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- Aug 26, 2010
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- 7,751
Hey my friends! Yet another addition to my primitive hunting skills. If you dont know what an atlatl is then ill tell ya best I can. Its a spear throwing stick to be simple as I can explain. Before I got started I decided that I needed to do this with all natural materials that I could find on or near my land. I had no idea how deadly these things can be. After much study I found out that they were used to kill large game like mastodon, buffalo, etc. Smaller game could be harvested with bow and arrow but the atlatl dart was made for some serious kills and until you have a chance to try it you would never know the power you can add to a dart with this 24" extension to your arm. This thing seriously Kills!
They call them darts instead of spears for whatever reason so ill do the same.
Note the back of the dart with the fletching just like an arrow and the throwing stick or atlatl with a hook on the end that fits in the hollow of a dart at the back end. The atlatl is nothing more than an extension of the arm to give more velocity and power to the dart.
There is so much concentrated force at the socket of the dart you need to wrap sinew there to prevent it from splitting.
You hold the dart and atlatl something like this and sometime during the throw you release the dart with your forefinger and thumb at the right time and follow through the swing and at the end snap your wrist like you do with your Khukri to get the last bit of acceleration and man does this ever work well! You guys that have mastered the snap chop will know what I mean.
To start take you KLVUK down to the river and cut some river cane that grows all over the dang place around here along rivers...imagine that! Its alot like bamboo but a little not like it. Its lighter and after about three years old it makes great arrows and darts once its dried. You do need to straighten it by heating it over a bed of coals in the campfire. If you get lazy you can do it pretty well with a propane torch on low heat. The nodes usually need occasionally the shaft between the nodes do as well. In a few minutes you can get you a nice straight cane.
Here is a short list of ingredients you might need to construct the setup:
Turkey or other large flight feathers
Hide glue
natural pith glue (pine tar, charcoal, beezwax etc.)
animal sinew for cordage
flint knapped point for hunting tips
hardwood shafts (target practice) for making the foreshafts for easy replacement in case you break a tip.
I made three darts all from natural materials just to make sure if the wife threw me out to the doghouse I would still be able to snag me a rabbit or two and survive. After that i made the rest of the darts with duct tape fletching or whatever was handy just so id have enough darts so I didnt have to run back and forth to the target every other shot. I ended up with eight darts in the end. My dog ran up on the end of one and snapped it so really only got seven now.
This is a hunting tip I made from some Tx flint and pine pitch glue and a willow foreshaft. Trust me! IT WILL KILL!!!
For practice i decided to try several different things.
1. Thread some all thread shaft with the ends hammered out and or ground to a point for the tip.
2. slip a pointed piece of fiberglass shaft inside the hollow.
3. Tapersome hardwood foreshafts with the ends blunted for taget paratice.
All seemed to work ok and the weights and balance of the darts were all to consider so I marked the balance points and numbered each dart to study later.
Here are the darts in mid stages of assembly. The natural ones are already complete. I painted them so I could find them if they got burried in the woods.
They are between six and seven and a half feet in length roughly. We will see what works best.
Some miscellaneous tip configurations. All had to be reinforced so they dont split. I tried fiberglass reinforced box tape for the hi-tek ones and stuck with sinew for the primitive ones. The sinew is elk backstrap and is some super strong stuff and has not failed anywhere yet. The allthread was sharpend.
Since I had a coral snake skin with nothing to do with it I covered the bamboo atlatl with the skin. and made a deerskin handle to make it mine.
Of course I had to add my signature to it as well
Note the fletching is stitched on with elk sinew and glued in place with hide glue made from rendered deer skin. You can use rawhide dog chews to make the glue as well.
Some wild turkey fletching secured with elk sinew and hide glue. This is some strong stuff.
OK Now I need some targets and I figure ill put them about 100' away from each other. That way I can stand in the middle and throw 50 foot practice shots either way. Since my dog wants to chase them and eat the turkey feathers from them then if my dog goes one way I can throw the other way. That worked great until she ran up to the back of a dart and broke it in half and yelped a bit. She was not hurt but now she stays in the middle and just watches me play. Good girl!
Round one!
Ah! Thats a kill. Only had three darts at this time but thats a kill! All on target at least from 45 feet! Thats a good start!
Then a few footshots!
OK Heres the other target!
OK an ear and an elbow
OK we need to kick this up a notch and forget the rabbits. I got eight darts now. Made some with duct tape and high tek tape and stuff and lets also do something about them targets to really get some good grouping data on them new darts!
Oh Hell yeah! Much better! How bout that grouping! Still a lil low right but its late and Ill have to try tis one again tomorrow. BUT!!! can do that till I make another round at the other target!
Heck yeah! Ok I can go to bed now happy! Thats from 45 feet. Two kills! One is burried to the fletching!
Day two! It rained last night and washed out my targets! Oh well maybe I can still vote the primaries!
