Posted on 12/10/2013 5:12:07 AM PST by Carriage Hill
"Unless you're fighting zombies, skip the crossbow."
While many preppers are busy stockpiling hordes of rifles, shotguns, and handguns plus cases of ammunition for a looming doomsday scenario, others are thinking more broadly about other weapons options. Thanks to the success of AMC’s The Walking Dead, one of the options that has become popular with preppers is the crossbow. On TWD, one of the main characters (Norman Reedus’s Daryl Dixon) uses a crossbow with quite an astonishing amount of lethal success. But is this even remotely realistic? Let’s take a look at this bolt (arrow) shooting implement to see its implications as a true SHTF tool.
Thanks; great information!
That’s a potent unit!
I didn’t go out and buy one. My boy bought a crossbow last year and has become pretty good with it. He fed us all last winter with it. As a lady in her late middle years, plagued with tendinitis in my right shoulder, I don’t find that a regular compound bow is a good tool for me. No, the crossbow is not a defensive weapon, but it has its applications: we don’t always want to get the neighbors excited with the sound of gunfire when we’re shopping for dinner in the back yard. ;-)
He actually carried a handgun earlier in the series and has used guns numerous times.
But he is anti-gun. He made a video saying people don’t need automatic weapons after the CT school shooting. Seems fairly ignorant about guns.
The article points out that those razorheads break easily and are expensive to replace.
I seriously doubt it....someone started a rumor, most likely. I saw a short "making of" the WD video, in which the actor was listening to heavy gunfire during filming. He looked at the camera and grinned and said, "I love the sound of gunfire in the morning."
Absolutely!
Was that the commercial AMC ran after the shootings, or something else?
Our next door neighbor has taken 5 deer so far this season with a cross bow. We have a Christmas haunch in the freezer thanks to it. So Far Mr. GG2 is 0 for 3 with the AR. :-)
Not sure exactly. Here’s a link with a little more info - http://www.hollywood.com/news/brief/49088108/norman-reedus-grateful-for-celebrity-support-over-anti-gun-video?page=all
I can’t find the video so apparently they’ve removed it or at least made it harder to find.
Farmer Dean ~ Get some silver bolts for werewolves too.
I'd add rubbing them with garlic as additional vampire bane, and a mistletoe core should one end up against a Norse god...
Psychological impact of the mere sight of it might have some advantages.
Most know gunshots are quick, but a small arrow?
We are going to be up against “zombies” in the modern sense,
so I wonder if there is some special zombie repellent, say, Classical Music, that might be a deterrent so that you wouldn’t have to waste ammo.
Classical music might do it. We might also try threatening to put them to work? A big NOW HIRING sign?
“Beware of Snakes”
“Now Hiring”
That oughta do it.
I got the 2012 Horton 175 RTD. Loaded out with the performance bolts, rail grease, string wax, bolt case, Hurricane Target and broadheads was about $600. It was “last year’s model” purchased wholesale from a dealer. $400 for X-bow + about $200 for accessories.
I did not buy the Special Horton case for the X-bow. That’s a custom piece and is pricey for a case.
This year’s model is running about $650 (just for bow) I think. You can spend up to $1,600 on the Tactical models and some of the supped up 425 FPS models. But, as I previously posted, there seems to be some overkill and expense with going crazy speed. Reviews I have read suggest some of the really high performance models are pretty light and extremely fast.... which has been identified by some for the reason strings give up quick, pulley fail and accuracy suffers. Logic would seem to tell you that, like with bullet ballistics, faster is better. But I think there is a point of diminishing returns with X-bows (depending on the power stroke length) where the power flexes even the carbon shafts a bit during initial acceleration.
That being said, the accuracy difference we are talking about is the difference between a 1” pattern at 40 yards and a 2.5” pattern at 40 yards. If you are hunting big game, the animal won’t know the difference. Also note: with crossbows especially, the accuracy and sighting must be based on using the same bolt. Each bolt does have it’s own characteristics regardless of how precise the manufacture claims they are. A perfectly sighted x-bow with one bolt may give you a shot that is off by as much as 2” with a seemingly identical bolt. I have found, however, that the second bolt will hit the same place every time (normally - assuming the fetching is not altered or different tips).
The sight of one would get my attention!
“Years ago, Stallone used one in a “Rambo” movie to shoot VC out of guard towers in a prison camp, during a POW rescue”
not sure if it’s the same movie, but Rambo used a bad ass compound bow in one scene to take out the bad guys who were picking off helpless villagers who were forced to run through a muddy mine field.
Rambo was like the elf in Lord of the Rings, just firing arrows “semi-auto” fast.
BTW, somewhere on Youtube is a video of a guy with a compound bow who is a machine gun with arrows.
I had no idea that there’d be that much difference from bolt to bolt.
I have marked all (6 of them) with permanent ink. I have #1 wich is the first shot, #2 is the next closest (.25” from first) and so on. I have one turd that is consistently 1.8” off high and left at 30 or 40 yards.
I learned this lesson by experience and frustration. I’d get the crossbow sighted in using one bolt then shoot all 6 at the target. Being used to firearms, I got very frustrated when I couldn’t put all in the same hole, especially after getting it sighted in and being able to ruin a bulls eye with the same bolt. So I sighted in another bolt and so on. Finally it occurred to me what was going on and I did some google research. I wish I would have started there. If a bolt has fetching off by 1 mm and the twist is a tad different, the center of gravity off by 1 mm, etc. it does perform slightly different. The manufacturing tolerances are tight. But with the accuracy we are talking about, I don’t believe identical exists.
Again, all the tolerances I am talking about are still pretty tight. And I make all comparisons to the slug barreled shotguns that I use to hunt deer here. I struggle to get a 3” pattern at 50 yards with my smooth barreled shotgun from shot to shot. The specialty, rifled slug barreled weapons with magnum sabbots are a lot more accurate than my shotty and with more range too. So the accuracy we are talking is relative for what you want out of it. A real clean kill shot on a midwestern whitetail provides some room for error (Big lungs and heart). But I can also hit a rabbit in the heart at 30 yards. I have learned broadheads are a bit much for rabbit as the bolt will either be lost or damaged by the ground and it about cuts the hare in half.
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