Quote Originally Posted by Spiryt View Post
I mentioned theories about it few times - way less visible archer paradox and bolt flexing in general, causes less energy waste, both on bending and due to air resistance.

Thus, bolt preserves it's velocity better, especially at 'flat' trajectories.

Dunno how true it actually is for 'most' applications, would need checking.

Theoretically, velocities possible with crossbow, might be, all other things being roughly equal, greater than with 'long' bow, because both arms have way less road to cover.
A couple of things:

1. Doesn't the arrow stabilize fairly quickly (i.e. stop bending), although I understand that the bending would take off some of the initial energy.

2. If I recall correctly, somewhere in a previous incarnation of this thread, crossbow bolts became unstable in flight as they lost energy. So the result was a fairly flat trajectory, then the projectile fell somewhat abruptly due to it becoming unstable. So it's flight didn't have a typical parabolic arc?