I do think thats a Kill
And to be fair!
Im getting better at this stuff real fast my friends! Tomorrow I add Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Cruz
No politicians were hurt in this test and please keep it light and respectful! Feel free to email me some new targets tho if you wish
They call them darts instead of spears for whatever reason so ill do the same.
Note the back of the dart with the fletching just like an arrow and the throwing stick or atlatl with a hook on the end that fits in the hollow of a dart at the back end. The atlatl is nothing more than an extension of the arm to give more velocity and power to the dart.
There is so much concentrated force at the socket of the dart you need to wrap sinew there to prevent it from splitting.
You hold the dart and atlatl something like this and sometime during the throw you release the dart with your forefinger and thumb at the right time and follow through the swing and at the end snap your wrist like you do with your Khukri to get the last bit of acceleration and man does this ever work well! You guys that have mastered the snap chop will know what I mean.
To start take you KLVUK down to the river and cut some river cane that grows all over the dang place around here along rivers...imagine that! Its alot like bamboo but a little not like it. Its lighter and after about three years old it makes great arrows and darts once its dried. You do need to straighten it by heating it over a bed of coals in the campfire. If you get lazy you can do it pretty well with a propane torch on low heat. The nodes usually need occasionally the shaft between the nodes do as well. In a few minutes you can get you a nice straight cane.
Here is a short list of ingredients you might need to construct the setup:
Turkey or other large flight feathers
Hide glue
natural pith glue (pine tar, charcoal, beezwax etc.)
animal sinew for cordage
flint knapped point for hunting tips
hardwood shafts (target practice) for making the foreshafts for easy replacement in case you break a tip.
I made three darts all from natural materials just to make sure if the wife threw me out to the doghouse I would still be able to snag me a rabbit or two and survive. After that i made the rest of the darts with duct tape fletching or whatever was handy just so id have enough darts so I didnt have to run back and forth to the target every other shot. I ended up with eight darts in the end. My dog ran up on the end of one and snapped it so really only got seven now.
This is a hunting tip I made from some Tx flint and pine pitch glue and a willow foreshaft. Trust me! IT WILL KILL!!!
For practice i decided to try several different things.
1. Thread some all thread shaft with the ends hammered out and or ground to a point for the tip.
2. slip a pointed piece of fiberglass shaft inside the hollow.
3. Tapersome hardwood foreshafts with the ends blunted for taget paratice.
All seemed to work ok and the weights and balance of the darts were all to consider so I marked the balance points and numbered each dart to study later.
Here are the darts in mid stages of assembly. The natural ones are already complete. I painted them so I could find them if they got burried in the woods.
They are between six and seven and a half feet in length roughly. We will see what works best.
Some miscellaneous tip configurations. All had to be reinforced so they dont split. I tried fiberglass reinforced box tape for the hi-tek ones and stuck with sinew for the primitive ones. The sinew is elk backstrap and is some super strong stuff and has not failed anywhere yet. The allthread was sharpend.
Since I had a coral snake skin with nothing to do with it I covered the bamboo atlatl with the skin. and made a deerskin handle to make it mine.
Of course I had to add my signature to it as well
Note the fletching is stitched on with elk sinew and glued in place with hide glue made from rendered deer skin. You can use rawhide dog chews to make the glue as well.
Some wild turkey fletching secured with elk sinew and hide glue. This is some strong stuff.
OK Now I need some targets and I figure ill put them about 100' away from each other. That way I can stand in the middle and throw 50 foot practice shots either way. Since my dog wants to chase them and eat the turkey feathers from them then if my dog goes one way I can throw the other way. That worked great until she ran up to the back of a dart and broke it in half and yelped a bit. She was not hurt but now she stays in the middle and just watches me play. Good girl!
Round one!
Ah! Thats a kill. Only had three darts at this time but thats a kill! All on target at least from 45 feet! Thats a good start!
Then a few footshots!
OK Heres the other target!
OK an ear and an elbow
OK we need to kick this up a notch and forget the rabbits. I got eight darts now. Made some with duct tape and high tek tape and stuff and lets also do something about them targets to really get some good grouping data on them new darts!
Oh Hell yeah! Much better! How bout that grouping! Still a lil low right but its late and Ill have to try tis one again tomorrow. BUT!!! can do that till I make another round at the other target!
Heck yeah! Ok I can go to bed now happy! Thats from 45 feet. Two kills! One is burried to the fletching!
Day two! It rained last night and washed out my targets! Oh well maybe I can still vote the primaries!
I do think thats a Kill
And to be fair!
Im getting better at this stuff real fast my friends! Tomorrow I add Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Cruz
No politicians were hurt in this test and please keep it light and respectful! Feel free to email me some new targets tho if you wish
It took about 25 shots to do it but what the heck? Bawanna.... Yes a triangle box was in fact harmed in this test! No video my friend! I wouldnt do that to ya