knife river, lack of penetration. Jay Massey was about a big a fan of primitive archery as there was. He made his own selfbows, arrows, knapped heads, gathered sinew etc.. I still have some of that sinew here. Anyway his goal was to kill a bull moose with his 80# selfbow and knapped head. He waited for years for the PERFECT opportunity on a close, standing broadside bull and when he shot, he said the arrow nearly hit him as it BOUNCED off the bull. Now a bull moose has very thick hide, but its not half as thick as a bull water buffalo or as tough.
Clint I do have some ribs here, though they have been drying for about 12 years so they probably shrunk some. They are about 6cm wide at the widest and about 17mm thick, they do taper towards the back edge, which they need to so that the buff can turn, there is no space between the ribs, so when they turn the ribs slide over the one behind it, like fishscales. I had one really good bowhunter shooting a 95# wheely bow, with 900 grain arrows and Zwickey Eskimo heads, he was an excellent shot also. I warned him to only take broadside shots, but when he got the opportunity, the buff was slightly angled away. He said he thought it WAS broadside and I don't doubt him, people tend to get a bit excited when they are close to buffalo. Anyway the shot was perfect, but even with that outfit, he only got less than half the arrow length of penetration, which just barely put the head into the heart and the bull dropped in well under a minute. If he had gotten two inches less penetration, the bull would have run off. I did an autopsy and found that the two blade head had slid right between two ribs vertically, so the only damage to the ribs was a tiny matching groove on the mating sides where the ferrule had pushed through. If that head hadn't been prefectly vertical and hit right where the two ribs came together, it would have played out totally different.
Somewhere I have photos of replaceable blade heads stuck in ribs with only the tips making it through, I think most outfitters in buffalo country have some of those ribs laying around.
Lots of hunters go to Africa and see the PH with the big rifle and never have another thought than the rifle is there to keep them safe, actually thats probably the lowest priority. The rules in Africa are mainly to protect innocent by standers and wounded dangerous game is likely to whack the next person they see. My experience is that a water buffalo that has been wounded by a bowhunter and encounters another human being a week or two later, is 50% likely to try and kill that person. Think what would happen if a family of tourists camped along the road got smashed and when they killed the buff they found he had an arrowhead festering in him. It could be the end of bowhunting for buff in OZ and in fact TWICE I have heard the words, "no more bowhunters" from station managers, because of people doing things they shouldn't have done. I can tell you its a pretty sick feeling when you work ten years to build up good will towards bowhunters and someone destroys it in a week.
Topic: water buffulo with a selfbow and stone points, now with testing results (Read 13657 times)
