Post by vault72 on Feb 8, 2011 9:00:55 GMT -5
Crossbows can be both a godsend and a pain. The usual problem is that their strings break unless they are treated either with Teflon, wax, grease, even animal fat works but don't use gun oil or motor oil as these break down polymer compounds and will cause your bow strings to slowly disintegrate. Use any kind of lubricate that isn't water based. Attach some para cord or twine to the string on either side to help eliminate the noise the string makes when you fire. If you do have para cord, in emergencies it can be used to replace a broken bowstring. You could also use rabbit intestines, just attach it, coat it with alittle heated animal fat and let it dry and you have a new string, you may have to coat it several times in the oils from heated animal fat to help make it supple. You could also use animal sinew dried and pounded then chewed and weaved into a type of rope and coated in hide glue you get from boiling animal skin then simmering it all down to a gel. Either way, bows are simple and cost efficient hunting tools for small and medium sized game within a 50 meter effective range, although it can go much further, most shooters are not accurate enough to hit small to medium sized targets beyond 75 meters so just plan on 50 meter targets or less to help lower the number of lost quills. Another thing you want to do is get brightly colored aluminum quills, they're stronger and easier to find should you miss or penetrate your target. To help lower the number of lost quills use simple game heads on your quills instead of razor big game heads because if you just wound the animal it will run off with you quill stuck in it and rub off the arrow against a tree, so just follow the trail and get your arrow back. Granted a broad head won't easily come out and it leaves a much more visible blood trail but animals can take a lot more physical damage then we can and survive. It is better to either kill, or injure but give them the ability to recover then it is to maim and have them die much later far away from you and be some other animals meal and lose a quill. You can go to www.budk.com for some cheap crossbows or go to www.ruralking.com for some cheap bows.
thanks.