Prep School: Making Primitive Weapons

By Ash Bauer

Copyright 2012 Ash Bauer

Kindle Edition

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Welcome to Prep School!

It’s easy to be intimidated by a hardcore prepper with 30 years of food stores, multiple bug-out locations, and an off-the-grid power system. Prep School exists to let you in on three big prepping secrets.

SECRET ONE: Nobody starts perfect.

When those prepping powerhouses first started they were just as clueless as you are. Even Navy Seals had things to learn.

Nobody expects you to become a prepping expert overnight. Prep School is for people who are interested in prepping for a crisis or disaster but aren’t really sure where to start. Each article tackles a specific topic such as urban ranching, post-crisis professions, and the special survival needs of ladies.

If you’re an advanced prepper who could use a quick refresher on a specific topic you can spend 99 cents on a single essay. There’s no need to waste your money or make you wade past information you could teach in search of the good stuff you need. If you’re just getting started, you can pick up individual 99 cent books or save a little cash and pick up our $2.99 Theme Packs where we bundle 4 related articles into a single book. Only buy what you need. Spend the rest on your preps.

SECRET TWO: Prepping is fun.

Stockpiling food and ammo may sound grim and intimidating, but you know what most preppers do in real life on a daily basis? Sports and crafting. It’s the same stuff millions of ordinary Americans do every day for fun. On the sport side you’ll find people who love archery, shooting, and martial arts - all things kids do at summer camp for the sheer joy of it. As for crafters, you can find entire suburban stores dedicated to cranking out supplies for beer making, knitting, canning, soap making, and sewing. Etsy exists just to give crafters a way to get rid of all the fun stuff they make. People create things because it’s fun. Preppers are normal people with a cause.

The difference between mainstream sports and crafting versus prepping is focus. Sure, the skills are fun, but they’ll also help keep you alive if the stuff hits the fan.

You’ll find people in prepper communities are thrilled to make friends (and future allies). The thing people forget about hardcore preppers who are ready to survive whatever the world throws at them is they got that way because they honestly enjoyed the process.

SECRET THREE: Prepping isn’t just for The End Of The World As We Know It.

Natural disasters happen. Hurricane Katrina is the most extreme example in recent American history, but there are countless smaller tornadoes, floods, blizzards, and locally relevant disasters which result in the power going out for anywhere from a day to a week. When that happens, a well prepared person doesn’t have to be afraid. Instead of hunger, fear, and violence a prepper has food, security and safety.

Getting started with prepping is all about baby steps that won’t interfere with your real life.

In this article, you’ll learn how to make several primitive, pre-industrial weapons using nothing but a multi-tool knife.

INTRODUCTION

Preppers have a certain reputation when it comes to huge collections of guns. However, if you have to bug out, at some point you’re going to run out of ammo. At that point, your gun becomes about as effective as a sturdy rock. That’s where primitive, pre-industrial weapons come in. They can give keep you fed and give you an edge in a fight.

Think of teaching your family about pre-industrial weapons as a combination of history lessons and practical survival skills. Human beings are pretty crafty. Long before we had guns we had swords. Before we had swords we had spears. We didn’t just survive before guns - we thrived and spread across the globe.

So let’s say a crisis or disaster happens and you’re separated from both your guns and your group. That doesn’t mean you’re helpless and about to go hungry. Look around. Just as a sculptor can see a statue in a piece of raw marble, you’ll be able to see a wealth of weapons surrounding you so long as you have the skills to make them.

A slingshot won’t stand up against a gun, but it will kill a small bird or rabbit. You’ll eat that night. If you’re being chased, a bola can knock an armed person to the ground long enough for you to spear or stab them. If you’re separated from your weapons or want to avoid the sounds of gunfire, knowing how to make primitive weapons from whatever you find around you can give you a serious survival edge.

Don’t assume we’re getting gloomy here at Prep School. Honestly, making these primitive, pre-industrial weapons really is fun. Anyone who took an anthropology class can tell you knapping an arrowhead from scratch makes you really appreciate being able to walk into a sporting goods store. Teaching your kids how to make primitive weapons is a great family bonding activity that lets them work with their hands, learn complex skills, and gives them something to show for their Saturday other than a high score in a video game. The first time they actually trap an animal with a bola is an amazing experience. It’s like leveling up in real life.

