[Archers] More on PVC Bows

[Garth Groff]

M'Lord Siegfried and Friends,

What you say is true. I don't advocate giving any inspection less time 
and effort than it should have, but we can't ever catch every flaw. We 
are limited to what is obvious, or what is not so obvious but we notice 
it because of special training or personal experience. That's all that 
can be expected of us. For quantifying, let's give this inspection a 
value of "x". In the case of a weapon of unfamiliar materials or design, 
we are expected (and usually do) spend more time and effort on the 
inspection. For someone who presents a new hand-made bow of PVC or even 
wood, maybe we want to spent "x+1" or "x+2" to be satisfied the weapon 
is safe to shoot, or as at least as safe as we can determine. One way is 
to ask bowyer/archer the sort of questions I suggested. If he/she says, 
"Well, I made five before this one, and they all broke the first day," 
we can conclude that this person is probably a poor bowyer, and also a 
chump (though an honest one). Any marshal should also see a red flag in 
a situation like this. With an archer like that, I would probably offer 
them up something from my loaner kit. ;-)

Yours Aye,


Mungo

On 10/9/2012 1:06 PM, Siegfried wrote:
>> However, a new bowyer is another matter. How do we judge his or her
>> experience? How many bows have they built? How long have their bows been
>> in use? Have any failed? Is this a new bow, or one that has had say 100
>> shots from it (that's roughly four royal rounds, barely broken in)?
> But that's no different than a wooden bow.  Is this someone's first
> wooden bow?  Or first attempt at a laminated bow?
>
> Or is this even the case of "Archer X drawing selfbow Y for the first
> time, and bow Y was tested at a 22" draw length, and Archer X draws at a
> 30" draw length ... and ... BOOM"
>
> I've seen those on the range, and I've seen them fail AMAZINGLY
> catastrophically, with chunks flying.
>
> And we have similarly no way to really inspect a '1st time bowyers' bow
> any differently, as it will look perfectly the same as an experienced hand.
>
> Siegfried
>
>