Buffalo with crossbow

[Kano383]

One little point regarding bows and buffalo... A proper arrow is perfectly capable to kill a buffalo, BUT it would be very close to useless for stopping a charge, whereas a rifle of almost any caliber with the proper bullet will brain a charging buffalo or even an elephant. Herein lies the catch...

 

[john_little]

That's more like it, two please and a good loader.

That would do the trick, but only if there’s nothing belt fed available

 

[Dunwaters]

Impressive, he never spilled a drop....

 

[Manuel]

Is a crossbow an effective method of cleanly killing a buffalo? I ask out of ignorance, not to criticise necessarily.

Anyway this is why the most dangerous game I hunt is pheasant. Although one of those dropping on you from a height can also ruin your day, generally it's safer.

The composite materials opened a whole new segment for crossbows. I saw crossbows that go over 600fps with heavy bolts.
I also saw a bolt going through a bullet-proof vest.

 

[Manuel]

Why anybody would think its a good idea to try and shoot a beast like that with a crossbow when there is much more capable weapons out there is beyond me

It is not for anyone... Like it is not for anyone to hunt a gazelle by simply running after it until the gazelle drops down out of fatigue.
But it is possible. Of course, one should take the shot only in perfect conditions of position, visibility and distance.

 

[Kjm041]

The composite materials opened a whole new segment for crossbows. I saw crossbows that go over 600fps with heavy bolts.
I also saw a bolt going through a bullet-proof vest.

Bullet proof vests as I understand aren’t designed to stop arrows or knives so doesn’t necessarily demonstrate power.

 

[Manuel]

Bullet proof vests as I understand aren’t designed to stop arrows or knives so doesn’t necessarily demonstrate power.

The bold had a practice tip. Similar to a bullet tip, but more pointed. It looked like the bold managed to put more energy onto a smaller surface and got through. Indeed, the bulletproof vests are not for arrows/bolts... which makes a bolt even more dangerous.

 

[Mungo]

Is there a minimum draw weight for bows used on larger quarry? I am talking from a perspective of total ignorance here so please forgive if it comes across poorly but how does one kill an elephant with a bow usable by a human being? I assume only a crossbow would be suitable? Specific kind of arrow head?

There was a tribe of elephant hunting specialists in the Tsavo area of Kenya - the Wata.

They used massive simple long bows and arrows dipped in a poison made from tree sap (Acokanthera).

The bows weren’t powerful enough to penetrate anything but soft tissue, and even then there was never any chance of a pass through shot.

The hunter would stalk as close as possible - often to within 10-15 metres, coming in from behind. Would then shoot a quartering shot aimed to go in behind the ribs, angled forward into the chest cavity. And therun like crazy as the elephant went beserk.

The poison and wound would take hours, and sometimes days, to kill. So the hunter and his buddies would just hang back and track it until it fell over.

There were still a few old guys alive in the 1980s who had done this, and their stories were astonishing. My dad had even been out with one to watch sometime in the late 60s (even then entirely illegal). I very much doubt it’s been done in at least 50 years now. My understanding is that these guys were primarily ivory hunters, and not terribly interested in the meat.

 

[Mungo]

Though that was a fairly sophisticated approach...

The Okiek (a forest living hunter gatherer community on the Mau escarpment and around Mt Elgon) had a system not unlike the log traps used by the Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi to smash the armoured walkers.

The forest elephants used predictable trails through the dense forest. The hunters reinforced these desire lines by adding branches and felled logs to keep the elephants predictably on the trail. They then felled large trees, and hoisted the logs up above the trail, held in place with a trip wire mechanism. Elephant tipped the mechanism, log fell and (ideally) broke its back.

They had no way to extract the carcass, or store the meat, so the whole community descended on the kill site and ate and partied for days.

 

[Heym SR20]

And during the early 1990’s a lot of hippo, buffalo and elephant were killed in Kafue in Zambia - mostly with AK47. The hunters wives then did all the chopping and the made drying racks to dry all the meat - biltongue. This was then carried due west to feed both sides in the Angloan war. Imagine waiting with a large pile of meat whilst fending off Hyenas and lions.