In addition to the sheer fun of crafting something new, making pre-industrial weapons from scratch is incredibly empowering. A modern person armed with nothing more than a multi-tool style knife can make weapons good for either hunting or defending yourself from hostile humans.

This book builds up from the simplest, least effective weapons to the most complicated, most effective ones.

CLUBS

In an era when anyone can buy a beautifully crafted gun, a precision crossbow, or a razor edged knife, it’s easy for forget the basic simplicity of a club. If a rock is an extension of your fist, a club is an extension of your entire arm. A club keeps your attacker arm’s length away while also giving you leverage. In case of a crisis or a disaster, you’re likely to encounter a lot of formerly rational people who are now operating on blind panic. If you’re far from your guns or just need to literally beat back an attacker without the risk of shooting them, an impromptu club is a good option.

Any long, narrow, strong object can be used as a club. Baseball bats and crowbars make excellent clubs. They channel all the power of your arms and upper body into a narrow, focused blunt trauma impact zone which can do some serious damage.

Most modern clubs are deceptively civilized objects with some clear other use. Aluminum baseball bats are a classic example. However, nothing says get off my lawn like a broken chair leg with a dozen nails hammered at odd angles through one end.

If you’re in the wild, you can make improvements to a basic stick by splitting the top 1/3 of it with a knife or sharp rock and shoving a sturdy, palm sized rock into the wedge. Tightly tie the rock in place. If you don’t have any rope or twine, rip strips off the hem of your shirt. Now your basic backwoods club has some real heft to it.

There’s no gentle way to use a club. They’re designed to take someone down, break some bones, and make sure your attacker doesn’t get back up again. You can’t use a club from a distance and they’re really no good for hunting animals. Basically, if you’re going to make a club, be sure you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind doing serious damage to another human being who is up close and personal.

BOLAS

Clubs are useful against other humans. However, if you need to feed yourself in the wild, you’ll want some distance weapons. Any hunter will tell you animals are a lot sturdier than they look. You don’t want to fight them up close.

Rocks and clubs may be the oldest weapons known to man, but the bola is a close third. A bola is essentially a weighted rope net which can be thrown at animals to tangle them up. You throw it at a distance, trip the animal up, then run in and stab the animal before it can disentangle itself. This is a lot safer than just running up and trying to spear a deer.

The bola is hard to master, but also incredibly effective at making sure your prey goes down without doing you a serious injury.

To make a bola, tie leather or rope around an egg shaped rock, wooden egg, or any solid object that feels comfortable in your hand. You want to form a tight rope net around your egg shaped rock.  Now get three smaller rocks, maybe half the size of an egg, and tie each one of them to a piece of rope or leather. Tie the loose ends of the rope or leather to the net surrounding your big, egg sized rock. If you hold the largest rock in your fist, you should have three ropes hanging down from it with a rock at the end of each one. This is the simplest, most basic bola. The length of rope is entirely up to you. Two feet is a good starting point for most people, but you should experiment with different lengths for use on different sized animals.

You now have a weapon you can hold centered in one hand, spin overhead, and set flying to entangle an animal. Or, on your first dozen throws, something that will end up deeply embedded in a nearby bush. Keep trying. Bolas take a lot of practice.

Bolas can be made using anywhere from 3 to 10 hanging rocks. The smaller the prey, the more rocks you want to use. Remember, the rocks aren’t there to knock out an animal – they exist to direct the net and make it hard to pull off. You’d want something with 8-10 small rocks to entangle a duck, 5 or 6 rocks to entangle something human sized, and only 3 or 4 to trip up a deer.

With practice, you can trip up an animal (or a person). Their legs will go out from under them. While they’re busy trying to free themselves you can take them down with a spear, javelin, or even a club.

Of all the primitive weapons, bolas are both the most fun and the most frustrating to play with. You’re probably going to hit yourself in the head a couple times while you practice. Laugh it off and keep trying. Mastering the bola is worth it.

SLINGSHOTS

The story of David and Goliath is a good demonstration of just how dangerous a person can be with nothing more than a rock and a few scraps of leather. A slingshot uses the same leverage principles as a rock in a sock, only instead of close quarters the slingshot is a used from a good distance.

