They tested the ones that they got from the wreck of the Tudor Warsip "Mary Rose" when they salvaged her. she went down in 1500's. The heavest bow had a draw weight of 170 lbs !!!

When they examined the skeletons of the archers that they found the bone plates in their coller bones had never fuzed as normal skeletons. Rather this element was replaced with cartilidge. The scientists put it down to the massive overuse of this region of their bodies.

That was when the bowmakers made the 150 lb weight replica. I did some work for the "Farmers and Fletchers" guild in London which was when I got to try it.

When I said I tried it Ben, please do not credit that statment with any measure of sucess in the endevour !!! The best I could do is to get the string 3" from touching my lips. Because the draw weight loads up on those longbows, I wasent pulling 150 lbs, proberbly 100 or so.

Regards