Talk:Bow shape

Difference between 'reflex' and 'recurve'
I think that both these articles are unclear. It seems to me that a reflex bow will curve away completely from the archer, when unstrung, and that a recurve bow only has recurving tips. It seems that an unstrung recurve bow will maintain its shape.

Also, the reflex bow article mentions that most reflex bows are made of wood. It seems to me that the advanced horse archer bows from the peoples of the east, be it huns or mongols, made composite reflex bows made of birch wood, water buffalo horn and sinew. These types of bows are called 'hun bow', 'magyar bow' and 'hungarian bow'.

It seems that the older recurve bows are the older bows of the Assyrians, Parthian and Persians used recurve composite bows.

The normal bow article explains all this well. Maybe someone who actually knows something about bows, and not someone like me who has never touched a bow but who is trying to piece things together using the internet, can edit both articles and have them refer to the correct types of bows.

I do miss information about Chinese and Korean bows. It seems that, at some point in history, the Koreans aquired a composite reflex bow. What kinds of bows the Chinese used in which point in time is not really clear to me.


 * It seems off the top of my head that reflex bows aren't necessarily symmetric (the limbs at least)? Every recurve bow I've seen that can be disassembled into the two limbs and the body have functionally identical and balance limbs. Gertlex 04:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Lulz at this sentence in recurve section
"A recurve bow stores more energy than an equivalent straight-limbed bow, because more energy is stored and delivered more efficiently, giving a greater amount of energy and hence,speed, to the arrow."

