Reply To: Bows and archery

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#2499
Hans Hellinger
Moderator

I saw that too, and I really like Leo (Todd) and makes some magnificent replicas (I would love to get one of his bauernwehr in particular) but I’m quite suspicious of his youtube tests, particularly because his crossbows aren’t very historically accurate.

This particular test is ok since it’s really more about comparing the bolts, so regardless of how poorly his replica crossbow performs, the relative performance of the various types of bolts is still informative.

Basically he’s a very good tinkerer and a competent bladesmith, but his analysis of period weapons is perfunctory, and he tends to buy into alot of the old tropes about the middle ages and medieval technology, so many of his tests are kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this one for example he notes that the ranges he is getting are way below what is to be expected. Too many people assume these tests are representative of the real thing.

I’m much more of a fan of this guy, who unfortunately is far less prolific, but whose crossbows are based on pretty deep research into extant antiques etc. Not surprisingly his weapons perform much better than Todds.

Note for example, massive 222 gram bolt shot 250m with a large siege crossbow

69 m/s with an 80 gram bolt and a smaller crossbow. I believe Todd is getting around 40 m/s which he blames on steel prods being less powerful than horn prods, but there is zero historical evidence for that.

Sadly Todd gets tens of thousands of views while almost nobody even knows about this guy Bichler who does the real deeply researched work.