shoot-able art Will! Excuse my ignorance but it the cow horn reinforcement typical?
Thanks!
The horn reinforcement is required once you're past about 80lb in draw weight. At that point, the string starts imparting so much force on the nock that it can split fairly easily. These were made for a guy who bought one of my 120lb ash bows earlier this year, so they definitely need the reinforcement for that!
You see the horn strips in very many medieval "type" arrows, as the arrows found on the 1545 warship The Mary Rose had them as well as the earlier medieval arrow recovered from the roof of Westminster Abbey, and those arrows are what everybody bases theirs on.
Normally you see people make them from big chunky slabs of 2mm or 3mm black buffalo horn, but "true" medieval horn reinforcements are actually very, very thin. Possibly thinner than my 1mm ones, actually!