Slingshots aren’t easy to master, but they’re cheap and easy to make as well as pretty harmless to practice. The simplest slingshots can be made from two pieces of leather. Start with a one inch wide, one foot long strip of leather. Take a second, egg shaped piece of leather around 3 inches across, cut two slits in it, and slide it to the middle of your long leather strip. That’s it. All you need now is a rock small enough to comfortably fit in the leather circle. In case of a crisis or disaster, you can easily improvise a leather belt into several slingshots.

To use your slingshot, hold one end of the strap clenched in your fist and the other end snug under your first two fingers. Spin the rock over your head to gain some momentum and let go of the end of the strap under your fingers (while keeping hold of the end in your fist.)

The first few times you try this you’re probably going to hit yourself in the face with the leather, send the rock flying off into the distance, and lose your balance enough you fall. It’ll amuse everyone. Laugh it off.

This is one of the biggest reasons slings were historically given to boys to use as toys. They take a long time to master, so it kept the boys occupied. However, within a year of messing around with a sling for fun, a lot of boys ended up bringing home small birds, rabbits, and other fast moving prey for the family dinner table. They could just as effectively climb up in a tree and rain rocky destruction on anyone attacking their family. So can you.

BLOWGUNS

Blowguns are subtle, guerilla weapons. You’re not going to build up enough force in your lungs to take down a bunny, much less an angry man. However, if you know how to make poison darts, you don’t have to take your attacker down. You just have to nick them.

A blow gun can be as simple as a hollow piece of bamboo. Any long, narrow tube with a smooth interior will work just fine. The real magic here is in the darts. They need to be just the right size to fit comfortably in the tube without getting lodged inside. If they’re too small, they’ll rattle around in the tube’s interior and lose valuable momentum. If they’re too large, they’ll get stuck, leaving you with a useless stick full of poison.

For obvious reasons, blowguns are best used when you have higher ground. Pointing a hollow tube up in the air and blowing in it is a good way to end up swallowing a dart. Instead, make sure you’re pointing straight or slightly downwards. Since darts are mostly useless without some form of poison, you’ll also want to both wear gloves and be extra careful handling the darts themselves.

If you’re not already a poisons expert, blowguns really aren’t a good idea. More often than not, people trying to make blowguns end up injuring themselves rather than their target. Television makes them look sexy, but in case of a real crisis or disaster, they belong at the bottom of your primitive weapons list.

SPEARS AND ATLATL’S

Spears are a great simple weapon. You take the advantage of a pointy rock (or any other sharp, dangerous tip) and combine it with the physical distance of a club. Unlike knives, spears don’t have a cutting edge. They’re used to create giant puncture wounds meant to cause the person or animal attacking you to bleed out.

To make a primitive spear, all you really need to do is lash something small, sharp, strong and pointed to the end of a something thin, light and long. This can be anything from a carefully broken rock to a piece of chain length fence to some rebar scavenged from a construction site. In case of a crisis or disaster, use whatever you have at hand, be it urban or rural.

Most healthy people can chuck a spear at least two to three times their body length. However, if you want to make your spear into a real distance powerhouse, you need to add on a simple spear thrower. Spear throwers have been reinvented all over the world by nearly every culture. The Aztec’s called theirs an “atlatl.” The Spanish mistook the name of the weapon for the name of the people then added their own flair to the pronunciation. You’ll be just as amazed as the Spaniards by the power leverage and gravity put behind your throw.

All you need for a basic spear thrower is a sturdy piece of wood about two inches thick and two to three feet long. Do what you can to make most of the wood as flat and smooth as possible, then carve one end until you have something that looks like a giant crochet hook. Make a little recess in the hook end where you can rest the blunt end of your spear. The hook should curl around the spear.

Stand with your spear thrower over your shoulder. Tuck the spear into the crochet hook end and hold onto the smooth end. Your thrower should be at an angle over your shoulder while the spear itself is pointing forward. Now give it a good overhand throw. A trained atlatl user can fling a spear up to 150 miles per hour and with an astounding amount of force. If you compare a bow and arrow to a gun, think of a trained spear thrower wielding an atlatl as a cannon.

If you find yourself separated from your group and guns in a crisis or disaster, a bola, spear and atlatl are your best bets for staying fed. Since they also make a lot less noise than a gun, they’re good for keeping you under the radar while you regroup or rush to your bug out location.

