| Home | Return to Stone Points | Primitive Archer Reprint |
Testing the Ferroulithic Small Game Point
By
Gary Kelley
© 2005
It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable. I snuggled in a sleeping bag in my one-man tent. It was the song-dogs that kept me awake. There were three packs surrounding the sandy desert swale where I was camped, and they kept up their coyote yipping and laughing back and forth to each other all night.
I checked my watch and saw that it was after six so I unzipped the door and peeked out. The sky glowed pink in the east so I rolled out to rig up for hunting.
The author with his high desert
blacktail
jackrabbit.
I pulled on my leathers and moccasins, felt around for my bow, bracer and arrows, and did some stretches to unlimber myself.
I had two reasons for this trip to Oregon’s high desert country. I wanted to field test a new bow, from Woodbows.com.
And I wanted to try some new primitive arrow points I was developing. It was months before deer season, so my next best choice of a live target was the elusive blacktail jackrabbit (Lepus califorinicus).
As golden shafts of sunlight lanced in under a dark cloudbank in the east, I looked around for rabbit sign. It was everywhere. I had done my scouting the night before as I drove into the area. Far from blacktopped roads, I had four-wheeled
This is my new Woodbow with its stringer.
out on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) public land and had driven dirt roads spotlighting blacktails. Jackrabbits are nocturnal feeders, so when I saw one sitting in the road, or racing across, I stopped and broke some sage branches and placed them in the ruts.
That’s what I was looking for now. It didn’t take long
until I came across the first marker. Out in the sage there were rabbit
tracks and droppings everywhere.
Walking is easy in the high desert sage
country, but shots are difficult.
It sure looked promising, so I took time to string my new bow.
When you see a rabbit highway like this you know there are jacks around.
To use the stringer, attach it to the nocks and brace the bow, then slip the string into its nock.
A few weeks earlier I had emailed Phil Silva about making me one of his custom linen-backed red oak Short Wide style hunting bows. Phil offers a variety of linen backed red oak bows in a variety of models. Prices start at $50 for his Rough and Ready tillered and rough finished bows to just over a hundred for his most expensive model. Most finished bows are around eighty bucks. We corresponded back and forth a few times until I understood exactly what he could do, and explained what I wanted. I ended up with a very reasonably priced sixty-inch, Short Wide bow that’s two and three-eights inches wide at the widest points. It pulls 35 pounds at my usual twenty-four inch draw, but when overdrawn to 28 inches it has a 42-pound pull, which I requested. That way it’s legal for deer where I live. The tan linen backing stops about six inches short of the nocks and will blend in well whether I’m hunting in the desert or in the mountains.
An
extra feature I wasn’t expecting came in the form of an extra nock on the
top end for the
stringer Phil provides with all his bows, complete with instructions. I grew
up stepping through my fiberglass bow to string it, but if you mistreat a
wood bow you pay for it, and this stringer keeps you from torquing the
limbs. It’s a piece of nylon cord with loops on each end that is longer than
the bowstring. You put it on the two outside nocks with the string inside.
Then you step on the loop hanging down and raise the handle of the bow,
causing it to bend. When it has bowed enough, you slide the bowstring into
its nock and remove the stringer. Anyone can do it.
I couldn’t help but be impressed with Phil’s thirty-day money back guarantee, no questions asked, and his one year guarantee against breakage due to any manufacturing defects.
As the morning got brighter I started some serious hunting. You can cover a lot of ground in this kind of country because there’s no underbrush, just sand between clumps of sage. I like moccasins because they’re so quiet. I was sneaking along looking down at the rabbit trail I was following when I sensed the first jack take off. I say, “sensed,” because many times you don’t really see them. You just think something ran ahead, and you might see a gray streak or a black ear tip, but you don’t often see a whole rabbit. They have an uncanny way of marking each sage bush so they’re never in the open as they ghost away. That’s their strategy. They sit in little nests under a sage bush until you are too close for comfort. Then they slip away trying to avoid being seen. I knew which way this one went so I got ready for action by half drawing to warm up the bow.
Jackrabbits make little nests under
the sage
where they hide. Notice the droppings.
The arrows I was testing were tipped with a new “ferroulithic” small game point I make.
This is the ferroulithic small game
point
I was testing on this hunt. Looks like stone,
but it’s cast of knife steel.
Ferroulithic comes from ferrous (steel) and lithos (Greek for stone) because they look like flaked stone arrowheads, but are cast of D2 high carbon knife steel tempered to Rockwell 57.
The first point I offered through my company, theBlademaker, was a field point that primitive archers find useful on archery trails with three-dimensional targets.
These tips look like stone arrowheads but have no barbs and will pull out of targets easily. My customers prefer them because they look more authentic than commercial turned-steel field points on primitive hand fletched sinew-wrapped arrows.
I was anxious to see what the small game broadheads would do on the big jackrabbits you encounter in this part of the
This is my first ferroulithic field
point. It works
on rabbits, and is an authentic looking tip
for use on a primitive archery trail.
great basin. By big, I mean rabbits that weigh 7 to 10 pounds each. After tempering, I had sharpened each head on the belt grinder before touching up the serrations with a rat-tail diamond file.
The edge felt sharp to the touch, but I wasn’t sure how it would compare with, say, a Bear Razorhead, which is about the same shape and size without the insert. It didn’t take long to get my chance.
I finally gave up on finding that first jack and circled around to cover some new ground. Walking slowly, I hoped to see one before it saw me. Fat chance. These blacktail jackrabbits have bug eyes that give them telescopic vision. I don’t think you could ever surprise one, but I have gotten lucky a few times. This wasn’t one of them.
