Well, to paraphrase an Indian quoted in Byron Ferguson's "Become the Arrow", "Any old stick will make a bow, but it takes a heap of work to make a good arrow". (I know that is not word for word, but close). According to what I have read, gadgets wouldn't have benefited the Indians much, if any at all. When you are taking game in distances measured in feet, not yards, the optics, rangefinders, draw-lok, etc. would just be more crap to tote.

Off the top of my head, I would agree that the arrow is the main improvement. Mass produced, matched, and durable; plastic nocks, replaceable broadheads that attach with a screw or glue, ready to use feathes that glue on......big improvements over rivercane, stone, sinew, and pine pitch when your objective is kill some groceries or go hungry. I dare say that with the shots being so close you could take game with a bent hickory sapling with a good arrow. The next big improvement is string materials <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>. I'll take Dynaflight '97 over a sinew or squirrel hide string any day!

Chad

Long Bows Rule!