JAVELINS

Think of a javelin as an evil lawn dart on steroids. You have a long, tapered pointy part attached to heavier, weighted base. The weight gives the javelin more thrust and thus more penetrating power.

A javelin is both heavier and more complicated than a spear. You can literally throw together a spear out of a rock, a stick and some twine. A javelin takes those primitive principles and builds on them with careful attention to weight and balance. The end result is a thrown weapon that stayed so useful people kept using it in battle all the way from ancient Greece to Medieval England.

To make one, you’ll need something wickedly sharp but lightweight for the penetrating end. That should be 1/3 the length and no more than ¼ the weight of your javelin. In a crisis or disaster situation where the power goes out, you may find a surprising amount of formerly useful metal objects that can be repurposed. Strap that to a longer, heavier throwing base. Try to keep the whole unit as sleek as possible to improve the aerodynamics.

Javelins are frankly useless against most animals. You’ll need to spear them multiple times to make a kill. If you throw a javelin without using a bola to immobilize an animal, it’ll just run away, angry and injured, probably taking your javelin with it.

However, javelins are historically tested and proven effective against humans. Since they’re thrown by hand, they don’t have the range of a spear thrown with an atlatl, but the longer penetrating end and heavier weight can do some serious damage.

THROWING ARROWS

It’s amazing how, given enough time, weapons can turn into toys. Throwing arrows were once popular small game hunting tools for the ancient Celts. Today, throwing arrows are still popular among British school boys. Basically, you take an eighteen inch dowel rod, garden cane, or something equally lightweight and ramrod straight. Sharpen one end and put a notch near the back of the opposite end. Add some fletching to the notched end to help it fly straight. School boys often use cardboard from cereal boxes. Then tie a string around the notch and knot it tight. The string should be about 2-3 times as long as the arrow.

You throw the arrow from the front, holding it close to the tip. Wrap the string around your hand and keep it taut. It should stretch the length of the arrow from the notch up to your hand. When you pull your arm back and throw, the taut string gives the arrow a little extra thrust while the trailing string from your hand helps keep it steady and balanced.

Part of the trick here is learning to both keep the string taut when throwing and let it unwind quickly and naturally after the arrow leaves your hand. Expect to have a few strings get mangled in your fingers.

This is a good weapon for hunting small game such as rabbits and squirrels. Since it’s lightweight and hand thrown, it’ll do limited damage to something as large as a human unless you have exceptionally good aim and throw it into the eye or throat.

Like slingshots, throwing arrows are great toys for kids. They’ll burn off energy while learning valuable skills which can be easily translated to more dangerous weapons should the need arise.

CONCLUSION

Guns and bows are great. However, if you’re separated from your weapons or you run out of ammo, it’s important to know you can still feed and defend yourself. Learning to make and use primitive weapons gives you a sense of freedom and independence beyond mere gun ownership.

Plus, honestly making some of these things from scratch is a surprising amount of fun. Slingshots and bolas are great toys for energetic kids. Once they get good enough they can start bringing down small animals, you have a great opportunity to teach them how to clean, skin, and prepare what they’ve hunted. Meat doesn’t grow on styrofoam platters at the grocery store. Anyone who can bring down a rabbit or squirrel using a weapon they made from scratch deserves a great deal of pride for taking personal, ethical responsibility for what they eat.

Play with the tools. Have fun with them. If anyone raises an eyebrow, tell them you’re on a history kick then show them your bola. Let them give it a throw. Have a laugh. Then impress the heck out of them when you toss it exactly where you aimed.

Stay tuned for upcoming Prep School lessons including:

How to pack a Bug-Out Bag

Self Defense for Prepper Women

Urban Ranching: From Bunnies to Bees

Everybody Poops

Meanwhile, check out:

Prep School: Cooking Without Electricity

Prep School: Preserving Meat Without Power

Prep School: Hiding Guns 101

Prep School: Unarmed Self Defense

Prep School: Prepping For Your Period

Table of Contents

Copyright

SECRET ONE

SECRET TWO

SECRET THREE

INTRODUCTION

CLUBS

BOLAS

SLINGSHOTS

BLOWGUNS

SPEARS AND ATLATL’S

JAVELINS

THROWING ARROWS

CONCLUSION

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