November 22, 2011 • 24 mins
Sure, they look cool. It's as if someone put a bow and a rifle together, but in fact crossbows predate firearms by a few thousand years. Learn all about the advantages crossbows bestow, the physics behind them and how to use one with Josh and Chuck.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
(00:20):
that makes this stuff you should know? As if you
didn't know, you know, you know, Yeah, we trust you.
We worked for a website called how Stuff Works dot
com and we're going to take an article at random
from the site right now. I've never seen it before,
and we're just going to start talking about it. You're ready, Chuck,
I'm spinning the wheel and stop. Oh shoot, what is it?
(00:45):
Almost landed on the batmobile? Oh? What is it? Instead?
I can't I can't be bothered to look to the
right crossbows? Okay, how crossbows work? All right, let's start
talking just off the top of my head, Chuck. Have
you ever seen the TV show Walk King Dead? Awesome
show in nice choice of weapon. I know you saw it.
(01:05):
I just got into it. You mean I watched the
first six episodes the first season. It's so good. Have
you started season two yet? Not? Yes? So don't tell
me anything. Okay, I don't want to know if Nick
Fisher dies, they're still zombies out there. Okay, good, okay, good,
Although I have to say I'm not very happy with
that one subplot of like the sexual tension subplot, that
(01:25):
conflict that's brewing and hasn't really so um. But overall,
I think it's an awesome show, and I think, like
you said, Darryl Dixon's choice of weapon is pretty awesome.
If not very practical, it's pretty awesome. And that is Yeah. Yeah,
it is quiet because you don't want to alert the
zombies the geeks, but he has a finite amount of
(01:48):
arrows or bolts that he has to go retrieve from
the heads of zombies that he's just shot between the
eyes after they fall. I thought was him. I'd hit
up a hardware store or a sporting good store, get
a bunch of those like in Red Dawn. Yeah, load up. Yeah.
Every time I watched that show, I keep telling Emily,
I'm like, they have everything they want. Like there, it's
(02:09):
like a struggle to get gas. There's cars everywhere, and
it hasn't been that long. It's not like a hundred
years after where everything has been rated. There's still stuff everywhere. Yeah,
and there's very few people to raid. Yeah, it's fine, alright,
go get some arrows. They're reusable. In fact, the shot
in Atlanta. I'll tell him where you can pick them up.
Norman read us an email. Where would you send him?
(02:32):
Go to? Uh, Thick Sporting Goods okay, ten ten for
a dollar, not the mom and pop a army navy stores.
Uh yeah, I would go to one of those supports
small business exactly. Go to Bob's Bolt House. I love
Bob's in the bolt district. Uh, it's so Chuck. You've
(02:53):
seen a crossbow before? Then? Yeah, I want to buy
one after this? Yeah, I kind of like when to.
I don't know that either of us should be trusted
with one. Um. Obviously somebody took a bow, bow and arrow,
slapped it on top of a rifle and said, I
just made me a crossbow. That's what happened, and it's
probably a very recent origin. The end, good night, not true,
(03:16):
Josh Liar. Archaeologists like Indiana Jones have found crossbows as
far back as year old Chinese graves. Isn't that crazy?
That is crazy? Um? And they think that it may
be as much as four thousand years old. That that
technology in China two thousand BC. Perhaps um. They appeared
(03:36):
in the Mediterranean by the fourth century. A d Roman
military used them. Was written down in the in the
text I love this guy's name of Flavius Vegeta, Vegetius
vegetis renatus. His family invented broccoli. They called him flave
though you know they did. Uh. They were all over
(03:56):
Europe during the Middle Ages. The crossbow was basically like
you said, rifle meets bow, right, But this is long
before anybody thought of a rifle. That's true. But I
mean think about it, you like, that's what you think
it is. It's got like a trigger and there's a
stock and all that stuff. But it's it. It predates
the rifle by many thousands of years. Didn't Vinci draw
(04:19):
one of these up to Yeah, it's a it's a
page zero art chuck. Um. The there's a common among
the Mediterranean and the Chinese crossbow where the bow obviously
the stock which is also called the tiller, and um
the a groove in the stock or the tiller that
(04:41):
the arrow or bolt flew down. Um a trigger, but
the trigger mechanisms were different. Apparently, if you were in
the Mediterranean, you were trigger firing. Your trigger triggered the
firing mechanism by uh not twisted nuts, right, Okay. If
(05:03):
you were in China, it used some bolts and levers
system of levers that fired the released the string and
fired the bolt. And these firing mechanisms are different enough
that archaeologists believe that they were independently conceived of in
(05:23):
China and in the Mediterranean. That's pretty cool. Yeah, uh
most Another common device you'd see most often is a stirrup.
And if you ever look at a crossbow, you'll notice
that it has a little steel stirrup on the front
of it where you can put I was trying to
think of them, but it's a stirrup. So what you
(05:44):
do is you put it on the ground and put
your little foot in that stirrup so you can hold
it down real tight, and you and you pull it back,
pull the draw string back with both hands apparently equally
on both sides. It's important because you don't want it
out to whack. You know, if it's off balance, the
air is not gonna fly right now or true meat.
