This is a story about making a crossbow with your own hands at home. The first desire to make a crossbow myself arose unexpectedly, while watching a movie on TV. I still don’t understand what attracted me so much to this weapon. Some switch just turned in my brain, and in addition to the pure, devoted love of archery, I also developed a passionate attraction to crossbows.
By the way, I remember the name of that film: “Escape is Impossible” - a fantastic action film recorded on videotape, in the “inimitable” translation by Leonid Volodarsky. It was 1996.
The first pleasant impression of discovering such a fascinating topic as a crossbow and everything connected with it, without any intermediate stage, grew in me into uncontrollable fanaticism. I wanted to have a crossbow until I had a toothache. The same as, for example, Barnett Coomando from films with Chuck Norris.
Those who are older remember that in the 90s the arms market of our country was still in its infancy, and such an abundance of bows and crossbows as today was out of the question.
If a crossbow appeared in weapons or hunting stores in the early 90s, it was only in single copies. And even then, mostly from the category of imported cheap consumer goods, which were purchased for pennies. But they were often sold for exorbitant amounts of money by the standards of that time. And the only logical solution then was to take it and start making a crossbow for myself.
It’s worth explaining here: I was incredibly lucky that at that time I was working as a toolmaker at a local metallurgical plant. That is, from the very beginning I had access to both materials and equipment.
But that's only half the battle. The most important question was - where to get information? How can I find out how a crossbow is designed? What parts does it have inside? Where to get blueprints for a crossbow and how to assemble it later. There was no Internet yet.
As a result, I managed to find out something through questioning, thought of something myself, and somewhere I was able to read or see a picture on a topic that interested me. Information sometimes had to be collected literally from newspaper clippings.
Finally, the happy moment came, and I set about creating a prototype.
How to make a crossbow.
Visually, I was guided by a crossbow from the Snipe company. There was a company producing crossbows for some time, in St. Petersburg, I think. I cut out a photo of their crossbow from a 1992 weapons magazine. I couldn’t find information about them today, but the Interloper AK-47, which appeared much later, is suspiciously similar to that crossbow.
The guide of my crossbow consisted of two parts, connected to each other by welding (seriously, real hardcore). One of the parts was the trigger mechanism box; a bar with a milled dovetail was screwed on top. I planned to immediately install optics and did not count on open sights. The bar covered the parts of the mechanism, and a spring plate, cut from a piece of an old ruler, was attached to it, which presses the arrow to the groove on the guide.
This is almost exactly what my first homemade crossbow looked like. The only thing is that it did not have a lever cocking mechanism. And the butt did not have such elegant shapes; the lower part was straight. And it’s very similar.
I planned to make the shoulders separate and removable - before that, I had seen enough of sporting crossbows in a weapons magazine, which was brought by a fellow worker who heard about my concern.
The block for them was milled on a machine; the idea was to make it so that it would be attached to the guide with a screw, similar to how the blocks assembled with the shoulders of Excalibur crossbows are attached today. But when I was young, I made a mistake with the drill, and I had to weld the block. Only the shoulders themselves remained removable.
There’s no other word for how I fenced them off; it’s a different story altogether.
Question one: what are the shoulders made of? At that moment the answer suggested itself. And I went to where they cut scrap metal at our factory to look for a spring. What do you want me to do? I basically couldn’t find any other material for flexible elements then.
Of course, I found the spring and the work began to boil.
Making a crossbow with your own hands
I now understand that I violated all conceivable and inconceivable technical processes and principles at that time. At that moment it didn’t matter to me, I was young and full of creative energy.
I found a spring from a tractor, and used a cutter to cut a piece about 400 mm long from it. Next: it was necessary to get two narrower pieces from one piece approximately 50-55mm wide.
I couldn’t think of anything better than to use guillotine shears for cutting metal and halve the plate on them. One half turned out smooth, the other was bent with a screw. At that time I didn’t even think about some microcracks caused by rough cutting and other similar dregs.
Returning to my site, I clamped the “screw” half of the spring in a vice and straightened it using simple manipulations. In the same vice, I shaped the shoulders, bending the ends outward and slightly bending the plates. The result was two identical shoulders with a bidirectional smooth bend. Well, almost identical.
