Archery Straight Bows

Archery Straight Bow

The bow and arrow is one of the most important human inventions. It allowed humans to kill from a distance, instead of getting up close with their target. The oldest arrow heads to be discovered were dated back to about 25,000 BC, and the oldest bows would be classified as the archery straight bow. The first straight bow was made from a stave of wood and strung with gut. The arrows had fire hardened tips, or stone heads. By stringing the gut between the two ends, humans found that they could shoot the deadly arrows several yards, which sure beat using a spear.

In places where wood wasn�t readily available, people began to use a combination of things like horn, wood, sinew and tendons. This would have been the earliest example of what we would call today a composite bow.

In ancient china, straight bows were made from various pieces of vegetation such as bamboo wood and vegetable glue.

Today there are several types of bows that archers can choose from, such as the crossbow, compound bow, and recurve bow, but none of them would have been possible without the invention of the straight bow.

While the bows mentioned above have some very distinct advantages over the straight bow, many archers still prefer to use the straight bow instead.

The reasons for this are varied, but one of the possibilities is that nothing requires the same amount of skill to fire as the straight bow. Some straight bows require the person to pull one hundred pounds of draw weight just to shoot. Even if the bow requires fifty pounds of draw weight, you still have to hold that weight on your fingertips for as long as it takes for you to secure your aim. This is no easy task, and many straight bow archers learn to aim and fire very quickly.

Some people just have an affinity for antiques and wanting to build their own bow . No other kind of bow is older in design, and so people who love to use, and learn antiques are naturally drawn to the straight bow like moths to a flame.

This doesn�t mean that the archery straight bow is useless for everything. The straight bow is still very powerful, and can do the same job that a more modern style bow can. It just takes more practice and skill to use a straight bow effectively.