Re: BCWF supports BAN on crossbow scopes
Originally Posted by
dracb
The problem is that a group of people who have no great experience or expertise with crossbows were asked to evaluate the following with regards to crossbows:
- Does the hunting method, tool, or tactic:
- Negate wildlife’s ability to avoid detection?
- Negate wildlife’s ability to escape once it has detected a threat?
- Lead to an inhumane treatment of wildlife?
- Lead to increased wounding loss/jeopardize a hunter’s ability to retrieve the wildlife?
- Jeopardize public acceptance of hunting?
- Result in higher harvest rates/reduced opportunity in the future?
The people asked to make this evaluation were representatives of : B.C. Wildlife Federation, Guide Outfitters Association of B.C., B.C. Trappers Association, Wild Sheep Society, Wildlife Stewardship Council, and United Bowhunters of B.C. With one exception one would not expect any particular representative of those groups to have expertise on crossbow use. Even in the case of the UBBC representative there no assurance he or she had any particular expertise about crossbows. The one I talked to was not absent of knowledge but is not well experienced with crossbows or archery to my knowledge.
Based on current advertising one might expect that people with little archery experience could fined issue with crossbows equipped with scopes. Afterall they look somewhat like rifles (some like black rifles) and have scopes on them Therefore they must be deadly at long range. And then let us not forget the predjudice of some archer hunters towards crossbow hunters.
The fact is that for at least 100 years there have been competitions using longbows, recurves and more recently compound bows where the participants shoot accurately at targets to at least 90 meters distant. The FITA round consists of shooting 144 arrows total at four targets spaced at 30, 50 70 and 90 meters. The 10 ring on these targets is more or less 10 or 12 cm and the bullseye more or less double that diameter. Participants in these matches rather consistently place most of their arrows in the gold. Evidence is clear that one does not need a scope or modern equipment to rather precisely poke arrows in targets at distances approaching 100 metres. When my wife and I used to compete the scores posted by the crossbow shooters were typically somewhat lower than those by the bow shooters, but then that was half a century ago (well maybe a bit more).
What was not presented to the evaluators was the information that those rifle appearing scoped weapons suffer the same problems hitting at a random distance as any arrow flinging device. Even with the advertised velocities for modern crossbows it takes nearly a second for an arrow to reach that 100 metre distant animal. IF a deer can jump the string at 25 metres, it may not be in the same postal code by the time an arrow reaches 100 metres after the racket a crossbow makes when fired. Ignoring string jumping, during that nearly one second flight time a walking deer has moved the aiming point 1.5 to 2 metres longitudinally (probably). A 5 mph breeze has moved the impact point of the bolt some variable distance based on the characteristics of the particular bolt, its initial velocity and flight characteristics. That velocity which will decrease by the order of 20% or more over that distance will arrive with 30% to 40% less energy resulting in perhaps not getting the pass through required for a good blood trail. Even worse is the fact that the ballistic arc/drop of the bolt will be of the order of two metres at 100 metres and increasing rapidly with each additional metre of distance between the launch point and the target. Hitting the kill zone of deer size target would require the hunter to know the target distance almost precisely to achieve a killing hit. Miss judge by five to ten metres the distance to target and it is Maggy drawers to you sir.
Yes in theory any of the common arrow flingers can be accurate enough to hit a target at a precisely known distance for which the sights can be set and in the absence of any climatic influence. Toss in a little wind, a little movement of the target, a little rain, maybe some increase or decrease in elevation and move that target backward or forward 10 meters and that precision shooting degenerates into pattern shooting with broad dispersion. Yes modern advancements in both crossbows and compounds have extended the distance they might be used efficiently but realistically it is not much more than the 40 metres we used to look at as a maximum ethical range for bow hunting.
Of interest is a description in a current bow hunting magazine. It describes the trials and tribulations of a number of sports writers testing a modern crossbow affixed with a top of the line crossbow optic. They had no problem in dialing in the equipment at 50 yards. When they tried to step out to 100 yards, advertisers cant be damned, hitting a target was just not going to be done on call. First off they scope would not provide enough adjustment to see the target at 100 yards. They had to hold on the top of a distant hill and the lost a few bolts trying to walk the bolts on target. Eventually one of the five shooters was able to hit an apple at 100 yards and they called it a day.
Thanks for taking the time for this factual representation on archery and bowhunting. I would hope that you have presented this in rebuttal to the proposal.
".....It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Trudeau government than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their prime minister......"