I understood that the range of bending of the crossbow arms and the operation of the springs when driving a vehicle are noticeably different, and the halves of the arms would have to be re-heated. Fortunately, our workshop had a well-equipped thermal unit with a competent thermal operator. It was he who told me how to properly harden spring steel.
Looking ahead, I will say that soon, repeating the same technology, I had to make a second set of shoulders. This happened because two young dunces - me and my friend - decided to set the bowstring by resting one shoulder on the bench and pressing the other from above. A lever was created that went to a break and the lower arm broke near the fastening screw.
I made the second set of shoulders faster, taking into account previous experience. In terms of tension force, the arms turned out to be somewhere around 60-65 kg, with a working stroke of the bowstring of 250 mm. The shoulder width was 720mm.
The small working stroke is due to the peculiarity of the steel arms, which do not have the same flexibility as fiberglass ones with similar dimensions. But I didn’t want to make a wide arc for the sake of a slight increase in the stroke of the bowstring.
On top of the steel guide I glued a fiberglass plate with a semicircular groove along which the bowstring was supposed to slide and the bolt to move. I didn’t take into account at all then that the fact that the bowstring lay on the guide with a large bend. The friction turned out to be quite strong and soon the fiberglass began to wear out, bristling with fibers.
The bracket on which you place your foot to cock the crossbow turned out to be a little small and only allowed you to insert the toe of your boot. But over time I got used to doing it.
The steel parts of the crossbow were finished, the next step was making the stock. The only wood suitable for this task was oak, ash and birch. The choice fell on ash. It had a nicer texture than just white birch wood. The oak was simply too heavy.
Folk art of homemade crossbowmen
The butt and fore-end were supposed to be separate. I made the forend in the shape of a strongly elongated trapezoid, the wider part was located just under the palm, then it smoothly tapered in width and height. The edge of the forend was beveled to give it a more graceful shape.
The stock looks wide, with a straight bottom and a large hole where the thumb goes through. It was comfortable to hold the crossbow and aim. The handguard was attached in a rather funny way: a groove was milled into the wood, into which the guide almost completely sunk. Without further ado, I took and glued the forend and a plate with a groove directly to the guide using epoxy - for some reason I didn’t want there to be holes in the lower part of the forend and screw heads visible. It seemed that it would be unaesthetic.
After all the metal parts were assembled, the forend was glued and the stock was installed - it was attached with two screws to the sight post from below, another question arose: “Where can I get suitable threads for the bowstring?” I immediately rejected all the advice to use nylon thread or, as some “especially gifted” people said, fishing line.
My stepfather helped me out, quite by accident. He was sorting out old trash in the garage, and from somewhere he fished out a large coil of thin rope, twisted from unknown threads. The rope did not stretch under the force, and after several experiments I wound a bowstring from it onto a crossbow.
There are also block homemade structures
I almost forgot to tell you how the trigger mechanism on that crossbow was designed. It turned out, oddly enough, for me it was durable, reliable in operation and consisting of only three parts and two springs.
The hook that secures the bowstring in the cocked state, or popularly “nut,” was made in the form of a washer 10 mm thick. The groove for the passage of the bowstring and the protrusion into which the locking sear fits are made using files of different calibers. The “nut” was single-toothed and the back of the bolt did not rest against the bowstring.
Wanting to squeeze the trigger mechanism into the small dimensions of its box, I got carried away and slightly incorrectly distributed the length of the sear arms relative to the center of rotation of its axis. This played a cruel joke on me and the descent turned out to be a little harsh.
During the firing process, the “nut” rotated, carried away by the bowstring. After which he hit the front wall of the box and happily bounced back, where he stopped. Before cocking, it had to be lowered manually each time to allow the string to pass through and the “nut” to be rotated to the position where it was fixed by the sear. I was unable to find a technical solution so that the hook would remain in the lowered position after the shot. I racked my brain and racked my brain, but couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile. After which I gave up on this matter and left everything as it was.
The final touch in creating this crossbow was the installation of a sight. At that time, gun stores began to actively import pneumatics and various useful things for them. Like inexpensive optical sights, for example. This is the one I bought. I took a simple four-power scope with an eyepiece with a diameter of 25mm. Soon it was installed on the crossbow.
The long-awaited moment of the first tests was getting closer, all that remained was to make the bolts - and you could shoot.
Crossbow at home: preparing for shooting.
