Making A Crossbow For The Zombie Apocalypse

Curious if he could, [Gignathiosis] decided he wanted to try building his own crossbow. So he did.

He built the entire weapon using hand-tools, minus a drill for the holes, though he could have gotten a brace for that bit. The most impressive part is that he used a hacksaw to carve up a block of aluminum into the trigger release — a job normally done by a mill. The only modern components on the bow is the limb (which he ordered off Amazon) and a bit of tactical rail for his scope. The end result is a gorgeous hand-made cross-bow.

There’s just something so satisfying about manufacturing old technology using hand tools. It probably has something to do with the thought that, if you ended up back in time somehow, you could use your 21st century knowledge as a hacker to change the world… and maybe become a ruler — or a magician — as long as you don’t do something that results in your entire existence vanishing.

Though if you really wanted to mess up history — take back a fully-automatic crossbow with you instead.

27 thoughts on “Making A Crossbow For The Zombie Apocalypse

  1. what if there were no drill and amazon to order stuff?
    The drill could be a hand crank one but amazon would be gone after Zombie Apocalypse.
    I would make iron sights instead.
    Still it is a nice build.

    1. Ya never know; maybe he lives right next to an Amazon warehouse, and was able to find the exact parts he needed. I assume the other scavengers already took all the other pre-made crossbows.

        1. In an apocalypse, Zombie or otherwise I would expect to find all sorts of tools and parts available in the ruins of civilization around me. Coal though… given that people stopped using it in their homes across most if not all of my continent years before I was even born.. that I think would be hard to find.

    2. PVC and some heat (even a fire if you were careful) and you could make a damn good limb. Certainly strong enough to be lethal. Though it wouldnt be a bad idea to keep a few spares as cracks can occur over time. (could even give one of the spares if you run across someone needing a weapon, its a good bow in its self. Trading value would be decent as well)

    1. Even older model modern rcrossbows lack the winding mechanism. You get “much more tension” by putting your foot through the metal part at the end and pulling the string back with both hands. 150-175lb draw is still fairly easy to draw that way.

    1. The ‘zombie apocalypse’ is actually a great thing to use as a scenario, because literally anything that can happen in any other scenario, would happen in a ‘zombie apocalypse.’ Self defense/security would be required, food would be in short supply, water would be contaminated, fires, no electricity, roads would be cluttered with broken down cars, the list goes on and on. While its silly to think that you are actually going against actual zombies, its a good training scenario to prepare for other possibilities.

      1. And for those who think its ‘silly to prepare’ in general: Hurricane Patricia is about to make landfall in Mexico, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are going to be directly facing these problems very very shortly. Food and water will be in short supply, even with emergency crews handing it out, there isnt enough for everyone. The grid will go down, and anyone without a generator (or anyone who forgets to make sure they pull it out of the basement so it doesnt get submerged) wont have electricity. Once the hurricane is past and there are downed power lines, fires break out and spread. Roads will be washed out and/or covered with debris. There’s the obvious issue with disease due to flood prone areas and backed up sewage mixing and contaminating the water supply. It’s 2015, and even though we are as technologically advanced as we are, we still can’t control the weather (at least in any meaningful way) and a single storm can throw millions of people back into the stone age overnight.
        Anyone in the path of this thing: Stay safe, and good luck.

  2. Bare feet on sawdust and shards in the shop, ouch.
    Zombies only exist in holeywood. If you just turn it off they never exist. It is the humans that we have to worry about and the worsening storms that we cause. A weather expert once said what we know about hurricanes says they should occur all the time. Thank God they don’t. Yet.

  3. “..
    It probably has something to do with the thought that, if you ended up back in time somehow, you could use your 21st century knowledge as a hacker to change the world… and maybe become a ruler — or a magician — as long as you don’t do something that results in your entire existence vanishing.
    ..”

    And I was thinking I was the only one with thoughts of this kind.. LOL.
    Ok, hands up, who else around here has those kind of thoughts creep up in his mind every other year or so?

    1. (Raises Hand)

      I was thinking the other day, the ancient Chinese could have had gliders , the medieval Europeans could have had electricity and Benjamin Franklin could have been playing with lasers. If any of this had happened where would we be today?

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