The ferroulithic broadheads can be
sharpened
with a diamond hone.
The first thing I knew a rabbit exploded about 20 yards ahead blasting from a sitting start to about 35 miles-an-hour as it raced off. No, I didn’t clock it. I read somewhere that’s how fast they can run. This one was really moving with its ears laid back flat. When I tracked to where it started from its nest I found where its five-inch long hind feet had dug three-inch deep grooves in the sand as it took off. There’d be a lot of muscle on those hindquarters if I could ever get some.
I don’t get discouraged when a jack runs off and I don’t even get a shot because I know I’ll get another chance. Sometimes it’s a half hour or so until I jump the next one, but since jacks don’t run down burrows like cottontails I figure I’ll see some more. Unlike big game hunting, where you get maybe one shot, hunting jacks gives you lots of practice. In between I just enjoy the desert.
This day I noticed something white in the sand ahead so I investigated. As I got closer I noticed it was a jawbone, all weathered and cracked.
When I got right up to it I recognized a bear mandible, the lower jawbone. I carefully collected it and put it down inside my shirt.
Now and again I find
something interesting
in the desert.
The next rabbit I jumped wasn’t so lucky. I saw it start off, not in much of a hurry, and I had come to full draw when it crossed an opening. I launched the shaft and had the satisfaction of seeing fur fly. Unfortunately, for me, it was only tail feathers, and the jack got away. I sheathed that arrow and drew a fresh one.
It’s a good thing I like exercise because that’s what I got a lot of for the next few hours. I’d jump a jack, miss it, find my arrow, sometimes dig it out of a sage bush, and start walking again. I really enjoyed shooting my new Woodbow. The draw was comfortable, the release smooth and quiet with enough zip to send my arrows right where I aimed. And so far the ferroulithic points were holding up well. In fact, I couldn’t see any damage from my misses, but just to be sure of a clean kill, I freshened up the edges with the diamond hone after each shot. Shooting into sand is bound to dull an edge.
About the middle of the afternoon I got a sign. You know, an omen. Maybe my guardian spirit was speaking to me, or maybe it was just a natural occurrence, but I saw a big hawk-looking bird riding the air currents just above some rim rocks. He wasn’t moving his wings at all. He just hovered there in one spot looking this way and that. He was so close I could see his eye, then he made a sharp banking turn and I got a thrill. The sun revealed the tell-tail black-tipped white tail feathers of a golden eagle. I was convinced that he was watching over my hunting and would bring me luck. That, or he was scouting for rabbits on his own. Later, as I walked another few miles, I found where he had made a kill. There were no coyote or badger tracks, but there was a lot of rabbit fur here and there. I figured my friend the eagle had made meat.
It wasn’t until late that afternoon that I got lucky. I mean that. Normally I couldn’t hit a running jack no matter how hard I tried, but this time I lead it enough that, like a good hail Marry pass, my arrow connected just as the rabbit crossed its path at about 25 yards.
It was pure coincidence I’m sure. But when that ferroulithic broadhead hit the rabbit it was all over.
I’ve killed jacks with my primitive field points, and often as not they’ll scream as dying rabbits do. But this one didn’t utter a sound. When I skinned it out I saw why. The broadhead had destroyed five ribs and had collapsed both lungs into a pool of mush as it made its way out the other side.
I was satisfied with the result of my shot, but disappointed that the arrow had not gone all the way through. That is, until I remember a conversation with primitive archer, artist, and
The Woodbow and my ferroulithic point
worked well to harvest this jack.
a co-author of The Traditional Boyer’s Bible, Western Indian Bows, and The Encyclopedia of Native American Bows, Arrows & Quivers, Steve Allely when he said that on one of the four deer he has killed with stone points the arrow didn’t go clear through, but imbedded in a rib on the opposite side. I began to realize that stone points, or duplicates made of steel, kill differently than a modern “laser bladed” broadhead. The damage caused by the serrated ferroulithic point was unmistakable. The kill was instantaneous. That was good enough for me. However, I figured I’d need to shoot a few more jackrabbits just to be sure. But this wasn’t the day.
There’s lots of meat on a rabbit this
size. The
gloves are a protection against diseases
like tularemia, rabbit fever.
Somehow, during all my trekking for rabbits, I misplaced the jeep. I knew the general direction where I’d left it, but as the evening clouded up I couldn’t tell where the sun was anymore. I have a flag I put up on a tall fiberglass mast for just this reason, but It didn’t help this time. I was too far away. As a result I was, not lost mind you, but, as Davy Crockett is supposed to have said, I was “Sartainly consarned for a while”. Actually it only took about an hour to find the rig, and on the way I swore to myself that one of the first things I was going to buy, when I could afford it, was a GPS receiver.
All ended well, however. On the way home, through a mountain pass, I scooped up some snow and used it to chill the rabbit carcass. I had some gourmet plans for my kill. But one rabbit doesn’t make much of a meal. And I did need to field test the small game points some more. So, with the Jeep on autopilot and memories of the hunt fresh on my mind, I began to plan my next trip.
END
Addresses
Phil Silva
Woodbows.com
24 Emerald Dr.
Dartmouth, MA 02747
508-999-4266
staff@woodbows.comBlademaker
17485 SW Pheasant Lane
Aloha, Or 97006
503-649-7867
www.theBlademaker.com
garykelley@theblademaker.com
| Home | Return to Stone Points | Primitive Archer Reprint |