Replica Warbows.... Please see the Gallery

The Wood
Longbows that were used for warfare during the middle ages were primarily made from high altitude european yew, the best wood came from Portugal and Spain, followed closely by Italian. What makes this wood perfect for use as a heavy draw weight war bow is the growing conditions it grows in, very little poor quality soil, on the side of a mountain 3000+mtrs up where extreme temperatures are involved, all this together means that the tree gets very few good growth days per year making the tree very dense and strong. Portuguese and Spanish yew are no longer available but a small supply of Italian yew is still available, these trees are still protected and as such only very few are allowed to be cut annually. The trees are normally about 8-12 inches in diameter (Approx 200+ years old), The growth rings on these trees are incredibly tight due to the slow growth, typically 60-80 rings per inch, this differs greatly to more northern grown alpine yew which grows much faster and less dense but does yield a much cleaner stave, (Not so many knots or pins), However cleaner is not always better, due to it being a bigger faster grown tree, it becomes more brittle and more prone to breakage.

Durability
Italian yew will have knots and pins in it but this is not really detrimental to the bow providing they are not dead knots. Many of the bows found on the Mary Rose have knots and pins,
It is the belief of some people that bows made from this wood will not last but i'm afraid they are not correct, These bows will last a long while if they made properly and are treated with care, I do not believe that bows would heve be made from this wood if they did not last, It would not be very prudent to spend many hours making a bow, let alone the seasoning. Also lets not forget the generations of foresters who looked after these trees for 100’s of years. It wouldn’t make any sense if it would only last a couple of dozen arrows.

Performance
Yew bows will lose a little of there initial performance, but once settled they will serve the owner well and be very stable for many years. There are a number of archers using Italian Yew war bow replicas that are achieving very good distances with heavy military weight arrows.

Reasons to buy
If you would like to own and shoot a bow made from the correct wood that could have been used by our forefathers then Italian Yew is the only way to go.
Northern Alpine, American Yew and other American woods can be laminated with hickory to make a good heavy draw weight longbow, but they are not correct and never will be. So why buy something that is not correct when you can buy an Italian Self Yew war bow for the same money or in some cases even less.

Inexpensive laminated warbows
Inexpensive laminated war bow replicas made from Hickory/hardwood core/Lemonwood can be used as training aids to get you up to the higher draw weights before spending your hard earned cash on an Italian Yew bow, these inexpensive laminates will not give the same performance as a Self Yew bow, but will perform adequately in most longbow disiplines, They also make an ideal start up bow for the would be war bow archer.