Longest practical distance to bull's eye with a medieval-style shortbow?

[rj_anderson]

Setting is contemporary but it might as well not be, as my characters are working with homemade medieval-style bows (long for men, short for women) and arrows.

I have searched: medieval shortbow; what's the longest distance you can shoot accurately with a shortbow (and various permutations thereof); target archery women primitive; and various

Comments

[janewilliams20]

If the bow is homemade, the limitation is the quality of the bow rather than that of the archer. For a given draw weight, how efficient is it at converting that into arrow speed? The lower the arrow speed, the more the arrow will be affected by the wind at longer distances. Maximum range isn't the point, not if you're after accuracy.

You might want to specify exactly what you mean by a "bullseye" and a "short bow", too. Also how the distance is being measured: are we talking about a conventional target archery range, with standard-size targets at fixed known ranges (size of bullseye varies with the standared size of target for that range), or a home-made target at approximate ranges?

Does your home-made bow have sights? If not, compare with modern long-bow shooting to get an idea of what's reasonable.

[rj_anderson]

No sights, just a very simple sort of wooden self bow, but made by people who know what they're doing and have put some serious work into it.

The target is a home-made one and the range is approximate: however many paces (at an estimate) would make the shot impressive, is really all I'm looking for. And my character puts the arrow dead center in the target, with the first shot, using a bow someone else was using for training newbies (so probably no more than 35#).

Thanks for your comment! Appreciate the help.

[janewilliams20]

Getting the first shot in the bull at an approximate range and with a previously unknown bow is incredibly impressive in any case. Usually you'd have a few "sighting" shots, then adjust aiming point accordingly. Has your heroine by any chance being doing a lot of field archery? That would give her the sort of experience she'd need to be able to pull that off.

I'd agree that your draw weight is under 35lb, probably under 30lb, and that's going to be the limit on range. A bull at 20 yds on the first shot would impress me, at 40 would be "wow!!!". Beyond that, you're losing accuracy due to the light-weight bow being affected by wind. At 60 yards, I'd be impressed if she hit the boss, never mind the bull.

[rj_anderson]

Heh. That would be very true, if I were! As a child, I always envied Susan and Lucy their mad archery skills...

[rj_anderson]

Excellent. Thanks!

[criccieth]

define newbie. A newbie who is an adult, then yes - 30-35lb at max. A newbie who's a child, you're probably talking 15-20lbs. And if your adult who's doing the bullseye with this bow is used to war-bows, she'd actually find it quite hard to shoot such a light bow - she'd have to deliberately reduce her draw, or draw very gently to avoid damaging the bow.