When you speak to people about survival weapons they will give you a whole list of fire arms. They may even throw things in that you have never herd of before. There is one tool however that 75% of the people that you speak to would never mention. A good old fashioned bow and arrow, I am not talking about one of the new compound bows either, don’t get me wrong compound bows are also fine tools , it is just in my view they don’t have any soul. In this article I will point out the benefits of a bow and arrow for survival and I will give you at least two sources for archery supplies.
The bow and arrow has been used in every culture that I am aware of for thousands of years. The culture that I am most familiar with however, are the Native Americans of the mid 1700’s to the mid 1800’s. In most movies you will see most Indians carrying a bow that is around 3 feet long, that is true they did carry those, but not till the horse came along. Before the horse came along the eastern Indians carried bows that were around 6 feet in length. Please don’t get me wrong I don’t claim to be a expert on this subject or any subject for that matter, my life is a path that is a constant process of learning, about the subjects which define my character, survival, self reliant living, hunting, fishing, weapons, traditional methods of living, etc. this subject comes from deep study and personal experience.
You probably noticed that I specified a traditional bow over a more modern style of compound bow. The reason is that if you ever need to fashion your own arrows it is difficult to do when you use a compound bow. One of the most important things that a tool that you use for survival needs to be is versatile. It will do you no good if you are in a survival situation and you run out of arrows only to find out that you can’t make new ones. A traditional bow is not as finicky with home made arrows.
The type of traditional bow you choose is your choice, and depends largely on preference and comfort. What is important however is that you bow fits you and your proper draw length. Your draw length is basically the length of arrow that you will shoot according to you arm length. If you have an archery shop in your town they can help you with the measurements.
Once you choose a traditional bow then you will need to by the proper length arrows. This is another area where an archery shop can help you. Since this is a survival tool it will be important to by arrows for practice and arrows that you intend to keep for the real thing.
A few sentences ago I mentioned practice, how good you are at archery depends on how much time you put into it. Remember if you are going to use this as a tool for survival, it can serve you well but you need to be good before something happens.
A Bower that I have used in the past and is as close to an expert in the field of archery is www.rudderbows.com his prices are good and he makes a quality product. You need to be prepared though because he makes bows as they are ordered, so it may take a few weeks to get yours. Another good company is Kustom King Archery,
In closing I would like to say that if you add a bow and arrow in your” survival toolbox” you won’t be disappointed. Archery is a life long pursuit, one that will help define you in the future. Even more important when you learn a traditional skill, pass it on to some one else.
