elevation to shoot the bolt in its curving flight to strike the target at a particular distance.

  In observing the range limitations of the modern crossbow I should make clear that a well designed hunting crossbow, shooting its optimum weight bolt, will shoot with accuracy at ranges very much on a parallel with those of a shotgun, the most effective hunting ranges being up to 40 yards, at which the crossbow will deliver an accurate smashing blow every bit as effective in killing power as a small calibre rifle bullet.

  Chapters

  BOLTS

  No matter how good a shot the crossbowman is, or how well designed his crossbow, he will only shoot consistently well with good bolts. Cheap or inferior bolts are never an investment and you should at all times purchase the best you can afford. This applies particularly to target bolts; these should be matched in weight and balance if they are to be used for competitive shooting.

  A crossbow bolt as we know it today is simply a short arrow consisting of three main parts: the head, shaft and fletchings. Crossbow bolts vary in length, diameter and material with the best all-round length being 5" with a shaft diameter of 5/16ths of an inch. This length and diameter of shaft is well suited to practice target bolts and small game blunt-headed bolts. The best length for target bolts for competition use is also 15", but they are best made of alloy tube with a diameter of 1/4". In general, wood shafts of birch or ramin are well suited and economical for hunting bolts, with the shafts of a hunting bolt fitted with a large broadhead being about 2" long on 5/l6ths diameter shaft instead of the usual 15". Due to the heavy steel head, it is necessary to cut down the shaft to 12" to reduce the weight.

  Bolts may be fletched with the traditional grey goose or turkey feathers or, if preferred, the smaller plastic vanes. I would advise turkey fletchings on practice bolts and also blunt hunting bolts, with the length of fletching 2-3 inches for these bolts. On a heavy broad head bolt with a 12" long shaft, fletchings of turkey feathers should be at least 5" long and from 3/8" to 3/4" deep at the highest point. This larger type of fletching will better guide the heavy bolt to its target.

  Plastic vanes are ideal for target bolts and will be found to add some yards cast to your crossbow as compared with the usual turkey fletchings. Shafts may be fletched with either 3 or 4 vanes. However, I find that when target shooting, closer grouping is obtained with a 4 fletch bolt, especially if plastic type vanes are used, though for hunting purposes I find a 3 vane fletch quite accurate enough. Fletchings should be placed 3/4" - 1" from the butt end of the bolt.

  All crossbow bolts used for target practice and competition match shooting should have the butt end of the shafts reinforced with a plastic nock. This reinforcement will prevent one bolt splitting another due to close grouping. No nock to grip the crossbow string is required, so the fingers of the nock are sawn off leaving a reinforcement of about 1/4" in length. This reinforcement is optional on hunting bolts as there is no danger of shafts splitting due to close grouping, but as bolts have been known to split due to string drive I would advise this reinforcement on hunting shafts if employing a draw weight of over 75 lb. Whatever type head your bolt has, be sure it is firmly attached to the shaft. Target piles and blunts should be held on the shaft by prick-punching the jacket, and broadheads by drilling a small hole through the jacket and shaft and riveting on with a small cobbler's brad filed smooth.

  Wood bolts for target use are best wax polished rather than varnished, as this enables them to be more easily withdrawn from the target and also assists an easy flight along the barrel.

  If you are fletching your own bolts do remember to fletch any one shaft with feathers from the one wing of the bird and not have feathers on the shaft taken from both right and left wings. Your bolt will steer an erratic course unless all the feathers are from the same wing. On a three fletched shaft the vanes are placed 120 degrees apart, the cock feather being a different colour from the other two shaft feathers.

  Whether you are using bolts with target piles or blunt heads, be sure at all times to get into the habit of always placing the cock feather down the slot. This will ensure that if you are ever using broadhead bolts when out hunting, this habit of placing the cock feather down the slot will enable you to place the broadhead bolt on the slot correctly with the broadhead aligned with one edge down the slot.

  Target bolts should be crested with several colours an inch or so in front of the vanes as a means of personal identification. The new fluorescent poster colours are particularly suited for cresting hunting shafts and show up vividly even in a poor light, an invaluable aid to recovery. I usually crest my hunting bolts from the butt end of the shaft down between the feathers for about six inches in one colour only. The most outstanding colour I find to be orange fluorescent poster paint. A coat of clear lacquer over the cresting will prevent the friction of the bolt down the barrel stripping your cresting off the shaft, and messing up your barrel with paint. By using a different colour cresting for broadheads and blunts you will be able to choose the correct bolt from the quiver by the colour of the shaft; most important if an unexpected shot presents itself.

  Matched tournament bolts should be numbered to enable you to identify a poor flier (perhaps bolt No. 3 shoots a bit to the right, and No. 8 flies a trifle high). This numbering will enable you to make the necessary allowance when shooting those particular bolts, it will be necessary to practise frequently with your tournament bolts to observe the characteristics of each one before the numbering will be of any value in correcting your shots. This practice will be time well spent when you stand on the shooting line at your first tournament, confident in the knowledge that provided you shoot well, you know what performance to expect from your bolts.

  Chapter 9

  STRINGS AND STRINGING

  We come now to the crossbow string, that comparatively slender line that draws back the limbs of the bow and upon release casts the bolt from the stock. These strings are taken very much for granted; however, it is this string that takes the roughest abuse of any part of your crossbow, and when you consider the tremendous speed with which the bow limbs return from the bent position, it is remarkable just how much use one does receive from a good string.

  Many materials will make good strings; among the best perhaps are the synthetic fibres fortisan and dacron. The time honoured linen thread is a reliable string material with little stretch and usually will show some signs of wear before breaking completely. This will enable you to
have it replaced with a new string before breaking occurs. Fortisan will make a much lighter string than linen as it is stronger, approximately 16-1/2 lb. per strand as against an average of 8 lb. in linen, and consequently will require fewer strands to the string. This in turn will increase the cast of your bow quite considerably. Fortisan must be thoroughly stretched before use and it is an excellent string material; its only disadvantage is that it gives little or no warning prior to breaking.

  The correct bow string ratio for a string to suit your crossbow I find to be 10 to 1. That is, for every pound your bow pulls you will require a 10 lb. breaking strain. Thus a bow drawing 50 lb. would have a breaking strain of 500 lb. From this you will see that a fortisan string will be approximately half the weight of a linen string. Perhaps this ratio of 10:1 may appear excessive when compared with a hand bow string poundage ratio of about 3:1. However, my personal experience of bowstrings that I have made on the endless skein principle, with the loops having half the number of strands that are in the full body of the string, shows that a ratio of less than 10:1 will stand up to only a few dozen shots, whereas the 10:1 ratio shows good cast combined with safety. On hunting crossbows I increase this ratio to 12:1, feeling it is safer to be a little on the heavy side than perhaps have a string break at a crucial moment during a hunt.