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

[sollersuk]

I've been checking my books and as far as I can make out shortbows in Europe from Late Antiquity were mostly compound bows. Simple shortbows, having neither the range nor penetration of compound bows or longbows, don't seem to have been used in battle; they were most suitable for use in woodland, chiefly for poaching, where the arrow did not have to go long distances or through armour. So there would not be likely to be much information of the type you need from medieval sources.

[rj_anderson]

Thanks for the info on the use of shortbows vs. longbows, that's very helpful.

Fortunately, I've just found out that the longbow is an option for my heroine. My earlier research had led me to believe that only an unusually strong and muscular woman could use a longbow, but I've now been informed that's not the case, so huzzah!

Although nobody is wearing armour in this book, so the ability to punch through metal plate would not be an issue in any case...

[janewilliams20]

I've shot a longbow, and I'm certainly not unusually strong or muscular, quite the opposite. It had a draw weight of about 30lbs.

[criccieth]

the longbow, technically, is "taller than the archer", though the heavier the draw-weight, the longer the bow has to be. My 35-lb bow, which was made for a boy, is shorter than mu husband's custom-made 90-lb bow.

The key is training. The English archer, back in the day, started training at about 7 years old.

btw, while I have no doubt you can create a believle scenario/society with female archers, as a reader I would find the idea of a book where the MC has been training with a warbow (the longbow was only really practical AS a warbow) since childhood but no-one is wearing armour would be very VERY hard to believe - unless said MC has been moved from one world to another.

[londubh]

I did a fair amount of archery in the SCA, and I am inclined to agree with Aliskye, above. That said, I know a woman who, shooting a 35# recurve, could hit the target (for score) at 80 yards, so...

To directly answer the question, a bull's eye at anywhere from 40 to 60 yards would be impressive with a moderate (hunting) poundage bow, such as one might make as a short bow.

ETA: Much further than 60 Really starts to push my suspension of disbelief, given that that is a LOT of distance worth of wind, etc, to compensate for with a relatively light bow.

[rj_anderson]

Excellent info! Very helpful indeed, and I appreciate it.

[rebecca2525]

There are people who do traditional archery as sport today. I think the English terms are "Traditional Archery" and "Field Archery". They allow all sorts of traditional bows, and they have exact rules how the bows compare when it comes to rating a shot; maybe you have luck finding something useful for your sort of bow?

[rj_anderson]

Thanks for the suggestions! Good ideas. I also managed to get some good results last night with "primitive archery" -- turns out there's a whole forum for building and shooting primitive bows, and I got some answers there as well.

[hyarrowen]

If you've got access to a big library, look for books by the actor Robert Hardy; he's an authority on mediaeval archery.
Failing that, this com
http://community.livejournal.com/askahistorian/
is very useful on matters historical, and they're fast with their answers too.

[rj_anderson]

Robert Hardy is an expert on medieval archery? That's brilliant! (*loved him on All Creatures*) Thanks for letting me know! And I appreciate the community link too.

[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.