We’re taking a break from gardening this week and focusing instead on primitive weaponry. Fear not, timid souls: I’ll be back on gardening again next week.

My bow

The first weapon one would likely want in the absence of a gun is a bow and a set of arrows.

Unfortunately, bows and arrows really don’t work for home defense. The bow is too bulky and repeated shots are hard to pull off at short range and with enough speed to take down an intruder.

Yet a bow is a good weapon for hunting game or taking down a predator attacking your chickens. Again – not nearly as good as a gun, but that’s why soldiers carry rifles and not longbows. Technology has marched on.

When it comes to choosing a bow, one has to consider their options. Are you looking to hunt or target shoot? Are you looking for high accuracy or for simplicity?

When I went looking for a bow at a local archery shop I was blown away by the complexity (and price) of some of the compound bows available. Compound bows are high-tech arrow-throwing machines with incredible accuracy.

Look at this thing:

A well-ranked modern compound bow.

That’s a far cry from this:

I suppose you really can’t call a compound bow a primitive weapon – though I balk at calling the English longbow a primitive weapon either. It was a work of marvelous craftsmanship and had a string pull beyond the capability of most modern archers.

Compared to an AK-47, though…

But I digress.

I decided to start my foray into archery by skipping over all the complicated stuff and going right for a simple recurve bow. The most regularly recommended entry-level bow I found was the Samick Sage. I like the fact that the bow is simple, beautiful and well-built – plus it’s got high ratings on Amazon.

A compound bow needs to be set up and strung at an archery show. With a recurve bow like the Sage, you can string it yourself and be shooting in no time.

I like the simplicity. That said, you could go even simpler and make your own bow with a machete – like this guy:

That’s just cool.

My goal is to become good enough with my recurve bow that I can do some hunting and maybe knock out the occasional poultry predator.

I’m also going to attempt making my own arrows. When I do I’ll post a video – stay tuned.

For now, check out this new video I posted on my bow and how I made a free archery target: