Blunt arrow

Blunt arrows or club arrows are arrows that have have flared heads that appear as reversed cones with flat or domed faces. These could be made of the same piece of wood as the shaft or could have antler tips.

They were used for hunting small game and a particularly useful for hunting animals with valuable pelts as the arrows can kill without breaking the skin.

During the Viking Age these arrows would typically be made of ash, although pine, fir and hazel are known to have been used.

Blunt Arrows in Recreationist Societies

Blunt arrows or blunts are the arrows used in recreationist combats and combat archery to minimise injury.

Re-Enactment

Blunts are used in two ways:

• Some countries (such as Australia) have re-enactment groups that use blunts in combat archery. This however is not a worldwide practise.
• Some countries (such as the UK and more recently Australia) use blunt arrows in the beginning of some combats. Thos is different than combat archery in that mesh is not worn over the face rather training substitutes for this and the arrow storm begins the combat, but does not continue into the general combat.

Both of these types of uses use the standard rubber blunt.

SCA

SCA blunts use a standard arrow shaft with flights, except that a specialised tip is used instead of using a metal point. There are a variety of acceptable tip designs. The most common are:

• Markland blunts (large foam construction)
• "Riverhaven" rabbit blunts (3/4 inch rubber stoppers)

Most kingdoms only use the Markland design for a variety of reasons. Lochac uses the Riverhaven design which results in far more archery being incorporated into wars.

They don't fly as nicely as your regular arrow (in fact, they wobble around an awful lot) but these are the sacrifices we make when playing such a game. Although, there are many people who can get incredibly accuracy using them.SCAism