Dry Firing Bow Design Help

[Josh Pham]

Hi All, I'm new to posting here but I figure it's the same basic guidelines as posting on any forum. I'm looking to build a dry firing bow for film and screen purposes and ran across one other thread but that ended in early 2014 (link). I'm not looking to redesign a particular bow but am interested in getting help on making a safe dry firing bow. LOTR and Hunger Games both used rubber limbs to make theirs safely but I can't find any details on how they did so. Can anyone point me in a direction?

 

[Dracosfire83]

Have you tried YouTube? You might have some luck if you try searching for PVC or survival bow. If you think they will be too powerful swap the string for elastic cord.

 

[Josh Pham]

PVC bows tend to have too much tension to them. They need to be broken in much more then a regular recurve and have too high of draw weights to be used dry. Even if you don't string them with actual strings the elastic will put the energy into the limbs. The reason dry firable bows can be used safely is that the limbs are flexible and thus don't store energy. Rubber can absorb the energy from the release. A normal bow (PVC included) displaced the energy into the arrow. If you dry loose it then energy translates into the limbs and that is the dangerous part.