It was impossible to find aluminum tubes with a thin wall and I had to opt for wooden shafts. For this matter, I again turned to the place where they fitted me with wood for the butt - to the Model Shop. The same ash tree came up, whose dense, but not very heavy wood was suitable as well as possible.
A friend of mine turned the shafts on a wood lathe; the conical tips also came out from under the turner’s cutter, only for metal.
I painted the bolts poisonous red to make them harder to lose, and I also coated them with varnish on top. The tips, which were sharpened for me as many as ten of them, turned out to be of slightly different shapes, but almost the same length - and that’s a joy. I started going through them and ended up selecting more or less the same ones. It turned out to be two groups of tips, six in one and four in the other.
I placed the tips on the shafts, securing them with Moment glue. Next in line was the plumage, which was not clear what to make of. A bookstore helped me out - there I saw and later bought these thin multi-colored folders into which pieces of paper were inserted. Their covers were made of thick cellophane, which held its shape well. So they were used to feather the bolts for my crossbow.
I invented the manufacturing technology quite quickly: I cut out a pen template from cardboard, traced it with a pen, attached it to the covers of folders, and used ordinary scissors to cut them into the required quantity.
As you probably know, branded feathers for bow and crossbow arrows have a seat in the form of edges facing to the sides, by which the feather is glued to the arrow shaft.
I got around this point in a rather interesting way. To begin with, I cut the feathers in a double set. One thicker feather was glued together from two thin halves. Before gluing, I outlined the edges of the halves identically, and then simply bent them in different directions. The resulting seats are almost the same as those of factory rubber feathers. All that remains is to glue them onto the bolt shafts, which is exactly what I did. There were two feathers on each bolt, because there was a semicircular groove on the top of the guide. I was not yet technically mature enough to make a deep groove along which the lower feather passes, when there are three of them.
So, tests! Everything happened in the forest, the target was a cardboard box filled with old rags and leaning against a thick pine tree. With my first shot, I drove the bolt into the tree just below the box. An attempt to pull it out ended with the shaft remaining in my hand, and the tip stuck deep in the trunk. I didn’t bother picking at the tree to get it out and left everything as it was.
The crossbow showed its good side, it shot sharply, the steel shoulders straightened at a good speed, sending bolts into the target. The lock worked properly, without breakdowns or interruptions, except that the release was a little harsh. I cocked the string while wearing gloves - it cut my fingers very “spiritually”, but I didn’t know anything about the tension cord and how it works.
As a result, after the first shooting I only had three intact bolts that were not broken.
That crossbow stayed with me for some time, pleasing the eye and warming the soul. But I moved on, working on the creation of the next, more perfect model, and it was given into the possession of my friend, who then shared my passion.
You will learn about how my next homemade products turned out in another article. In the meantime, here is an example of an interesting video of a crossbow made at home by the same enthusiasts.
Video of shooting from a crossbow made by yourself.
Evgenia Smirnova
To send light into the depths of the human heart - this is the purpose of the artist
Content
How to make a crossbow - this question worries both hunters and shooting enthusiasts. Shooting from a crossbow, as from a military weapon, is left far behind. Today, crossbow shooting is practiced mainly by professional athletes, as well as by amateurs who want to shoot at targets. Shooting with a crossbow has a number of advantages over shooting with a firearm. Firstly, it is silent shooting, and secondly, accessibility and comparative safety. A crossbow does not require any permission or medical examination to purchase it. You just need to buy a ready-made one (for which you will have to pay several hundred dollars or more), or make a weapon yourself. That is why your favorite useful advice site will tell you today how to make a crossbow yourself.
How to make a mini crossbow - instructions
Types of weapons and ammunition for them
Experts distinguish two types of crossbows - field and match. Ammunition for both types is considered to be feathered arrows. Carbon and duralumin feathered arrows are available on sale. You can learn and compete in shooting using a standard five-color archery target, which is also available for sale. Field crossbow shooters usually compete at distances of 35, 50, 65 meters (outdoors) and 10, 18 meters (indoors). Match shooters usually compete only in special premises - shooting ranges at distances of 10 and 30 meters.
