My First Pistol Crossbow

[img:d09f]https://thearbalistguild.forumotion.com/[/img][img:d09f]https://thearbalistguild.forumotion.com/[/img]

This is my first medieval style pistol crossbow, think it has around a 30 or 40 pound pull, let me know what you think, has anyone else made one like this ???, The tiller is made from poplar, the prod and the bolt holder are made from schedule 40 pvc, prod and trigger are bound with hemp, needs a little tweeking but shoots great and it's a lot of fun, and boy do the bolts shoot far !!!

Nice job! Seems a bit "chubby" forward of the action, but that's just my taste I suppose.

How about some dimensions? Width and length of prod, thickness of prod stock, dimensions of tiller and action, etc.

I'm putting together a pistolbow based on a 17th century Malay matchlock pistol stock.

Here is one the "Backyard Bowyer" put together.

https://youtu.be/OWheHsz8G2M?hd=1



Todd

Here's a link to the website i got the plans from, I modified mine just a little bit, all the dimentions are there, If you decide to make one please post some pics so we all can see.

http://backyardbowyer.com/mini-crossbow-tutorial/

Thanks for the link. I'll definitely be trying some PVC prods.

His technique should make light draw 28"-30" prods as well.

I sent him a question about the possibility of baking the PVC in an oven rather than using surface heat -- "bake at 475F for 35-40 minutes...". Also the possibility of using a two-piece mold cut from a 2x4 to flatten and curve the soft PVC rather than flattening the whole piece and then individually re-curving the tips around a pot.

I have tried to email him several times with no success, his videos are a couple years old, and am not sure if he is still making pvc bows, I also made a recurve long bow using the stove top and bend around a pot method, it's ok and will shoot an arrow but is a little miss shapen, I made the prod for the pistol crossbow using a heat gun with better luck, I'm pretty sure you can bake the pvc in an oven and then put it in a mold that would definitly give you a more consistent shape, but you have to do it quickly because it sets up pretty fast, flattening it first then trying to curving it around a pot is a bit of a pain, and sometimes takes several tries to get it right because as soon as you reheat it, it wants to puff up and return to its original round shape and is quite floppy, I also made a pvc prod around 28" long for my medieval crossbow but dont thing it will shoot more than 20 or 30 pounds, maybe if i recurve the ends I could get a little bit more out of it, was also thinking of stacking the pvc and making each one a few inches shorter than the 28" similar to how a car leafspring is stacked but havent tried it yet, Just a word of warning, pvc does put off gasses that may have carcinogens and should not be inhaled directly, but I think this is only dangerous if you are doing this process often. Please post some pictures and let us know how you make out.