An afternoon at the range

Hey all,
Since I moved last spring I haven't had much time for any new builds and still haven't got my new shop set up. Another reason I haven't been building much is that my new house is only 15 minutes away from a crossbow-friendly range, a little surprising in the Metro DC area. So for the first time since I started building these things I actually have someplace convenient to actually shoot them!
I just made a new string for this one, a little thicker for comfort and safety and a little shorter, bringing the brace height up to four inches where the center serving just kisses the bolt track. I also added leather sleeves to the nock ends, rather than padding the prod tips with leather strips or shrink tubing.

I had a blast for over 3 hours, starting at 10 yards shooting from the hip til I was sure my new string was a winner, eventually moving out to 36 yards, where I got this group:

I thought that was pretty good, considering the bolts I was using were among the first I ever made and the fletching of of dubious quality. I came with seven of those heavy fiberglass bolts and left with four, at 36 yards I eventually planted two of them in the wood frame of the target and had to break them off, one hit the top edge of the frame and bounced off into the woods. I have commercial aluminum bolts I plan to use with this bow, but I need to get some 150 grain field points and 110 grain brass inserts to get the weight up where I want it for this steel prod. Interestingly, the only bullseyes of the day were with the two super heavy quarrels I brought just for the fun of it, pretty consistently from 20 yards.
Gnome

Good effort. Both shooting and the bow look like a real winner. You just have to be proud of what you've accomplished. Funny thing, I was just reading your build thread last night . I was still milling it over and     there you are. As a point of interest, I belong to an NFAA summer league and they just to voted to let crossbows on the range.They are  about as archery as you can get.

Where in the DC metro area did you find a range? I'm at Fort Meade and I'm looking for a good place to shoot...

Welcome to the forum!
The range I've been using is Adelphi Manor Archery Range, just west of the University of Maryland. That is definitely a longer haul for you than for me, but if you can't find anything better out your way, this place is often wide open. Doesn't seem to be any sort of official moderation, no lifeguard on duty so to speak. I've seen all kinds of folks there, from serious hunters to college students to dads teaching their little kids how to handle a bow. Lots of folks using crossbows, though so far nobody else with a medievalesque homebuilt! The only drawback of the place is that because there are a lot of kids and amateurs, sometimes I spend more time waiting for them to give up searching for their lost arrows in the outfield than I do shooting.
Gnome

great...can i ask...where did you get your prod from and how many lbs. is your xbow. im wanting to finish a project xbow. Currently have a horton 150# prod for it but its not heavy enough for moose and elk. I need a prod that is in the neighbourhood of #250 ish

Hi roonie. This prod is rated at 165, but I've never measured it so don't know for sure. I got it from Slobows http://www.slobowscrossbows.com/ They do steel prods up to the 200# range, but these are the shorter, more medieval looking kind. These steel prods can deliver a lot of energy to the target with sufficiently weighted bolts, but the slower speed means you'd have to be really close to deliver an accurate shot due to the greater trajectory drop than you would get with a fiberglass prod.
Gnome