And so you pull it back and you hook it
(06:04):
on a You know, they're all different, but you hook
it on a little peg device that will be released
by pulling the trigger. And that's the basic fundamentals. So
the crossbow doesn't just look cool, it has somebody. It
does look very cool and has it poses some actual
advantages over the bow. And the bow has been around
(06:25):
since before people even knew how to write, or knew
that there was such thing as writing, because there wasn't yet. Um.
And so what the crossbow does is it takes the
bow and all of its disadvantages and says, well, here,
let me add this, and let me add that, let
me change this a little bit, and all of a sudden,
now any fat slob can shoot a bow and arrow. Yeah,
(06:47):
if you got a bow. If you if you're not,
if you're traditional bowman or an archer, is bow and
even a word, I think it is now a right.
If you're traditional archer, you are probably pretty strong, and
you might be sort of tall, and you are pretty quick,
because um, it's pretty quick process to draw up the bow,
(07:08):
aim it, and shoot it. You've seen Lord of the Rings,
seeing Lord of the Rings. But the longer it takes
you to aim, the more tired you're gonna your little
arms are gonna be the less accurate you're gonna be
with a with a crossbow. You know, you can cock
that thing and you're done, right, It just sits there
cocked indefinitely until you pull the trigger. Yeah. I wouldn't
walk around like that unless you're like a hunter maybe
(07:29):
or some jerk. Yeah, but don't do it in your backyard. Um.
So it takes that that need for endurance, yeah, in
in you know, holding it waiting for somebody to come
around the bend. And yes, and like you said, it
also introduced a whole new, uh subpar breed of warrior
(07:50):
because if you are a great archer, that means, like
I said, you're probably strong, probably a little bit taller
for the age because people are shorter. Back then, long
bow was stronger, shot, straighter, and further. So you want
to use a long bow. But you know, if you
got a crossbow, if you can pull that thing back,
that's all you need to do. But sometimes you didn't
need need to pull that thing back. Well, you can
(08:11):
pull that thing back generally because you're using a stirrup, right,
which means you're using your foot and if you have
a little hook attached to your belt, then you're you're
doing a squat and that's how you're pulling, That's how
you're cocking the crossbow. Right. Well, I imagine it's probably
like a dwarf or maybe an elf, like you know,
(08:33):
elves are kind of undeveloped. Um, but you're you're standing
up basically to cock the bow the crossbow, and um,
you're using your buttocks and your thigh muscles, which are
the strongest muscles in your body. So you could just
be like a total upper body woods but ripped from
the waist down. You're a cross bowman or a cross archer.
(08:56):
That's true. But what I was saying was was the
krannikin sometimes you didn't have to pull it back at all,
because in fourteenth century Europe they began making this thing,
this device called a crann Akin that you could put
on your crossbow, had little toothed wheel and a crank
and it would basically pull the string back for you.
(09:16):
You're just cranking it like you're opening, um, your grandmother's
windows at her house, you know, like the little crank thing.
But as you're doing that, it's cocking the bow. But
it's cocking a bow that you couldn't possibly cock yourself,
which means that you're about to shoot a bolt that
can go right through a tree or pretty significantly deep
into a tree, or better yet, into a war horse
(09:39):
or the human being. That's right. The problem is it
takes forever to crank the crann akin, and in some
cases some models, you had to crank the krann akin,
get it cocked, and then remove the crann akin, put
the bolt in and then shoot. So it was very powerful,
but it was very slow, which is one disadvantage of
a crossbow. I wouldn't have wanted went back in the day, No,
(10:01):
But if you were in China and you wanted to
get some shots off pretty quick, they had a crossbow
for you. They had an automatic crossbows. If that shot
several bolts a second, it had a magazine that would
just feed bolts into the into the crossbow, which would
um cock through level levers. The moment it was cocked,
it would shoot the bolt, and then another bolt would
(10:23):
come down, and the moment it was cocked another bolt,
it would shoot it, and so on, and so if
you were going really fast you could just rain bolts
down on somebody. The problem is, um it was fast,
but it wasn't very accurate, and it wasn't very deadly,
but it probably scared the tar out of people who
saw it. And the bolt didn't travel that fast. It
was fast to shoot, but not fast in flight. But
(10:45):
I've tried to find a picture of that thing because
I could not fathom it in my brain, and I
couldn't find any obviously because it was a long time
ago before it was pre pictures. Right. Uh, let's talk
about physics, Josh, because this is my favorite thing to do. Well,
this is a Trace E. Wilson article, So of course
there's going to be a section on the physics of crossbows.
There is. Um, So, a bow is basically a spring?
(11:08):
Did you know that I used to shoot? Did you
really you knew that a bow is basically a spring? Well? Sure,
I read that like four times. Really, yeah, I think
that's very neat. So like to take a bed spring,
all right? And I heard you. I heard that you
used to shoot. I want to know about it, but
I'm just like knee deep in the physics. Now, um,
you take a spring, you stretch it out. What you've
(11:30):
just done is um generate? Well you haven't generated it,
but you've just somehow amassed elastic energy, potential energy, potential
energy through the elasticity of the spring. Okay, as you're
holding it, all of that energy is potential. It's like,
just let me go and I'll do some crazy stuff.
So much potential. The moment you're like, oh, the potential
(11:52):
energy becomes kinnectic energy. I believe we talked a lot
about this roller coasters. Um. The same thing with the bow.
