Advanced hip quiver

Serious archery, requires serious investment in equipment. If you are only trying it out, even a pair of old jeans can be converted easily.

I myself needed something better. Inspired by a hungarian horse archer master, I designed myself a new, high capacity hip quiver from proper leather.

 

 It works remarkably well and I am quite happy with the results. It can hold a large amount of larp arrows(currently loaded with 15 but there is room for more) which suits me perfectly. Loaded with normal arrows it could probably hold almost 100 max.

TOOLS & MATERIALS

Alas, making it won't be possible with just duct tape, good will and whatever you found in the attic. 

I used 4mm moderately hard leather and I recommend the same. Its expensive BUT if there is a leather workshop nearby you can buy leftovers and then combine them into big pieces like I did. 

You will also need something to cut the leather good, a simple home scissors will break/blunt itself, although you can, if you combine it with a sharp knife. Rivets or very strong thread is necessary too. Hole punchers for the leather - either hand punch or hammer punches, whatever you can find. I have a hand punch and I decided on rivets for extra durability.

KEY DESIGN POINTS

 The top of the quiver has to be wide. That's where the belt passes through and since its a wide connection, you don't have to tie it to your hip - it stays put while you move around.
The quiver itself must be flat, and roughly 60-70 sm long. Mine is 67sm long. You can make it as wide and with as many arrow slits as it fits you.

 Since the quiver is flat, the arrows have a hard time falling out. Its not impossible, but gravity alone is not enough. Here I am holding it upside down with no effect. Needs a good shake up for them to start dropping.
     

Rapid fire archery tutorial

1 year later I finally did a tutorial. Hopefully its slow enough to be self explanatory. Now no need to rush you'd need couple of months of practice to get anywhere. Get the book Saracen Archery too, its nice to have for the illustrations.

I was hoping to do some more vids that day - cantabrian circle and shower shooting - i can do 3 arrows in the air before the 1st hits the ground,  quite willing to try for 4, but all the vids we did are of poor quality.

Nevermind - hopefully this will be for the benefit of larp archers world wide.

On larp archery - packing your arrows in the quiver.

As I mentioned in the larp quiver guide this post is about packing your arrows. Someone might ask, ok so what's so difficult about packing your boffer arrows in the quiver? Well for once they are boffer arrows - they have a big foam head on the front. That's why most people simply load the arrows upside down in their quivers, like this.

Which is well and good, however when it comes to shooting, you have to turn each arrow upside down before firing, which cuts your ability to shoot fast. One way to solve this is by learning how to hold several arrows in your hand like I did, fire in volleys and then hide behind your line to reload.

The other is to fix the obvious problem with boffer arrows and quivers - the arrows being upside down.
If they are not, you can shoot much faster since every arrow you draw is ready for nocking.
Unfortunately you can't just stuff your arrows in the other way. They will get tangled with one another because of the boffer heads and you are likely to spill half your ammo if you try to pull one out. However, that problem is not without cure. The cure is to carefully arrange your arrows. In the quiver guide I mentioned that I closed the quiver with a single seam instead of sewing a bottom to it for a reason.

Here is the reason. The bottom of my quiver is exact fit for 3 larp arrows. No more, no less, no room for wiggling and tangling.

So once we load it up those 3 arrows can't get tangled and spill out. OK you'll say, but 3 arrows is a bit low right? Well, let's repeat the experiment.

After the first 3 arrows go in, another 3 are set ABOVE them. There is no room for the top 3 arrows to fall below the lower 3. You can't mix them either since the top 3 are standing higher in the quiver.

 6 arrows is more or less the usual arrow compliment for a larp archer, but we can add another 2
as a 3rd layer here, and my quiver is reaching its limit. 

When firing its simply a matter of drawing arrows layer by layer, you start with the top two then the 2nd layer and finally the last 3 arrows. You can't mix them since they stand at different height unless you are wearing your quiver on your back - the arranging is only good if you have a hip quiver.

I can still pack some extra arrows in here, placed upside down in the usual manner and simply fire them first.

