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Hi and welcome to my “ballista blog”. Ballistae are ancient siege-engines that existed in Roman times, and the equivelent of todays heavy artillery. I’ve taken the basic concepts and developed a complete line of “alternative powered sports weaponry” to compete against the very best and fastest crossbows on the market. Do they really work?
- PS – click on the mini vids on top of the pages for some cool tunes while you are surfing my blog…

Monday Dec 19th.

NO ATA it looks like. My development team has received instructions to withdraw from the ATA, and cease negotiations with all other corporations interested…

This does make me a little upset and stressed, as nothing is inked yet. A fee is being negotiated to drop out of ATA etc. tho, so I should be able to recoup a little of monies invested to date.

I’d like to be able to say more, but cant. If negotiations are successful, it will be well worth it. The upside is I will get the low-down on the 2012 models and adjust accordingly. I still cant help feeling kinda bummed out about the ATA. My designs just plain kick ass, and I bought a new pair of boots for the occasion.

UPDATE – Dec 15.

The bad news. I have received an offer of exclusive licensing and the torsion design MAY be taken off the ATA menu.
The good news. I have been working with a manufacturer on a few different “limb” power designs that look very promising. It is expected an industry announcement will be made soon. These designs MAY be presented at the upcoming ATA. More to come later.

The goal here is to approach 300fps using the same pull of 45-50lbs, use the same Scorpyd 125 frame but drop the arrow weight down to something more reasonable for the pull weight say 300-325 grains from 400, while at the same time giving it a little wider axle to axle measurement, and using 3/8 diameter metal rod levers instead of the heavier 5/8″ diameter designed for pull weight in excess of 150lbs.

Before the minor tweak it was getting 154fps with 400 grains and 175fps with a 350 grain. A normal drop in velocity of 1fps per five grains – so the arrow is too heavy causing twice the normal amount of vel. loss. It seems logical to assume then taking the arrow weight down another 50 grains would result in another 25fps gain.

So bottom line is my current set up should be right at 225fps with a 300 grain arrow. The weight savings from going to a smaller diameter metal rod should outweigh by far the weight difference in arrows (about 15 grains per gram). I am hoping to lose a full one ounce per lever and think this should be enough to get me up to 250 fps with just 50lbs of pull.

If accomplished, I think that it would not be unreasonable to expect a 50% return on an additional amount of power, or about 375 at 100lbs pull. Since that is actually higher than the Scorpyd even a 40% increase in velocity would take me to the legal speed limitations of 350fps of a lot of the States.

I will do a weight savings test using one inch lengths of each diameter to calculate total weight savings, but figure it will be enough that a heavier arrow than 300 might still accomplish the speed goal for a 50lbs draw weight. The 50lbs pull is just right for backyard target practice or in my case basement or living room LOL.

The Scorpyd ballista is now off in the mail for testing by a brand name manufacturer and hopefully something will come out of it, and a new torsion powered crossbow/ballista hybrid for 2012.

So, now working with two manufacturers of crossbows. Thats enuff for now and I should concentrate on some other stuff. Now I am left without a bow to shoot and that will not do so will have to make another.

I have a Middleton DTM 375 rail stock and trigger I should throw something on…

Have a vid of the Scorpyd ballista to send to those who leave an email address in the comments section. I check the spam and delete on a semi reg. basis, so even if it does go there I’ll see it…