Clean up
The article had a lot of out-of-date information and many points were unclear (or had strangely judgemental comments). So I've updated and cleaned it. Apologies if I've trodden on any toes. Mr Barndoor 12:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of clean-up, there's this sentence: "The greater mass-weight of a modern bow is itself an aid to stability, and therefore to accuracy." Would someone explain what's "mass-weight" and how it differs from just plain weight? 193.229.194.39 (talk) 10:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The term mass-weight was used to avoid confusion with draw-weight. Richard Keatinge's changed it to "mass", which makes more sense. Mr Barndoor (talk) 12:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Native Americans
This is a little confusing: "An unstrung recurve bow can have a confusing shape and many Native American weapons were incorrectly strung backwards and destroyed when attempts were made to shoot them." Do you mean that the Native Americans incorrectly strung their own bows, or that people who later came into possession of the weapons misunderstood the structure and messed them up? It's an important distinction, and I'm not sure which one it is. A reference would probably be good here too. Thanks!--75.85.148.174 (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Your wish is my command! Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Greeks and Phoenicians?
How do we know the Greeks and Phoenicians had recurve bows? I had always read we were not so sure about their bows, and also that the Greeks, and also Romans, did not use them extensively. spettro9 04:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Date of invention of recurved cavalry bow?
Can someone come up with an approximate date for the introduction of the short, lightweight, laminated, recurved bow used by mounted nomads? Obviously, the longer "single-stick" bow could be used easily enough by archers on foot, but I assume the smaller bow didn't appear until chariots were replaced by mounted cavalry. Was the laminated bow introduced at the very beginning of this process? (I don't know how a short bow made from a single piece of wood could provide sufficient range and power.) So, are we talking Akkadians, or Parthians, or who? --Michael K. Smith (talk) 18:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If the contributors knew the answer to that, then it would probably be written in the article, wouldn't it? That makes it essentially your task to go out and search for the authoritative source that can clear up the mystery. --Latebird (talk) 18:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm fairly sure that nobody knows the answer. Bows don't preserve well in most archaeological records, and written records on the Eurasian steppes BCE are practically nonexistent. On the North American plains, where the transition to horseback and mounted archery took place not far from historical times, newly-mounted groups very rapidly became aware that shorter bows were easier to manage on horseback. The American groups already knew about sinew backing for bows, and used it. Heavier sinew backing tends to give more reflex/recurve automatically, because it shortens as it dries. They also developed horn-bellied bows independently of Eurasian ideas, but bows were obsolete before they invented any three-layer composites. It all happened in not much more than a century and there is, as far as I know, no archaeological documentation of the transition. On that analogy, we are unlikely ever to know exactly how or when composite recurves were introduced to Eurasia, nor whether they inspired or were inspired by the Northern Asian laminated bows. But if anybody finds out, do let me koow! Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes on 8 July 2008
What's the intention here, please? Is the intention to put ALL bow types - recurve, compound, longbow, flatbow, crossbow etc - on a single page? I think the result would be unwieldly. I think there should be a Bow Types page that summarises the key features of each bow type, with links to more detailed pages. So I think the Recurve article should be reinstated. Mr Barndoor (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems like this article here should rather be named "Bow shapes" or "Bow shape factors", because that's what it describes and compares. It can stand well next to the articles on the different bow types in your list. The seperate articles merged here had little chance of ever evolving beyond stubs. --Latebird (talk) 09:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The Recurve article had evolved a long way beyond a stub, and was/is about more than the bow shape. Perhaps have this article about bow shape, as you suggest, and have a separate article for Olympic Recurve? Mr Barndoor (talk) 14:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest keeping it on the grounds that many newbies to archery and to Wikipedia will search for the only word they're heard, "recurve", and won't go any further than the first article they see. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Support Latebird's suggestion; an article on bow shapes seems good. Thanks Aaron. Separately, we may need other categories (or possibly articles) of, for example, bow materials or length. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Apologies in retrospect for not using this talk page after making the changes. The new page title a was admitedly lazy in choosing, hoping for some crowd-sourcing to come up with a better name. With respect to the material that was already in "recurve" that was way beyond a stub per Barndoor: While you are correct, a good deal of that was not specific to the recurve, and could find a home elsewhere. My (eventual) goal here is to eliminate a great deal of the redundancy in this class (group? nest??) of articles while losing none of the content. - brenneman  03:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I have seen "Side-view profile", but it's a bit long. What about "Bow form" or "Bow shape", with most of it on sideview profile and a section on frontal profile? Having just read the new TBB 4 I'm game to have a go, when I find time. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 23:46, 9 July 2008 (hist) (diff) N Bow types‎ (moved Bow types to Bow shape: talk page discussion)
 * I support "Bow shape" as well, and have moved the page to this title. I've also created a re-direct from Side-view profile.  brenneman  23:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparison of bow types
According to http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm, even mongol recurve bows could have 100-160 lbs draw weights, so it appears that regardless of the bow chosen, every one can attain the same speed/kinetic energy with any given bow, since the force/speed depends on how much the shooter can pull. This would mean that the bow hasn't been improved by newly invented bow types, or am I wrong in this ? I wonder whether the pulleys on the compound bow actually multiply the draw weight of the shooter (so that say an shot from the compound bow with the same effort would yield a swirring arrow with twice as much power/twice as much speed) 91.182.241.204 (talk) 16:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Questions on bow design
What I still like to know is
 * What is the maximum range of a general (70# or 70KE for convenience) compound bow ?
 * Roughly how much energy does an arrow lose as it travels trough the air (as we have the KE at 2 arrow lenghts, or V1,4? (70cm arrow ?), we should be able to calculate the KE at different ranges). I would think that for this, there should be a rough equation (ie F(x)= ?, or ie ? loss of KE per say 10 meters) Besides this, what is the maximum range of a bow, if its shot in a general fashion (ie in the old days, expert marksmen would fire the bow in a 45° angle, but I'm guessing that this is no longer done (shooting instead straight on target nowadays; mostly as this kind of firing was inaccurate and only useful with large volleys of arrows)).
 * By how much inclination does the bow need to be fired to hit a target at different ranges ? At http://www.excaliburcrossbow.com/content/arrow_ballistics, we see that there is indeed an arrow drop, but this is in the arrow drop for the arrow, and it does not say by how much degrees we need to adjust using the bow

Note: for the arrow KE drop (aswell as arrow drop), there are indeed already numbers present in the table, but the arrow weight is different (400 grain).

If we manage to find an answer on the questions above, we should be able to calculate the rough KE of any type of bow, and with any type of arrow/projectile shot. 91.182.60.88 (talk) 09:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * the kinetic energy imparted to an arrow corresponds to the area under dynamic force/draw curve of a specific bow. the ratio between this and the area under the static force/draw curve is the bow's efficiency. the weight of the arrow has a slight influence on this, with (generally speaking) higher efficiencies at higher arrow weights.62.238.182.126 (talk) 14:36, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Straight bow??
I've only heard of flatbow (regarding bow types that could be similar or even the same thing). I tried searching but couldn't find anything definitive about straight bow. There isn't even a single reference in that part of the article. More clarification and/or sources is, imo, needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Setenzatsu.2 (talk • contribs) 22:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Other shapes?

 * flatbow
 * asymmetric (yumi is the most notable example)
 * split-limb bow
 * solid-limb bow — Preceding unsigned comment added by Setenzatsu.2 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Back and Belly
Back and Belly in Holmegaarde bow redirect here, but the article does not mention them or explain which is which side of the bow. 80.4.102.201 (talk) 07:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)