When you pull a string, it's connected to either end
of the bow. You're pulling the bow back, you're changing
its shape. It's slick a spring being stretched out, but
in this case, the bow is just being brought together
the limbs um and then when you let go, the
(12:13):
bow springs back to its original shape, drawing Suddenly the
string highly taught. You have an arrow attached to that string,
and it sends that arrow shooting forward at incredible speeds.
The physics of a bow also apply to the physics
of a crossbow. Yeah, and if you never thought about it,
(12:34):
it's it is interesting because it's not a little toy
string that's elastic string stays the same length. You know, right,
you're pulling the pulling the limbs together, and then when
you let go, the limbs go away from you very suddenly.
The amount of energy of boken hole, Josh, you can
figure that out. Actually, it's draw weight is the amount
(12:55):
of force required to draw it back and straw length.
It's a distance between the bowstrings position at rest and
when drawn. And the total amount of energy that the
bow can hold is approximately equal to the draw wait
times draw length divided by two. Yeah. And then usually
that's that's expressed in um jewels, footpounds or jewels. Yeah,
(13:19):
I was getting around. No, that's the bow's energy. Um.
You can also impress a cross bowman by talking about
the errors velocity, which is measured in feet or meters
per second. That's right. And a lot of things can
affect this. Obviously, if you have a long bow, it's
gonna be more powerful than a short boat because it
just makes sense. So the size affects it, the shape
(13:42):
affects it. A recurve bow, which is one of the
ones I had grown up, is uh, it doesn't just
come back into you. It comes back into you then
flares back out away from the other direction. Yeah. Um.
And at the top end bottom right. And what this
does is it shortens the bracing height, which is the
distance between this ring and the bow when it's at rest,
(14:02):
which means that since that's shorter, when you pull the
string back and release it, it has a longer distance
to travel before it comes to a stop, which means
it gives that arrow or bolt a little extra push. Right.
And also the recurved bow uh makes the bow even
string springing ear adds a little spring to it. Step
(14:26):
composition is another thing, Josh. Density intensil strength determine how
much energy it holds. And uh, obviously back in the
day they made him from things like you y e
w very strong and very elastic. Not you, not you,
but you. Modern bows a lot a lot of times
are composite bows, which means, when they need it to
(14:48):
be rigid, they'll make it out of one material. When
they need it to be flexible, they'll make it out
of something else. And then they put it all together
to make a killing machine, exactly to make a zombie
killing machine. Uh. And then there are compound bow those
which I had one of those two. A compound boat
is uses pulleys, little wheels and pulleys to make it
(15:09):
easier to pull back and hold once you get it there.
And that's called the let off once it reaches a
certain point. Do you ever shot a compoundbo I have?
And that that sensation of pulling and then all of
a sudden, there's no resistance like this. Basically this very
cool was cocked. It's a very cool feeling, like I
could hold this all day. Not all day, but it
is very cool. And I had one of those, and
(15:30):
I had a regular little record alright. Now, my dad
he gets into phases. He got into a bow and arrow,
He got into an archery phase and built a thing
on on our property. And you know, as my dad does,
he went out and bought like a seven hundred dollar
compound boat. Yeah yeah, but he bought me like a
little miniature versions of everything he got. And he was
(15:51):
a principal at my school, like I've mentioned, so he
had like, all of a sudden, there was an archery
program at school, and uh it was fun. Man, I
shot a lot of arrows growing up. Did you hunt anything? No,
not a hunter targets. Did you have a crossbow? Uh no,
never even shot a crossbow. But I had a little
compound and a little recurve. That's very cool. But after
(16:12):
this article, I'm dying to shoot a crossbow. Yeah, I
don't know anybody who has one. I bet, I bet
bet you do. Is there like a whole like a
group of people that had crossbowsy, and I'm not familiar.
I bet Matt Frederick has a crossbow. Man, do you
have a crossbow? No? He did, never a crossbow. Um,
(16:32):
he has a laser gun though, the functioning laser gun.
That will just disintegrate to you. Um, let's talk safety, Chuck.
In this article, Tracy Um turns into Tommy Lee Jones
and No Country for Old Man when she says do
not point when at anything you do not plan to shoot. Yeah.
I don't like that rule. I think it should be that.
(16:54):
And you don't point it at anyone period. Okay. I
was gonna say, like it as an account for just
goofing around. Yeah, that's that's the what they say with
every gun is don't point it at someone unless you
plan to shoot them. But my rule of thumbs, don't
point it at anyone. Because a crossbow. I looked it
up to see if it was a good home security feature.
(17:16):
It's not your insurance come to be, Like, wait, what
you wanted us to reduce it because you have a crossbow.
They make a little pistol ones too, with a little
short had a pistol one, No, he had a bow caster.
It's like a pistol. Call, it's like a pistol crossbow, right,
and then it shoots energy. Okay, but it's the shape
of a crossbow. That's a pistol. I thought it didn't
(17:39):
have a stock. I thought it was a pistol. Was it.
Maybe it's just so big it looked like a pistol
on him. We'll hear about this one for sure. Man.
