One club I shot at in Iowa used expanding foam to make an elephant target. It took quite a bit of beating at 3D shoots, and seemed to hold up pretty well. (I remember shooting at it a bunch of times!)Highspeed wrote:Brilliant. This is exactly why I asked here, clear concise answers I can trust
The compound I had in the UK was something like 60lbs and I found it manageable. Finding a 2nd hand bow in Spain probably won't be easy but then most things aren't easy in Spain, I'm getting quite used to that.
One final question - I won't be able to source hay or straw bales, any alternative ideas for a backstop ?
As far as equipment goes, I shoot a 55-60 lbs fiberglass-laminated longbow (actually, I have three, two red elm, and one black locust) and use sitka spruce, white cedar, or douglas fir for arrows. The fir is heavier, the spruce seems a little tougher (this may be a figment of my imagination, though), and the cedar is fastest (although this is relative, since I'm probably not making 200fps with my sticks). With longbows (or recurves) you want 7-10 grains of arrow weight per pound of draw weight (my douglas fir arrows weigh about 620 grains average, with broadheads on them) to absorb the energy, and keep the noise down. I've put arrows completely through 160-lb whitetails who never knew they had been hit; they just kept browsing along until they fell over.
The most important thing is absolutely scary-sharp broadheads! I really like the two-edge Magnus heads, (I get the glue-on ones, but they also make them in the screw-in persuasion) and I've taken several deer, and two hogs with the same head (on a couple of different arrows). I won't go into the intricacies of sharpening, you're a knifemaker, I assume you have that part down!
The nice thing about traditional tackle is that you can make a lot of it yourself. I buy blank shafts, nocks, points and full length feathers, and build my own arrows, as well as making Flemish-braid bowstrings. It's actually a lot like reloading, since it requires a similar attention to detail.
I just went downstairs and checked, and I do have a can of expanding foam. I'll pick up a cardboard box at work tonight, and see how it does as a target.
If you go the compound route, you're on your own! I've never owned one, and only shot The Boss's one time (to adjust her arrow rest.) No, thank you!
