Bort - 2014-03-13
About that multiple arrows thing -- Lindybeige is right only if 100% of the mechanical energy goes into accelerating the arrows. But energy also goes into accelerating the limbs of the bow itself and the mechanical stress inherent to deforming the limbs.
What you really want with a bow is something that returns to its original shape as quickly as possible; the mass of the limbs and the mechanical stress fight against speed, and those are more likely to be the limiting factors in a bow, than the weight of the arrow or the quantity of arrows.
I speak from personal experience, from having built some really really shitty PVC bows and some somewhat less shitty PVC bows. I used to try beefing up a PVC bow by filling it with fiberglass rods and then capping the ends off ... but in doing so, I got far worse performance than just a simple PVC pipe, even though the draw weight was significantly increased. The fiberglass rods mostly served to increase internal friction (thus slowing the bow down) and the caps meant adding extra mass at the absolute worst points (the ends, where torque was the greatest).
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