Hunting with a crossbow is an activity for real men
Many owners use their devices for hunting. Hunting with a crossbow is fundamentally different from hunting with a gun - shooting animals from a tower, a helicopter, or driving an animal in a large crowd is not everyone’s cup of tea. Hunting, on the contrary, loves silence and solitude. In some ways, this type of hunting is reminiscent of the famous heroic pastime - hunting a bear with a spear. In fact, to shoot you need to approach the animal at a distance of 50 meters or closer. Not everyone will be able to approach a boar at such a short distance, and approaching it at such a short distance requires special hunting skills. Well, the more valuable the loot!
How to choose
Power
For hunting birds or small animals, a crossbow with a draw power of 50 kg is sufficient. With a pulling power of 50-70 kg, you can hunt large ungulates. For wild boar hunting, crossbows with a power of 80 kg are used.
What ammunition can be used
Hunting large game requires special ammunition. To hunt large prey you need to use special professional arrows made of fiberglass or carbon. These arrows are strong and light enough to be properly centered to ensure a successful hit. There are also sometimes excellent aluminum arrows on sale. But such ammunition is only suitable for hunting small animals or birds. Manufacturers of arrows provide the possibility of turning hunting ammunition into sports ammunition - to do this, you just need to change the arrow tip. The threaded connection allows this to be done very quickly. A hunting arrow weighs from 30 to 35 grams, the length of such an arrow is from 45 to 50 cm. As a rule, the length of the feather of a hunting arrow is longer than that of a sports arrow, because the arrow needs to stabilize faster in flight to assume a firing position.
The crossbow topic is probably never-ending, that is, I mean, there is always something interesting on the Internet. Lovers of homemade weapons spend hours wandering around in virtual reality, trying to find detailed drawings and new design developments to create their own models of weapons, including crossbows.
Modern crossbow making has rather complex mechanics, and not every home-made person can make a crossbow using new technologies. The reasons for this are different: some do not have the appropriate equipment, some cannot find the appropriate material, and some simply do not have the professional skills to work with modern technologies. But don't be upset if you don't have any of the above.
The crossbow masters of the past developed the designs of these magnificent weapons, which were very simple and accessible to any person with straight arms and good judgment. And believe me, a high-quality crossbow made according to ancient drawings is no worse (in terms of its technical and shooting characteristics) than the sophisticated factory “miracle” of our days. Moreover, its production does not require complex equipment and the material can be found easily.
I want to bring to your attention the design of the simplest, in my opinion, crossbow. Its diagram is located in one single picture, but this is quite enough to understand how to make such an old crossbow.
As you can see, almost all of its parts are made of wood, except for a metal cotter pin for connecting the trigger mechanism to the crossbow stock and a steel plate designed to hold the arrow in the crossbow guide when cocking the bowstring. Although, the descent can be made even simpler, for example, as shown in section.
The curvature of the arc can be achieved using clamps and special metal templates. However, it is better to make a bow not from a single piece of wood, but using, for example, multi-layer veneer. You can read how to do it on the page
Now pay attention to the ease of connecting the bow to the crossbow stock. Nothing pretentious or abstruse - ordinary strong twine that firmly holds these parts together. The stock itself can be cut out with an ordinary hacksaw, corrected with a file and sanded with sandpaper.
An electric drill will help us drill four holes. The only difficulty for someone may be the selection of grooves for the boom and release lever. But still, I think that hand-held circular saws are found in almost every home these days. And with such a saw, making any groove will not be difficult.
From the picture above you can see all the required dimensions except thickness. You can determine the thickness yourself, or you can go through the topics dedicated to crossbow construction and choose the option that suits you.
So, we spat on modern technology and reconstructed the crossbow of the Middle Ages. Of course, an optical sight is not available to us, and the arrow’s flight range is much shorter than that of the powerful crossbows of our time, but... we made it ourselves, without having any sophisticated equipment, expensive materials, or detailed drawings at hand. Without which it is impossible to make a modern crossbow, since its manufacture requires high precision in the fit of all parts. You can be quite proud of your creation.
By the way, if you apply a little creative effort to our wooden crossbow, you can quite easily achieve it being recognized as a “work of art.” Perhaps you are interested in wood carving and will be able to put a unique design on your product that can amaze others with its originality. Good luck, friends, in your creative endeavors.