Uh safety, Josh, you want to place the stirrup at
the ground. I don't want to point it at you
at all, or have a friend hold the stirrup while
you cock. It's terrible. No, no, no, no, I'm saying,
do not do that. You do not do that. You
(18:00):
want to point it to the ground. Put the stirrup
on the ground. Put your foot in the stirrup. You
want to brace it very firmly. Sure your foots all
the way in there. Because this is a lot of energy,
potential energy you're building up here. Um. Like I said
you earlier, you want to grab it, pull it equally
on both sides, lock it into place, and the modern
crossbow will automatically have a little safety that that happens there,
(18:23):
and there may be an additional safety that you can
set after that, which is good. You um also want
to stand out of the way of the front of
the bow. And I'm not just saying in the path
of the arrow, but that bow. Remember it's stretched towards
you when this when the string is cocked or when
the string is pulled back, and when you release it,
(18:44):
the bow flies forward and outward, and if your hands there,
it's going to smack it and probably break every bone
in it. And also if you're hunting or you're shooting
a target from behind a tree, um, you don't want
the uh the crossbows bow to smack into the tree
or else is probably going to break the bow. That's right,
(19:06):
it's pricey. And never dry fire. Yeah I didn't. I
knew that just from common sense. Most types of things
that you shoot you shouldn't dry fire. But that means
shooting it without a bolt. But it's made to shoot
a bolt. It's configured to shoot the weight of a bolt.
So when you shoot it dry that waits not there,
so you could potentially break your bolt. And Tracy points
(19:28):
out that dry firing voids nearly all manufacturers warranties, so
don't try fire. And again, never go for the extended warranty.
And if you haven't listened to the Extended Warranty podcast yet,
should go back and listen to. It's pretty good, really, Yeah, Man,
I didn't know they were good back then. Yeah, they're good,
all right. Yeah, because we just took this completely boring
(19:51):
topic and really went to town on it. It was
a good one, Chuck. The last piece of safety advice
is get a bolt that has rated for your crossbow. Well, yeah,
because you don't want to. You can't just put any
size and weight in there. It's figured very specifically exactly.
You can't just say, man, look at that big bolt,
let me put that thing in here. Yeah, so when
the zombie apocalypse comes, you better know what your crossbow
(20:13):
is rated for. Um, and don't drive on the auto
bonn in tires that are rated for a lower speed
than what your car can drive. Things you should know. Uh,
if you want to know more about the Auto bon
I just change the name of our show, by the
way you did. If if you want, do you want
to tell them the real stuff? You should know Okay,
(20:33):
if you want to know more about the Autobahn, extended warranties,
and crossbows, you can type any one of those three
or all three together and see what comes up in
the handy search bar at how stuff Works dot com
and uh that means now, friends, it's time for listener mail. Josh.
This is another soldier shout out work suckers for those
(20:54):
and the one Norman Torsia to day we mentioned. I
forgot to mention that's the dude that I sent the
jump drive to. Okay, with every single one of our
podcast on it. Man, that must have been a huge jump.
It was about as big as my pinky. And you
know I did it because he asked. You are going
to be doing that a lot more often now. I
have a feeling that you have to prove that you're
saving lives and Afghanistan in order to get that. So
(21:18):
this is from another dude. This is from Sergeant Gabriel Everhard.
Greetings from Iraq. I'm writing you today from the Center
of Civilization a k a. The Fertile Crescent, Iraq. I'm
a combat engineer in the U. S. Army. On my
second combat tour, I've had the opportunity to have wireless
internet and have been downloading many of your podcasts and
I listened each evening during the day while on patrol
(21:41):
and m R A P Mine resistant Armored Patrol em RAP.
I've heard that these are like hurt locker dudes I
make I'm not positive. I relayed the plot. I relayed
the podcast I listened to the night before over the
headset to the guys. It is great for breaking up
monotony of looking for ied ease. Oh yeah, I guess
(22:01):
they are hurt look at guys, huh and talking about
the usual army related stories. My soldiers have learned about
many interesting things like human cannonballers, schizophrenia, parkour, and con artists.
They especially like the play by play on shrinking human heads.
I bet they did. Uh. In summary on behalf of
myself and my soldiers just wanted to extend our thanks
(22:22):
to both you guys. Sitting in a convoy of vehicles
with the same dudes for up to twelve hours a day,
it's kind of like taking a year long road trip,
but on the same roads. Well, it's sort of like
a Twilight Zone episode. And guys, in your own way,
you're both doing great things for your country. I don't
know about Matt, but I'll take care. So I told
(22:42):
Gabriel everhart Is Sarge that we would give those guys
a shout out then the Mason Province of Iraq. So dudes,
if you're listening, we love you. Be safe and come
home in one piece, seriously, and uh, thanks for everything
you do. Yeah for slubs like us who just run
off at the mouth and we're sorry. Out the park
Core podcast. And if you have a special request, we
(23:04):
will strongly consider it. He did. Actually I didn't leave
that part in, but it was about Mesopotamia. I think
we did that one. It was Mesotamia the Cradle of civilization.
Well there you go, Yeah and done. If you have
another one that we haven't done before, send it in
email chuck back and we'll see what we can do. Uh.
And if you have a request special request, UM, let
(23:26):
us know why we should entertain it, what it is,
and we'll see what we can do. And there's three
ways you can contact us, aside from saying hi through
our system of campbell, soup cans and string. UM, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. UM,
you can visit us on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash
(23:47):
Stuff you Should Know, and you can send us an email.
