4 ms·

I think only trained professional archers could use a 170lb pull bow at all.

• sigseg1v 1y ago
  Agreed. I'm an amateur archer and I asked my archery instructor the highest poundage recurve bow he's ever seen someone fire, and he says that one time someone came to the range with a 100 pound draw bow, but he's only seen that once in 10 years. Compound bows of course you can go higher because of mechanical advantage, but either way I don't think that people realize how difficult it is to draw a 100 pound bow. Typical professional recurve bow users would rarely want to exceed 50 pounds as I understand it.
  • Xylakant 1y ago
    There’s also a bit of a different optimization goal in modern archery - the goal is to put as many arrows precisely on a target. More draw weight helps up to a certain extent, but ranges are pre-set and limited and once your draw weight is high enough to comfortably propel the arrow that far, more weight will not improve things. Aiming gets harder at a higher weight. You could shoot a heavier arrow, but the benefits are somewhat limited - it punches a bigger hole which helps a bit, but you’re not trying to kill the target - so the added penetration is not interesting. In a war setting, higher draw weights increase both distance and penetration, which are desirable.
• acjohnson55 1y ago
  My understanding is that English longbowmen trained from their teens on the weapon and you can see on the skeletons how it warped their bodies.
  • scott_w 1y ago
    Yes but they weren’t starving them for their whole lives.