More about homemade crossbows:
Video instructions on how to make arrows for a crossbow
Video instructions on how to make a toy crossbow
One of the most popular types of small arms is the crossbow. And although hunting with such a device is prohibited in our country, there are still many who want to acquire such a “toy” in order to shoot at targets. At the moment, you can buy such weapons on many websites or in stores, but such a purchase will be very expensive. It is much more profitable to make a crossbow with your own hands at home, and you will find out what is required for this below.
Preparation
Today there are many varieties of this sporting weapon. First of all, these are classic models familiar to us from historical films and block crossbows - modern weapons equipped with complex mechanisms. The last option will be quite difficult to create at home, so let's focus on the classic one.
What parts does a crossbow consist of:
- Trigger;
- Bowstring;
- Crossbow stock;
- Bolts and arrows.
Making a crossbow at home will be much easier if you immediately stock up on all the necessary materials and tools. For this you will need:
- Well sharpened knife;
- Hammer;
- Drill or brace;
- A regular hacksaw, which can be replaced with a grinder with a wood disc;
- Plane;
- Chisel.
How to make a crossbow with your own hands
In addition to the tools to create this small weapon, you will need a piece of wood measuring 900 mm in length and 30 mm in thickness. In this case it will do:
- ash;
- hazel;
- poplar.
- birch.
First of all, you need to prepare a wooden blank. To do this, cut the branch to the required size and paint over the cuts. This must be done so that the liquid comes out of the wood slowly and evenly. Please note that the wood must lie in a dark place for at least a year, only in this case the weapon will fire with special power. After this, the bark is removed from the workpiece and left to dry for another week. Next, the log is sawn into two parts and the crossbow itself is made from the northern part - the strongest.
Draw the stock of the weapon on the board and cut it out using a hacksaw or grinder, then make a small groove for arrows on the top of the workpiece. On the front side, cut a groove in which you will attach the arc. If knots or chips appear on the stock during the process, remove them with a knife and treat the area with sandpaper.
How to make an arc
For this part you will need a flat board with a length of at least 750 mm, a width of 200 mm, and a thickness of 60 mm. We dry the workpiece well and let it stand for several days, and level it. The width of the part in the middle is 40 cm, and at the edges it narrows to 15 cm.
At a distance of 100 mm from the cut groove for this part, we create a through hole through which we stretch the rope - it will become the main fastener for the crossbow arc. Then we insert the part into the groove and fasten it firmly with a rope, as shown in the bottom figure.
This part plays a fairly significant role in the “lethality” of the weapon, and to create it you will need the following materials:
- nylon threads;
- wooden plank;
- two nails without a head;
- rubber glue.
First of all, you need to make a special machine for weaving this part: take a rope and measure the length of the bowstring. After this, saw off a board with dimensions slightly larger than this parameter. Next, mark the length of the string on the board and drill two holes in these places - this is where you need to insert your nails.
Take the thread, tie it to one of the nails, and leave a margin equal to the length of the bowstring. After this, begin to evenly wrap the threads around the nails (Dacron is best). Continue this process until the base of the bowstring reaches 5mm. To do this you will need to make 5-6 full turns. Try to keep the threads equally tight.
Next, wrap the base near the nails on both sides several times with wrapping material. This will create loops at the ends. You can understand how to do this from the above diagram. Do not forget to wrap the middle of the bowstring, because this part suffers greatly from friction. Tie the cut ends of the threads with a sailor's knot and lubricate them thoroughly with glue so that the entire structure is strong. After which you can pull the bowstring onto the arc and adjust the degree of its tension.
How to make a trigger
The simplest option would be a pin-type lock; we will choose it for our weapon. Pull the string as far as possible and drill a through hole in this place. Also make a small transverse recess at the top of the crossbow stock. Now secure the lever at the bottom of the part. Make a wooden axle and secure it with wire.
Secure the stock and lever with ropes so that the latter moves with maximum friction. The depth of the “ammunition” groove should be equal to 1/4 of the volume of the arrow, and this recess must be “sawed” from the top of the lock to the front edge of the crossbow.
How to make arrows
In order to get ammunition for your small arms, you don’t have to run to a sports store, because you can easily make it at home. To do this, you will need several ordinary wooden blanks, which need to be well planed and treated with fine sandpaper. It is better to choose light types of wood for arrows; in this case, shooting will be more accurate. As for the tip, if you don’t have special ones, then sharpen the tip of the arrow - with such ammunition it will be quite possible to shoot at targets. You should not drive nails into the head, because this increases the chance that the arrow will split when it hits the target.
