This, my darlings, is a modern compound bow:
Doesn't look much like what you think of when you picture a bow, does it? It is absolutely amazing how far we've come over the past couple thousand years, I must say. Sadly, this thing is crazy expensive, so I'll never own it, but it IS a thing of beauty. It's got 70 lbs of draw weight and 80% let-off, which means that when the bow is at full draw you're only holding back 14 lbs of weight instead of 70. This means when you do fire you get a lot more power than you could normally stand drawing back, and you can hold the bow fully drawn and steady (your arm won't shake holding 14 lbs like it would the full draw weight) for much longer, in order to correctly aim and time a shot. Yum!
The bow itself weighs only 3.5 lbs and can reach arrow speeds of 332 feet per second. Comparatively, guns are still way faster (about three times the speed with a .22 rifle, which is generally 1,000–1,135 ft/s), but I'd imagine there's something primitively satisfying about using such an ancient style of weapon.
I know this probably doesn't interest anyone who isn't me, but I felt like sharing.
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