It's Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
sure to check out our new YEO podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join Housteffwork staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
(24:10):
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
(00:20):
that makes this stuff you should know? As if you
didn't know, you know, you know, Yeah, we trust you.
We worked for a website called how Stuff Works dot
com and we're going to take an article at random
from the site right now. I've never seen it before,
and we're just going to start talking about it. You're ready, Chuck,
I'm spinning the wheel and stop. Oh shoot, what is it?
(00:45):
Almost landed on the batmobile? Oh? What is it? Instead?
I can't I can't be bothered to look to the
right crossbows? Okay, how crossbows work? All right, let's start
talking just off the top of my head, Chuck. Have
you ever seen the TV show Walk King Dead? Awesome
show in nice choice of weapon. I know you saw it.
(01:05):
I just got into it. You mean I watched the
first six episodes the first season. It's so good. Have
you started season two yet? Not? Yes? So don't tell
me anything. Okay, I don't want to know if Nick
Fisher dies, they're still zombies out there. Okay, good, okay, good,
Although I have to say I'm not very happy with
that one subplot of like the sexual tension subplot, that
(01:25):
conflict that's brewing and hasn't really so um. But overall,
I think it's an awesome show, and I think, like
you said, Darryl Dixon's choice of weapon is pretty awesome.
If not very practical, it's pretty awesome. And that is Yeah. Yeah,
it is quiet because you don't want to alert the
zombies the geeks, but he has a finite amount of
(01:48):
arrows or bolts that he has to go retrieve from
the heads of zombies that he's just shot between the
eyes after they fall. I thought was him. I'd hit
up a hardware store or a sporting good store, get
a bunch of those like in Red Dawn. Yeah, load up. Yeah.
Every time I watched that show, I keep telling Emily,
I'm like, they have everything they want. Like there, it's
(02:09):
like a struggle to get gas. There's cars everywhere, and
it hasn't been that long. It's not like a hundred
years after where everything has been rated. There's still stuff everywhere. Yeah,
and there's very few people to raid. Yeah, it's fine, alright,
go get some arrows. They're reusable. In fact, the shot
in Atlanta. I'll tell him where you can pick them up.
Norman read us an email. Where would you send him?
(02:32):
Go to? Uh, Thick Sporting Goods okay, ten ten for
a dollar, not the mom and pop a army navy stores.
Uh yeah, I would go to one of those supports
small business exactly. Go to Bob's Bolt House. I love
Bob's in the bolt district. Uh, it's so Chuck. You've
(02:53):
seen a crossbow before? Then? Yeah, I want to buy
one after this? Yeah, I kind of like when to.
I don't know that either of us should be trusted
with one. Um. Obviously somebody took a bow, bow and arrow,
slapped it on top of a rifle and said, I
just made me a crossbow. That's what happened, and it's
probably a very recent origin. The end, good night, not true,
(03:16):
Josh Liar. Archaeologists like Indiana Jones have found crossbows as
far back as year old Chinese graves. Isn't that crazy?
That is crazy? Um? And they think that it may
be as much as four thousand years old. That that
technology in China two thousand BC. Perhaps um. They appeared
(03:36):
in the Mediterranean by the fourth century. A d Roman
military used them. Was written down in the in the
text I love this guy's name of Flavius Vegeta, Vegetius
vegetis renatus. His family invented broccoli. They called him flave
though you know they did. Uh. They were all over
(03:56):
Europe during the Middle Ages. The crossbow was basically like
you said, rifle meets bow, right, But this is long
before anybody thought of a rifle. That's true. But I
mean think about it, you like, that's what you think
it is. It's got like a trigger and there's a
stock and all that stuff. But it's it. It predates
the rifle by many thousands of years. Didn't Vinci draw
(04:19):
one of these up to Yeah, it's a it's a
page zero art chuck. Um. The there's a common among
the Mediterranean and the Chinese crossbow where the bow obviously
the stock which is also called the tiller, and um
the a groove in the stock or the tiller that
(04:41):
the arrow or bolt flew down. Um a trigger, but
the trigger mechanisms were different. Apparently, if you were in
the Mediterranean, you were trigger firing. Your trigger triggered the
firing mechanism by uh not twisted nuts, right, Okay. If
(05:03):
you were in China, it used some bolts and levers
system of levers that fired the released the string and
fired the bolt. And these firing mechanisms are different enough
that archaeologists believe that they were independently conceived of in
(05:23):
China and in the Mediterranean. That's pretty cool. Yeah, uh
most Another common device you'd see most often is a stirrup.
And if you ever look at a crossbow, you'll notice
that it has a little steel stirrup on the front
of it where you can put I was trying to
think of them, but it's a stirrup. So what you
(05:44):
do is you put it on the ground and put
your little foot in that stirrup so you can hold
it down real tight, and you and you pull it back,
pull the draw string back with both hands apparently equally
on both sides. It's important because you don't want it
out to whack. You know, if it's off balance, the
air is not gonna fly right now or true meat.
And so you pull it back and you hook it
(06:04):
on a You know, they're all different, but you hook
it on a little peg device that will be released
by pulling the trigger. And that's the basic fundamentals. So
the crossbow doesn't just look cool, it has somebody. It
does look very cool and has it poses some actual
advantages over the bow. And the bow has been around
(06:25):
since before people even knew how to write, or knew
that there was such thing as writing, because there wasn't yet. Um.
And so what the crossbow does is it takes the
bow and all of its disadvantages and says, well, here,
let me add this, and let me add that, let
me change this a little bit, and all of a sudden,
now any fat slob can shoot a bow and arrow. Yeah,
(06:47):
if you got a bow. If you if you're not,
if you're traditional bowman or an archer, is bow and
even a word, I think it is now a right.
If you're traditional archer, you are probably pretty strong, and
you might be sort of tall, and you are pretty quick,
because um, it's pretty quick process to draw up the bow,
(07:08):
aim it, and shoot it. You've seen Lord of the Rings,
seeing Lord of the Rings. But the longer it takes
you to aim, the more tired you're gonna your little
arms are gonna be the less accurate you're gonna be
with a with a crossbow. You know, you can cock
that thing and you're done, right, It just sits there
cocked indefinitely until you pull the trigger. Yeah. I wouldn't
walk around like that unless you're like a hunter maybe
(07:29):
or some jerk. Yeah, but don't do it in your backyard. Um.
So it takes that that need for endurance, yeah, in
in you know, holding it waiting for somebody to come
around the bend. And yes, and like you said, it
also introduced a whole new, uh subpar breed of warrior
(07:50):
because if you are a great archer, that means, like
I said, you're probably strong, probably a little bit taller
for the age because people are shorter. Back then, long
bow was stronger, shot, straighter, and further. So you want
to use a long bow. But you know, if you
got a crossbow, if you can pull that thing back,
that's all you need to do. But sometimes you didn't
need need to pull that thing back. Well, you can
(08:11):
pull that thing back generally because you're using a stirrup, right,
which means you're using your foot and if you have
a little hook attached to your belt, then you're you're
doing a squat and that's how you're pulling, That's how
you're cocking the crossbow. Right. Well, I imagine it's probably
like a dwarf or maybe an elf, like you know,
(08:33):
elves are kind of undeveloped. Um, but you're you're standing
up basically to cock the bow the crossbow, and um,
you're using your buttocks and your thigh muscles, which are
the strongest muscles in your body. So you could just
be like a total upper body woods but ripped from
the waist down. You're a cross bowman or a cross archer.
(08:56):
That's true. But what I was saying was was the
krannikin sometimes you didn't have to pull it back at all,
because in fourteenth century Europe they began making this thing,
this device called a crann Akin that you could put
on your crossbow, had little toothed wheel and a crank
and it would basically pull the string back for you.
(09:16):
You're just cranking it like you're opening, um, your grandmother's
windows at her house, you know, like the little crank thing.
But as you're doing that, it's cocking the bow. But
it's cocking a bow that you couldn't possibly cock yourself,
which means that you're about to shoot a bolt that
can go right through a tree or pretty significantly deep
into a tree, or better yet, into a war horse
(09:39):
or the human being. That's right. The problem is it
takes forever to crank the crann akin, and in some
cases some models, you had to crank the krann akin,
get it cocked, and then remove the crann akin, put
the bolt in and then shoot. So it was very powerful,
but it was very slow, which is one disadvantage of
a crossbow. I wouldn't have wanted went back in the day, No,
(10:01):
But if you were in China and you wanted to
get some shots off pretty quick, they had a crossbow
for you. They had an automatic crossbows. If that shot
several bolts a second, it had a magazine that would
just feed bolts into the into the crossbow, which would
um cock through level levers. The moment it was cocked,
it would shoot the bolt, and then another bolt would
(10:23):
come down, and the moment it was cocked another bolt,
it would shoot it, and so on, and so if
you were going really fast you could just rain bolts
down on somebody. The problem is, um it was fast,
but it wasn't very accurate, and it wasn't very deadly,
but it probably scared the tar out of people who
saw it. And the bolt didn't travel that fast. It
was fast to shoot, but not fast in flight. But
(10:45):
I've tried to find a picture of that thing because
I could not fathom it in my brain, and I
couldn't find any obviously because it was a long time
ago before it was pre pictures. Right. Uh, let's talk
about physics, Josh, because this is my favorite thing to do. Well,
this is a Trace E. Wilson article, So of course
there's going to be a section on the physics of crossbows.
There is. Um, So, a bow is basically a spring?
(11:08):
Did you know that I used to shoot? Did you
really you knew that a bow is basically a spring? Well? Sure,
I read that like four times. Really, yeah, I think
that's very neat. So like to take a bed spring,
all right? And I heard you. I heard that you
used to shoot. I want to know about it, but
I'm just like knee deep in the physics. Now, um,
you take a spring, you stretch it out. What you've
(11:30):
just done is um generate? Well you haven't generated it,
but you've just somehow amassed elastic energy, potential energy, potential
energy through the elasticity of the spring. Okay, as you're
holding it, all of that energy is potential. It's like,
just let me go and I'll do some crazy stuff.
So much potential. The moment you're like, oh, the potential
(11:52):
energy becomes kinnectic energy. I believe we talked a lot
about this roller coasters. Um. The same thing with the bow.