Be that as it may, you should remember that in our country, shooting with crossbows is equivalent to using firearms. So if you want to make such a device, then under no circumstances use it for its intended purpose. Treat your crossbow as a beautiful souvenir, and then the law will not have any claims against you.
Just twenty years ago, a bow or crossbow for individual use did not exist in nature. Some eccentrics and fanatics of historical reconstructions took on making them at their own peril and risk, having absolutely no idea what they would get in the end. And all because the process of accumulating experience and honing skills in the manufacture and use of throwing weapons, which lasted several tens of thousands of years, in our time was once interrupted and anathematized.
Now all this rare knowledge has been taken out of dusty chests, they have learned to make bows and crossbows using modern technologies, and the army of followers of William Tell and Robin Hood is growing at an exponential rate. And today we have prepared drawings and diagrams for you that will tell you how to make a crossbow at home.
Despite the abundance of online stores selling throwing weapons, as well as a fantastic range of products, there are many who want to make a crossbow on their own. Most of them don't know where to start. Today we will tell you about the main design features of the crossbow. This knowledge will help you avoid manufacturing errors, as well as frustration and injury when using it.
Before starting work, there are two main points to know.
- In our country, a crossbow is recreational and sporting weapons. Hunting with it is prohibited. Any throwing weapon with a tension force of more than 43 kilograms is considered a combat weapon, the right to use which is given by the licensing authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- Crossbow is a structure that experiences enormous loads during operation. Therefore, any carelessness in its manufacture will most likely lead to injury. Any part of it must have a multiple safety margin.
So, let's learn how to make a simple crossbow at home.
The video below will tell you how to make a crossbow at home:
Onion
The crossbow's energy source is the bow - an elastic plate of complex shape, having one main bend and, as an option, two additional ones at the ends. You need to start making a crossbow with this particular part and adjust everything else to it - choosing the type of tension (recurve or block), the size of the stock, the type of trigger.
Wood and composite
The urgent question is what to use as a material for the bow: wood, composite or metal?
- Tree- the worst choice. Available “pieces of wood” lying underfoot are garbage, suitable only for lighting stoves. Branches cut down in the forest lose their elasticity as they dry, crack and fall apart. From this material you can only make something for short-term entertainment in the country. Of the models sold in stores that contain wood, the one that is very popular is also the one.
- Composite, created from fiberglass and epoxy, is very tempting and simple in appearance. But there is an obstacle - the need to scrupulously adhere to the technology of all work. Mix proportions, drying, aging. At home this is almost impossible.
Metal
There is only one option left - metal. If you have an old Moskvich with a set of leaf springs on hand, consider yourself lucky. One sheet is taken from the entire package - the second. If you are not too scared by the dimensions, then the first one will do. Moreover, it has tubes at the ends - an almost ready-made bracket for attaching blocks or bowstrings.
A block is used to attach the bow to the stock. This is a U-shaped design that wraps around the stock from the front. It can be welded tightly to the spring leaf, but in this case, when the bow is bent, the welds will experience excessive pull-out stress. Therefore, it is better to attach the ball joint from the VAZ 2108 to the block. The bow is attached to its pin. This is also convenient because there is a hole on the spring leaf.
If you are very strong, then you can choose the recursive method of tensioning the bowstring (as in, etc.). But it’s better to choose a block one (as in models, etc.). To attach the blocks to the bow, if you have chosen a second spring leaf, you need to attach brackets to its ends. A bolted (or even better, rivet) connection is preferable to welding, since this unit experiences strong vibration loads. As pulleys, use parts of the window lifting mechanism of the same Moskvich.
Regarding the bowstring, an obvious solution arises: a thin metal cable. But it is not entirely correct, since steel cables do not withstand variable loads well. It is better to choose a climbing cord with a diameter of 5-8 mm.
Once you've made your bow and attached the string to it, you can conduct full-scale bending tests. It’s great if you have a dynamometer of 100-150 kilograms. As a result, you will learn two parameters necessary for further work: the length of the bowstring stroke and the load.
Read below to learn how to make a stock for a powerful crossbow at home.
