A friend of mine brought some pictures into work one day for a repeating Chinese Crossbow. He said, why don't you try to build one of these. I gave it some thought and put some dimensions on the drawing and the next thing you know, there it was, a repeating crossbow made almost entirely of osage. I can see the advantage of close quarters warfare in their time. The bolts were too short to be very accurate over 5 yards, but you can sling em at quite a fast pace. About the same time I built the crossbow, I had also built a youth bow for a boy with muscular dystrophy. His father would hold the bow and let him pull the string to shoot it. The thought came to me that if somehow, the boy could hold a crossbow, like the repeater, and work the handle with both hands, he should be able to shoot it solo. I changed the dimensions somewhat and made the bolts long enough to get some distance and accuracy. You should have seen his eyes the first shot. the arrow flew over the target and landed about 50 yards from his wheel chair. Once he got the feeling of where the position of the bow needs to be when it fires, he did very well. We are looking forward to his first hunt.