When you pull a string, it's connected to either end
of the bow. You're pulling the bow back, you're changing
its shape. It's slick a spring being stretched out, but
in this case, the bow is just being brought together
the limbs um and then when you let go, the
(12:13):
bow springs back to its original shape, drawing Suddenly the
string highly taught. You have an arrow attached to that string,
and it sends that arrow shooting forward at incredible speeds.
The physics of a bow also apply to the physics
of a crossbow. Yeah, and if you never thought about it,
(12:34):
it's it is interesting because it's not a little toy
string that's elastic string stays the same length. You know, right,
you're pulling the pulling the limbs together, and then when
you let go, the limbs go away from you very suddenly.
The amount of energy of boken hole, Josh, you can
figure that out. Actually, it's draw weight is the amount
(12:55):
of force required to draw it back and straw length.
It's a distance between the bowstrings position at rest and
when drawn. And the total amount of energy that the
bow can hold is approximately equal to the draw wait
times draw length divided by two. Yeah. And then usually
that's that's expressed in um jewels, footpounds or jewels. Yeah,
(13:19):
I was getting around. No, that's the bow's energy. Um.
You can also impress a cross bowman by talking about
the errors velocity, which is measured in feet or meters
per second. That's right. And a lot of things can
affect this. Obviously, if you have a long bow, it's
gonna be more powerful than a short boat because it
just makes sense. So the size affects it, the shape
(13:42):
affects it. A recurve bow, which is one of the
ones I had grown up, is uh, it doesn't just
come back into you. It comes back into you then
flares back out away from the other direction. Yeah. Um.
And at the top end bottom right. And what this
does is it shortens the bracing height, which is the
distance between this ring and the bow when it's at rest,
(14:02):
which means that since that's shorter, when you pull the
string back and release it, it has a longer distance
to travel before it comes to a stop, which means
it gives that arrow or bolt a little extra push. Right.
And also the recurved bow uh makes the bow even
string springing ear adds a little spring to it. Step
(14:26):
composition is another thing, Josh. Density intensil strength determine how
much energy it holds. And uh, obviously back in the
day they made him from things like you y e
w very strong and very elastic. Not you, not you,
but you. Modern bows a lot a lot of times
are composite bows, which means, when they need it to
(14:48):
be rigid, they'll make it out of one material. When
they need it to be flexible, they'll make it out
of something else. And then they put it all together
to make a killing machine, exactly to make a zombie
killing machine. Uh. And then there are compound bow those
which I had one of those two. A compound boat
is uses pulleys, little wheels and pulleys to make it
(15:09):
easier to pull back and hold once you get it there.
And that's called the let off once it reaches a
certain point. Do you ever shot a compoundbo I have?
And that that sensation of pulling and then all of
a sudden, there's no resistance like this. Basically this very
cool was cocked. It's a very cool feeling, like I
could hold this all day. Not all day, but it
is very cool. And I had one of those, and
(15:30):
I had a regular little record alright. Now, my dad
he gets into phases. He got into a bow and arrow,
He got into an archery phase and built a thing
on on our property. And you know, as my dad does,
he went out and bought like a seven hundred dollar
compound boat. Yeah yeah, but he bought me like a
little miniature versions of everything he got. And he was
(15:51):
a principal at my school, like I've mentioned, so he
had like, all of a sudden, there was an archery
program at school, and uh it was fun. Man, I
shot a lot of arrows growing up. Did you hunt anything? No,
not a hunter targets. Did you have a crossbow? Uh no,
never even shot a crossbow. But I had a little
compound and a little recurve. That's very cool. But after
(16:12):
this article, I'm dying to shoot a crossbow. Yeah, I
don't know anybody who has one. I bet, I bet
bet you do. Is there like a whole like a
group of people that had crossbowsy, and I'm not familiar.
I bet Matt Frederick has a crossbow. Man, do you
have a crossbow? No? He did, never a crossbow. Um,
(16:32):
he has a laser gun though, the functioning laser gun.
That will just disintegrate to you. Um, let's talk safety, Chuck.
In this article, Tracy Um turns into Tommy Lee Jones
and No Country for Old Man when she says do
not point when at anything you do not plan to shoot. Yeah.
I don't like that rule. I think it should be that.
(16:54):
And you don't point it at anyone period. Okay. I
was gonna say, like it as an account for just
goofing around. Yeah, that's that's the what they say with
every gun is don't point it at someone unless you
plan to shoot them. But my rule of thumbs, don't
point it at anyone. Because a crossbow. I looked it
up to see if it was a good home security feature.
(17:16):
It's not your insurance come to be, Like, wait, what
you wanted us to reduce it because you have a crossbow.
They make a little pistol ones too, with a little
short had a pistol one, No, he had a bow caster.
It's like a pistol. Call, it's like a pistol crossbow, right,
and then it shoots energy. Okay, but it's the shape
of a crossbow. That's a pistol. I thought it didn't
(17:39):
have a stock. I thought it was a pistol. Was it.
Maybe it's just so big it looked like a pistol
on him. We'll hear about this one for sure. Man.