How to make a simple larp quiver

Assuming you already have your bow and arrows, its time to get a quiver for them too. There are a good number of options here and what you choose is entirely up to your own preferences, not just in materials but in design as well.


First a bit of extra info. There are mainly two types of quivers - not based on design - all quivers are the same essentially, but based on how they are worn.


First you got back quivers.

And then you got hip quivers.

One is well obviously worn on your back, the other one tied to your hip(and optionally lower thigh). Which one you prefer is up to you and the way you work on your own weapon loadout. If you wear the quiver on your back you can't wear a shield there, if you wear it on your hip it will take room normally reserved for swords and knives and it might limit your movement a bit (if you don't want to spill your arrows that is. If you've fired everything you can run as fast as you want)


So how to make your own simple quiver?


You need a base - that can be leather, canvas, whatever you got. I mean a pair of old pants can do too, you will just decorate it a bit more. Fake leather is ok as well, one of the few cases where it is.

Here is for example my old training quiver(I only used it for practice) Its made from the sleeve of an old leather jacket that I had recycled already for other uses. I would not bring it to a larp proper because well, its just a sleeve with straps on it.

Anyway back on topic



Simple quiver - materials needed, either leather, canvas, or whatever you can use for the body. Something for straps. Something to sew the leather/canvas closed. 


Tools - eh, scissors, and whatever you will use/need according to materials. 

Budget - varies

 First thing to do is to measure and cut the body. I've picked leather since well I have leather available. A rectangular piece is cut, slightly shorter than the 68sm arrows. Make is as wide as you want to - it depends on the number of arrows you want. I made mine fairly big, since I plan to carry about 10+.

 After you cut the leather, close its sides, forming a cylinder. Then we need to close the bottom. Some people actually sew in an extra piece to close the bottom of their quivers. I picked a different approach by making a 2d bottom. You will see why in my next post where I will explain a little trick with arrows arrangement in the quiver.

 Fortunately I have a swiss army knife around so I managed to deal with the leather. The extra leather strip is both decoration and reinforcing.

 Once the bottom is closed, a strip of reinforcing leather is added to the top as well, for symmetry and for durability.

 After that its time to add the straps. For me thats simple shoe laces(the thickest ones) they are tough enough to survive any tension and won't rot away in bad conditions. I made sure they pass through both the body AND the reinforcing bands of leather. I decided on a hip quiver, since it can be easily turned into a back quiver if needed.

 That is how it looks from the other side. Now its ready to be worn.

To wear it, just tie the top lace to your belt, and the lower lace to your leg. Its firmly attached.

 If you want to convert it into a back quiver, just tie a belt to it like this and it can be worn on the back as well. If you want a back quiver to begin with, skip the part with the laces and get a shoulder strap directly.

 Coming up next - boffer  arrow arrangement for larp.

Heavy duty larp boffer arrow

 This Sunday, during my practise, I noticed something funny about the heads of my boffer arrows.Namely, that I've had a bit of an accident with one of them- the shaft had somehow pierced the head.

 I quickly dropped it all and inspected all of my arrows. Sure enough I found another few with the same issue and other that were on the way as well...As you can see - the plastic bottle cap is already fractured.  Obviously my stress testing which was indeed a bit rough, showed that the Hungarian recurve was too strong for ordinary boffer arrows.

 Therefore I went for making better ones, before Someone gets an arrow in the eye...or knee.


For this, I decided on two things - adding a cork, and a coin to the head. That's a simple wine cork, leftover from New Year's eve, rest is pretty clear.

 First thing I did was drill a hole in the cork with a drill the same diameter as the arrow shaft.

 That's because the cork won't be used to cover the shaft - it will instead keep the head stable - not leaning to the left or right.

 Bit of tape was added, since the cork is not the same diameter as the cap.

 After that its business as usual for making a boffer arrow. Cap with coin is fitted on and firmly secured with tape...
 

 Then the foam layers are added. One side layer, 2 top layers to be precise.
 

   And its done. I will put it to the test soon enough. Making more will be a bit of a problem, since I don't have that many corks around. I might have to find a replacement for it.

Moral of the story? Stress test and double check your arrows!