Is it possible? Yes and no. Modern carbon and aluminum arrows are hollow, and, if an arrow hits them just right, it can drive right through the plastic nock and down into the hollow portion of the arrow in what is called “telescoping” or “Robin Hooding.” I’ve done this several times, unintentionally. The first time, it is cool, but after that, it gets expensive. Carbon arrows can cost anywhere from $5 to $20 each, so I prefer to avoid it. A few archers can do this on purpose with target points, but most of us can only do it on accident.

The problem is that in movies we often see wooden arrows being split perfectly right down the center. Even Howard Hill, one of the most accomplished archers of all time, couldn’t do this. He could hit the end of an arrow consistently because he was so skilled. But when filming the 1938 movie Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Hill never managed to split the arrow end to end—not until they rigged a wire to guide an arrow with an especially wide blade into a hollow arrow. The problem wasn’t his skill. It was the nature of wooden arrows.

It is virtually impossible to get a wooden arrow with a straight grain that runs the entire length of the arrow. Consequently, when a wooden arrow is struck by another arrow, the end shears off with the grain. It doesn’t ride down the length of the arrow. The other problem is that the arrow shot from the bow is spinning in flight. An archer would have to hit the arrow grain exactly right and the arrow that had been shot would have to stop spinning enough to be captured by the wood grain and drive straight down it. Traditional wooden arrows used in Europe often had horn-reinforced nocks that would also deflect an arrow even if it did strike the dead center of the shaft. In addition, broadheads are created to cut, not split. They tend to cut off a piece of the arrow rather than catch and follow the wood grain.

In the movie Brave, they got a lot right about archery. It is probably the only movie I’ve seen where they show the archer’s paradox—i.e. the arrow has to bend around the bow when it is shot. But then, they messed it up by having her third arrow split a wooden arrow perfectly and then drive clean through the target to stick in the wooden stand behind. This is completely implausible.

Unless Merida suddenly shot a much heavier arrow from a much heavier bow, her arrow would have cut the nock off the arrow in the target and deflected sideways into the target itself, where it would have stuck about as deep as the other two. It certainly wouldn’t have had any more force than the first two arrows she shot. I was having fun with the movie until they did that.

So, the problem isn’t so much the archer’s skill. There a few archers who can hit the nock of an arrow consistently dead center if they are close enough to see the nock of the arrow. The problem is with the nature of wooden arrows and the archery technology that was created for very different purpose. Is it possible? Yes, but it would be a one in a million lucky shot.

Cheers,

James