6 DIAMOND HEAD ARROWHEADS Medieval Archery Forged Arrow

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Diamond Head Arrowheads These Medieval Style Diamond shaped Arrow Heads are ideal for making your own Arrows. They are Hand Forged from Carbon Steel and are fully useable. T will be some variation between the individual pieces. Also available polished. This auction is for 6 heads. Overall Length: 4 3/4" Head Length: 3" Width: 1 1/8" Weight Each: 1.2 oz Socket Inside Diameter: 5/16" Medieval arrow heads were of three main types: the 'y'-shaped forked hunting head, the leaf shaped broadhead, and the bodkin head. The famed bodkin point, unlike the broadhead, was reserved strictly for war. It was a four-sided spike developed to penetrate plate armour. With the increasing number of armored soldiers in the battlefield, the broadhead arrow showed a fatal weakness: the large head would distribute the impact force over a (relatively) large area, and in most cases, bounce off or break against armor, causing no damage at all. Platemail was effective at preventing penetration, as even if the point penetrated, the cutting edges of the arrowhead had to open a very large rend in the plate before the more giving flesh beneath was even cut, let alone the arrowhead penetrated the inch or so required for a dangerous wound. Even when shot from the famous English longbow , the broadhead arrow was not effective at range against footmen in mail armour and even up close against Knights with plate armour over their mail. To circumvent this, metalsmiths devised a square-section arrowhead, up to 4 1/2" long and 3/8" thick at its widest point. The objective of this new arrow head was to put a hole through the armor just large enough to allow the rest of the arrow shaft to enter freely. It was tapered down behind this initial "punch" shape to retain mass at the head of the arrow. Concentrating all the energy of the shot in the tough, hardened point, and its sudden arrival, a bodkin arrow could punch through 1/16" of hardened steel armour, and still kill a man, or slice through chain mail as though it was not t Plate mail was especially vulnerable to bodkin arrows, since the heavy square point punched quickly through the plate, then tapered, allowing the remaining energy of the shot to be delivered to the flesh of the soldier without needing to further widen the rend in the plate to achieve a fatal wounding depth. The Bodkin point was also heavier and slightly more aerodynamic . Under ideal conditions, the effective range of the new arrow was an outstanding 275 yards . The bodkin arrow would gradually lose its place in the battle fields to the increasing popularity of early firearms , even though it was much more precise and lethal than those, a precision that would be recovered only with the advent of the rifle centuries later. By the middle of the 17th Century , the bow was considered totally obsolete in battle, and the days of the bodkin point arrow became history. In peacetime, in some regions, carrying chisel points was a hanging offence, because it was thought to threaten noblemen, or they were taken as evidence that one was a highwayman . Specialist war-arrows were designed to tackle the problem of different types of armour. For example, arrows with thin and sharply slanted heads were used to pierce chainmail suits, breaking one ring and consequently 'popping' a huge hole in the armour as the force of the impact knocked the other rings out of place. Many war-arrows had heads that were only attached with a small blob of wax, so that if they were to be removed conventionally only the shaft would come out, leaving the head lodged in the victim which would almost certainly cause an infected wound. Hunting arrows generally had what is called a 'broad-headed' arrowhead, though specialist hunting arrows did exist. Broad-head arrows leave wide cuts when they pierce flesh, which results in rapid blood loss. A well-placed arrow that struck a deer through both lungs or the heart would kill it in seconds. But even a wounding shot with a broadhead might cause the animal to bleed out and die relatively quic... read more

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