Medieval Crossbows: Not That Easy to Use (vs. Modern)

well today I've been setting in one of my crossbows which gave me the idea I could talk a little bit about the difference between modern and medieval crossbows now I'm getting back into it I'm really noticing just how much of an improvement modern crossbows are and I'm not sure many people are aware of that so I've set up three distances this here's 15 meters or yards about and at this distance I can I should be able to consistently hit that target over there so for ease of use this is actually pretty good I don't have to you put it down on the ground and use the stirrup I can actually just push it against my thigh use the goats foot lever to hook in just a string pull it back it's pretty easy to pull back and there we go no big deal the draw weight of this I would consider it a light crossbow it's only 350 pounds which people always find hard to believe and we went through the trouble of measuring it in a very unconventional but still halfway accurate way it is indeed 350 yeah that one is too blunt it won't stick it loses a lot of that power or rather it doesn't transfer it because you have such a tiny short power stroke imagine you drew a bow this far that's what we're dealing with here that's why you need so much draw weight and it's still comparatively weak this on the other hand now we're talking this is 900 something I forgot but I'll put it in the video unfortunately there seems to be something wrong with the trigger mechanism I wanted to try this out as well and it seems it doesn't it doesn't engage anymore so I'm setting it there trigger clicked it should have engaged tripped holdin now but as you can hear it doesn't so I can't shoot it right now I have no idea what's going on here there isn't much I can do about that because there's no pins that I can push out this is all riveted so I would have to grind off the heads of the rivets push them out dissemble the thing to hopefully figure out what's wrong then put it back together and rivet it again which I can I'd rather not it does engage and if I push on here it's fine so it seems to function but it's not supporting the weight I don't really know why because I haven't used this a whole lot anyway so regardless of what the issue is here I've noticed there is a bunch of problems with with the traditional medieval crossbow for one it tends to fray quite a bit so this is a linen string which has been waxed and with use quite a lot of the fibers tear up and then fray so that it's not the most adorable thing in the world there's quite a bit of maintenance involved with of course there is with modern crossbows as well but I've had a few issues with the other crossbow as well so the the trigger mechanism sometimes you know sometimes the wood swells up and then the nut doesn't rotate freely anymore I've had some other issues as well like sometimes this can loosen up here is this is held in place with steel wedges and if that loosens up then this entire thing may shift and if the prod shifts a little bit to the left or right then the accuracy is going to be thrown off you'll be shooting left or right so there's a number of things that can be thrown off here okay so now for direct comparison here's a cold steel cheap shot which is also a light crossbow it's not compound and doesn't have brutal draw weight so this is a hundred thirty pounds so this is quite a bit lighter because modern materials are being used polymer and all that it has integrated cocking mechanism makes it very convenient and so this fulfills the same role basically as that other crossbow it's a light crossbow that you know isn't particularly difficult to use it's fairly quick to span and all of that so this one I have a red dot on here so that is pretty easy to aim of course and this is very very quick but we have to aim a little lower at this distance yeah zero did for about thirty meters so shooting a bit high here but it's pretty easy okay now I'm out of thirty meters so twice the distance so I have to aim substantially higher so I've actually I've often doubted this thing myself I have to say like I'm not surprised to people don't believe that it's it's the draw way that it is because it seems really weak you know compared to modern crossbows and I've done what I can to check that's functioning properly I've been maintaining it I have tightened the strength after a certain number of shots it stretches a bit so you have to restore that and I get that and it seems to be working the way it should it's just not very powerful okay I'm aiming really high now still too too low trying to show you the distance with this picture here I'm gonna put the the tip of the bolt at the top edge of the artery net okay that was a bit too high this bolt has a much heavier tip so I'm gonna aim the same way and that should hit it then I think yeah that did hit it was a tad bit off to the right but it hit the other thing is maintenance this you have to maintain quite a bit you have to wax the string I mean you also have to wax the string on a modern crossbow but not as much as also not as much surface area and here of course you also have the the steel parts that you have to keep oil or wax to prevent them from rusting and yeah you have to frequently tap those wedges again and then make sure everything is aligned and I don't even want to imagine what it would be like to shoot this in the rain if the wood swells up so much that the nut can't rotate freely anymore and you're losing a lot of power this is about a torso size target so it's not super large so I can hit it but it's it's not a tight group and I've actually shot the medieval crossbow more than I have this so I have less practice with a modern one but let's see let's see how I can do here so that was definitely a lot more accurate and I didn't have to try hard for it the nice thing about this is you have an actual trigger as opposed to just a lever so this gives you way more control and you can really squeeze it nicely to get quite a lot of precision okay now it's getting interesting we are at about 40 meters maybe a little bit more and it's it's not looking like a large target anymore so I'm going to have to aim really high with this let's see right and low I have to aim absurdly high for this and in fact even more so with the heavy point 5 target heights above it that was too low basically the crossbow is obscuring my target so I have to aim with both eyes open so that my left eye can still see where the target is because otherwise I can't even really aim and in terms of windage that this distance already it drops off substantially I really wish I could use the other one right now I just can't figure out what on earth is wrong with a trigger mechanism so let's see if I can do this aiming really freaking high yeah I did it it's basically guesswork because I can't see the target properly there the the crossbow is hiding it and yeah however if I was aiming at a mass of people you know on the battlefield who cares right you're gonna hit something so let's see how much easier it is with the cheap shot it seems very appropriate I'm gonna be taking a cheap shot I have to figure out how high to hold at this distance I've already adjust that the red dot as far up as it goes it's not meant it's not made for crossbows so I have to aim quite a bit higher one target above it one target height I mean I can't even begin to describe how much easier this is you could argue I'm cheating because I'm using the site but that's kind of part of the package you know modern crossbows are designed to be used with scopes or red dots and I'm only using a red dot I'm not not using a scope okay just for fun let's see if I can aim without the sight so I'm going to be aiming with the point of the bolt and to be lining that up with the top of the rail here so it's like having an iron sight basically so I'm not using the red dot no I have really no idea where to aim but we'll find out that's actually the exact opposite problem that went way too high like dramatically too high I actually hit the workshop yep that's why I've got it set up here there's a safe backstop undesirable to hit it but it's safe that is pretty high up but that's the only way I can aim you know in combination with that with the point of the bolt oh let's see if I can figure this out so aiming with the bolt all the way low that was too low obviously aiming like this is way harder so if I had a red outside on the medieval crossbow I could probably do a lot better but you just want to figure this out see if I can make this work so in this case the trick is just I need to bring the group higher or lower whereas with a medieval crossbow the group in and of itself is way larger you know if I aim or try to aim at the exact same point which I really can't it's it's still going to vary a lot more ah there you have it with less practice you can be a lot more accurate with modern crossbow I also wanted to do a comparison of the power you know by measuring the velocity and then calculating their kinetic energy with the weight of the bolts but this has already taken most of the day and it's getting late and dark so I'm gonna have to do that another time yeah I didn't even get to this beast here it's dramatically more powerful and 40 meters is basically nothing for it so I wouldn't have even have been fair in any way hope you found it interesting thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Skallagrim

Views: 247,320

Keywords: Skall, Skallagrim, medieval vs. modern crossbow, medieval crossbow, old vs. new, crossbow comparison, medieval technology, crossbow accuracy, how accurate is a medieval crossbow, Cold Steel Cheap Shot, crossbow replica, light crossbow

Id: TaQToSdIlmw

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020