Yeah so heads up, I did lose this one so while this picture shows it with a simple throwing string that I made out of paracord for testing purposes, I actually settled on throwing it with my atlatls. But while I was practicing with it to make sure I could throw it well for a video, It worked a bit too well and was thrown over 30 yards over a hill and has disappeared into the grass at least as of a few weeks ago, haven't found it since sadly as it flew really well for its small size.

I've been wanting to start showcasing atlatls into my experimental drekeology work and I've begun working hard on projectile points as of recent (obsidian and bone projectile points are the current project) and this was my first dart a few weeks ago. As always I wanted to work with my preferred medium of copper.

The projectile point is a very heavy metal point that measures about 2 inches long with a 3/8 inch thick tang. The original piece was cold hammered from a small, twisted pieice of copper bar that I broke a chunk off of by hammering and fatiguing the metal, annealed it, It was then polished, sharpened and made pointy and stabby.

The shaft is made of a shaft from a willow tree and was an older dart that I had that was previously about 6 feet long but broke, so I sawed it down to just about 3 feet long and carved a big slot for the big tang of the copper point. The copper point did not need to be glued and was simply bound with fake sinew. Originally as seen in the picture I was using the dart as a javelin with a simple throwing string, I wasn't too worried about authentically representing a dragonscape throwing string at the time so a piece of paracord was quick and easy and basically free. Though later on I carved a divot into the back, attached fletchings made of a milk jug onto the dart and turned it into a short atlatl dart.

And before I could take a picture of the short atlatl dart, i went out to test and... lost it, bummer but it happens.

Making throwing spears or atlatl darts shorter comes with some unique design challenges, as the shorter a projectile is the less stabile it is in flight. The lighter a projectile is of course the less energy it carries into a target which is relevant for whatever it is your hunting. So to counteract those two challenges I made the dart as front heavy as I could and I added large fletchings. The heavy point adds a lot of weight and makes the dart very front heavy, making it less likely to flip over in flight and go off target and the extra weight helps carry more momentum and keep a lot of energy in the target. Large fletchings simply produce more drag which also helps keep the dart stable.

As I said above the dart worked surprisingly well! I was honestly not expecting it to fly that far but of course it flew far away enough to disappear into the grass. It also flew with considerable velocity and, on prior throws before I lost it got wedged half an inch into a tree and hit a rock with enough force to slightly bend the point (requiring me to quickly hammer the point straight again). So the dart worked very well and might help me reconsider the minimum length of atlatl darts, I do plan on going more extreme in time.

Working on projectile forshafts for a less authentic dowel rod dart that I can use to test out specific points currently and I will likely touch bases there again soon.