Uh safety, Josh, you want to place the stirrup at
the ground. I don't want to point it at you
at all, or have a friend hold the stirrup while
you cock. It's terrible. No, no, no, no, I'm saying,
do not do that. You do not do that. You
(18:00):
want to point it to the ground. Put the stirrup
on the ground. Put your foot in the stirrup. You
want to brace it very firmly. Sure your foots all
the way in there. Because this is a lot of energy,
potential energy you're building up here. Um. Like I said
you earlier, you want to grab it, pull it equally
on both sides, lock it into place, and the modern
crossbow will automatically have a little safety that that happens there,
(18:23):
and there may be an additional safety that you can
set after that, which is good. You um also want
to stand out of the way of the front of
the bow. And I'm not just saying in the path
of the arrow, but that bow. Remember it's stretched towards
you when this when the string is cocked or when
the string is pulled back, and when you release it,
(18:44):
the bow flies forward and outward, and if your hands there,
it's going to smack it and probably break every bone
in it. And also if you're hunting or you're shooting
a target from behind a tree, um, you don't want
the uh the crossbows bow to smack into the tree
or else is probably going to break the bow. That's right,
(19:06):
it's pricey. And never dry fire. Yeah I didn't. I
knew that just from common sense. Most types of things
that you shoot you shouldn't dry fire. But that means
shooting it without a bolt. But it's made to shoot
a bolt. It's configured to shoot the weight of a bolt.
So when you shoot it dry that waits not there,
so you could potentially break your bolt. And Tracy points
(19:28):
out that dry firing voids nearly all manufacturers warranties, so
don't try fire. And again, never go for the extended warranty.
And if you haven't listened to the Extended Warranty podcast yet,
should go back and listen to. It's pretty good, really, Yeah, Man,
I didn't know they were good back then. Yeah, they're good,
all right. Yeah, because we just took this completely boring
(19:51):
topic and really went to town on it. It was
a good one, Chuck. The last piece of safety advice
is get a bolt that has rated for your crossbow. Well, yeah,
because you don't want to. You can't just put any
size and weight in there. It's figured very specifically exactly.
You can't just say, man, look at that big bolt,
let me put that thing in here. Yeah, so when
the zombie apocalypse comes, you better know what your crossbow
(20:13):
is rated for. Um, and don't drive on the auto
bonn in tires that are rated for a lower speed
than what your car can drive. Things you should know. Uh,
if you want to know more about the Auto bon
I just change the name of our show, by the
way you did. If if you want, do you want
to tell them the real stuff? You should know Okay,
(20:33):
if you want to know more about the Autobahn, extended warranties,
and crossbows, you can type any one of those three
or all three together and see what comes up in
the handy search bar at how stuff Works dot com
and uh that means now, friends, it's time for listener mail. Josh.
This is another soldier shout out work suckers for those
(20:54):
and the one Norman Torsia to day we mentioned. I
forgot to mention that's the dude that I sent the
jump drive to. Okay, with every single one of our
podcast on it. Man, that must have been a huge jump.
It was about as big as my pinky. And you
know I did it because he asked. You are going
to be doing that a lot more often now. I
have a feeling that you have to prove that you're
saving lives and Afghanistan in order to get that. So
(21:18):
this is from another dude. This is from Sergeant Gabriel Everhard.
Greetings from Iraq. I'm writing you today from the Center
of Civilization a k a. The Fertile Crescent, Iraq. I'm
a combat engineer in the U. S. Army. On my
second combat tour, I've had the opportunity to have wireless
internet and have been downloading many of your podcasts and
I listened each evening during the day while on patrol
(21:41):
and m R A P Mine resistant Armored Patrol em RAP.
I've heard that these are like hurt locker dudes I
make I'm not positive. I relayed the plot. I relayed
the podcast I listened to the night before over the
headset to the guys. It is great for breaking up
monotony of looking for ied ease. Oh yeah, I guess
(22:01):
they are hurt look at guys, huh and talking about
the usual army related stories. My soldiers have learned about
many interesting things like human cannonballers, schizophrenia, parkour, and con artists.
They especially like the play by play on shrinking human heads.
I bet they did. Uh. In summary on behalf of
myself and my soldiers just wanted to extend our thanks
(22:22):
to both you guys. Sitting in a convoy of vehicles
with the same dudes for up to twelve hours a day,
it's kind of like taking a year long road trip,
but on the same roads. Well, it's sort of like
a Twilight Zone episode. And guys, in your own way,
you're both doing great things for your country. I don't
know about Matt, but I'll take care. So I told
(22:42):
Gabriel everhart Is Sarge that we would give those guys
a shout out then the Mason Province of Iraq. So dudes,
if you're listening, we love you. Be safe and come
home in one piece, seriously, and uh, thanks for everything
you do. Yeah for slubs like us who just run
off at the mouth and we're sorry. Out the park
Core podcast. And if you have a special request, we
(23:04):
will strongly consider it. He did. Actually I didn't leave
that part in, but it was about Mesopotamia. I think
we did that one. It was Mesotamia the Cradle of civilization.
Well there you go, Yeah and done. If you have
another one that we haven't done before, send it in
email chuck back and we'll see what we can do. Uh.
And if you have a request special request, UM, let
(23:26):
us know why we should entertain it, what it is,
and we'll see what we can do. And there's three
ways you can contact us, aside from saying hi through
our system of campbell, soup cans and string. UM, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. UM,
you can visit us on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash
(23:47):
Stuff you Should Know, and you can send us an email.
It's Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
sure to check out our new YEO podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join Housteffwork staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
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