Which is really ironic, as my late father is the formal registered inventor of the Folding Crossbow.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4926834A/en
No, this one isn’t a folding crossbow, but it does seem powerful enough to potentially be deadly. It’s raining today so I’ll have to wait for a good weather day and find an old used slab of wood for target practice.
I used to have one exactly like that, years ago. Came with about 2 dozen bolts, blue, yellow, orange, and red. It shot ok, about a dinner plate sized pattern at 10 yards. If you shoot a dense foam archery target you’ll want a pliers to pull the bolts out, because only an inch or two will be sticking out of the target. Shooting hard wood will break the bolts, if it’s half rotten it will be fine.
Interesting, good to know in advance.
I’ll probably try it out first by shooting a tree a few times at the park, but of course I ain’t gonna make a hobby out of shooting trees ya know. There is a particular dead tree though…
I tested it today, shooting it straight down into damp but mostly compacted sand mixed with compacted dirt. I measured the arrow/bolt went in approximately 2.65cm, just over an inch by a bit.
I wanted to test it out shooting at a dead tree in our park, but there were just too many people around today. Not trying to be unsafe about it ya know, but testing it gives me an idea how powerful it is. Not super powerful, but still obviously enough to be potentially dangerous if used irresponsibly…