Back at the range in probably about the weirdest environment I've ever shot a crossbow.
Hi it's Tod at Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today I am back with the lockdown longbow,
some arrows and some waders. I'm going to show you why I'm in the waders; look at this.
What you can see behind me is my range, that's where I usually do my shooting.
Basically my field floods, not always, but this year it's decided to flood. Now one;
that is a real pain in the butt. Two, a fantastic opportunity to play with arrows and water again.
So when we were doing the the film in the swimming pool that I did in the summer, obviously I had
very limited distance that I could shoot over and I really really didn't want to hit my pool,
so one of the questions that was absolutely thrown out there with the with the swimming pool film,
was how far does the arrow go through the water before it's effectively spent? Before it basically
isn't going to do any damage to anything? I can try that here, I don't want to lose my arrows,
that's going to hamper me a bit, but let's see what happens. Here I am back at the range in
probably about the weirdest environment I've ever shot a crossbow. Here you go, middle of a lake
10/12 meters away is a sheet of OSB, 12 mm/half inch; strand board I think you call it over in
the US, it's like a really low grade building sheet material, but basically if these bolts
go into it then I'm going to take that as enough that it's going to hurt somebody.
We have meter markers coming back towards this way. I'm going to get down and shoot as low as
I can, so let's just do one and just see what happens, hopefully I'm not going to lose my bolts
and now I've got to work out how to uh, try and load this thing. All right here it goes.
Oh there goes the table.
Here we go shot number one.
That went in at the five meter mark. I didn't hear it hit the board,
so it's probably down in the ground somewhere. I'm going to try and rake it out in a bit. So I'm
going to have to try and get myself a bit higher so we'll aim maybe for about the three meter mark.
That hit the board and it went in at the two meter mark, didn't sound like it was very loud,
so I'm just going to sort of come back maybe for about the three meter again. I'll try it's
a little bit awkward it must be said.
That went in about the two and a half meter mark; again I didn't hear it hit the board
but you know it might just be angles of incidence, hitting the ground first,
it's just very difficult because the water's not that deep let's have a look.
Okay I have no idea what happened here, the first arrow went in at about the four meter mark,
it just obviously just hit the deck straight away. I don't know if it's a function of the
water turning it, the next two this one was a bit short of the board a meter short, little less,
and it hit the deck, but obviously it's travelled a couple of meters two/three meters,
not very in the ground it must be said. This one struck the board, that struck the board,
but you know it just wasn't in, uh, basically it had just about enough energy to prick your skin,
probably not a lot more. We're just going to run it again. This time I'm going to get as low down
as I possibly can, I thought I was last time, but I'm going to try and go more. We'll just go again.
That went in at three and a half meter mark; I did not hear it hit the target.
Two and a half meters, again I didn't hear it strike the target.
Went in about the two meter mark and it did strike the target.
Okay, best for last, let's see how in this is..... Ah! yeah one cm/ half an inch into the OSB.
Now clearly there is one more test that has to happen, nothing to do with the lockdown longbow.
I've got some modern bolts, I've got a crossbow, I've got a lake, does this thing shoot underwater?
I've got no idea. My guess is not really, but let's find out. So we're going to shoot one
in the air at that 12mm OSB and we're going to shoot one underwater and we're just going to see
the difference. I'm going to do it really close because I am expecting with drag and everything
else for this to make really quite an impact on it, so I'm just going to shoot from a meter
distance; about. All right so let's give it a go. First up; about one meter into the board.
Correction, through the board. Gonna try it underwater.
Same bow, same distance, underwater.
Great noise
Well and that was your answer. It was just floating here, didn't even make the board, so
yeah basically the drag of the water on these limbs so slow it, just got nowhere and then
the drag of the water on the bolt, slow moving bolt, just meant there was nothing left in it.
Crossbows underwater absolutely don't work, buy a harpoon gun. Here I am back at base. To conclude
another pointless or informative video, depends on your point of view, I think a little bit of both
really, but what it did say to me is if I got my numbers right when I was viewing and it might be
a little bit different when we see it on screen, but at about a meter and a half distance, very low
angle of incidence to the water, obviously that might make a difference, more testing required,
but at about a meter and a half distance where it struck the water and then went into the board,
there was virtually nothing left in the arrow and it would pinprick you a little bit.
Might be a little bit unpleasant, as people said if you are actually swimming in a moat then
disease might get you, but essentially the arrow is not going to be the thing that does for you.
The last thing do; crossbows work underwater in any meaningful sense? Absolutely not and that is
presumably exactly why harpoon guns exist, but also the fletchings. These are big fletchings
on these arrows and that is going to cause a lot of drag overall. The whole thing is just
not really geared up for going underwater, but if you're close to the surface you'll be in trouble,
if you're deep down, it's not going to be a problem for you by the look of it.
Anyway thank you very much for watching another lockdown longbow film and there will be more
coming because there's so many things, like maille and plate that I just have simply not looked at.
I'm going to come back and look at the sharpness of arrowheads as well because that all feeds in,
there's a good reason for doing that. Anyway thank you very much for your comments, it's just
fantastic the support you give and the interest and the films you generate out of them. Thank you