Lodge
For this part of a homemade crossbow, wood is the only option. But not everything. In any case, not aspen, alder, spruce or pine. Better beech, elm, oak. The product has been dried for twenty years. It is clear that you will never find something like this anywhere. Therefore, use moisture-resistant plywood with a thickness of 7-9 mm. 3 or 5 contours of the stock are cut out of it, and then this package is glued together with epoxy resin. Not very pretty, but extremely reliable.
- Regarding the shape, give up the semi-pistol style and use a straight English stock. It is not only easier to manufacture, but also stronger.
- When assembling the stock package, it is necessary to take into account both the course of the bowstring and the load. The first determines the distance from the block to the slot for the trigger mechanism. The second is the thickness of the stock walls at the place of its attachment. It is the straight English stock that will allow you to avoid excessive thinning when moving from the forearm to the butt.
- The most important part of a crossbow stock is the arrow guide. It should be smooth and durable. For it, you can use the plates framing the side windows of the Moskvich, furniture fittings, and other similar-shaped parts.
- If you use a block type of bowstring tension, then there should be a groove in the forend under the guide for the cable system. This is another element that weakens the stock, so give up the idea of making the forend dainty. High will protect your fingers from getting caught under the bowstring and traumatic amputation of the phalanges.
Typically crossbows have a plastic stock, such as models and others.
Below we will tell you how to make a homemade trigger mechanism for a crossbow at home.
This video will tell you how to make a crossbow from wood (plywood) with your own hands:
Trigger
If you are not a sixth-class mechanic, then give up the idea of making this element yourself. Make an effort and find the trigger for any spring-piston air rifle. In the most difficult case, you will only have to modify its tooth that holds the piston - it may be too small for a thick bowstring.
A casing with a height of 2 to 5 cm is placed above the trigger mechanism, which is necessary to protect it from moisture and dirt, and also serves as the basis for sighting devices - rails for optics or rear sights. Weaver, Picatinny or dovetail rails can be purchased at any online store that sells pneumatics.
The front part of the casing above the trigger mechanism is made in the form of a long (no more than 10 cm) elastic “tail”, which holds the back of the arrow on the guide.
Making arrows
Canonically correct crossbow ammunition is called a “bolt”. But many online stores sell crossbow arrows. For crossbows with a rifle stock, lengths of 14, 16, 20, 22 inches are suitable. To be completely honest, you won't find better magazine arrows. Unfortunately, none of them are worth less than 150 rubles. Therefore, it is worth trying to make them yourself.
They can be made from straight-layer wood without knots. As an option, use furniture parts - balusters from chairs, railings of cribs. Good arrows are made from aluminum tubes up to 2 cm in diameter. If desired, you can even use electrodes of the maximum diameter, but they bend hopelessly when hit and it is difficult to attach the feathers to them.
Thin plastic is used for the plumage. Natural bird feathers can give the unexpected effect of chaotic changes in flight direction, since they have natural curves that must be taken into account.
The main condition for a good, smooth flight is balancing. The center of gravity of a crossbow bolt should be after the first third of its length from the tip. If it is not metal, the end of the arrow can be loaded with lead wire wrapped around the shaft.
The issue of equipping an arrow with a tip must be treated without fanaticism. Sharpening metal on lathes, milling and polishing, giving it exquisite shapes - these operations are accessible to few. In addition, such a tip is extremely dangerous. If you do not need to pierce knight's armor, then a wooden bolt can simply be sharpened at an angle of 30 degrees using a regular knife.
We will tell you further how to make a crossbow that shoots with your own hands from paper, pencils and other materials.
Cool shooting games
Shooting with toothpicks or matches can be made from a wooden clothespin. To do this, disassemble it and remake it:
- widen the narrow groove for the spring of one half to 1 cm, make the same on the second, but with an indentation of 1 cm;
- at the front ends of both halves, on the side of the narrow grooves for the spring, make a longitudinal groove 1-2 mm deep;
- assemble the halves of the clothespin “inside out” by twisting them with thread;
- install the clothespin spring with its paws in the cut grooves, and with the spiral outward;
- place a toothpick in the hole between the halves;
- press the spring spiral, moving it into the semicircular cutout;
The spring tab will slide along the long slot, clicking on the toothpick and causing it to fly out.
To learn how to make a mini crossbow from pencils with your own hands at home, watch the video below.
