Have you ever been out in the woods and thought, “I should totally make a bow and arrow! Then I can live off the grid and never have to check Facebook again!” Well, if you suddenly feel the need to become a mountain man and eschew all modern technology, this is the video for you. Primitive Technology has given you step by step instructions (without words because who are you going to speak to in the woods?) for making yourself a hunting device with nothing but rocks and trees.

To begin, you cut down a small tree with a rock (this sounds super easy) and split the wood using a stone chisel. (The wood isn’t identified.) To shape it, you chip away slowly at the wood, hacking pieces off until it’s roughly the right shape. Then you sand it using another rock. For the string, you use the fibrous inner bark of a younger tree and leave the strips to dry. Then you twist it into a cord and loop the cord onto the bow. Then you’ll have to do a few months of pushups and tricep dips to make yourself strong enough to use it. Unless your arms are already a gun show from hacking down that tree.

Now for the arrows. They’re made from the same unidentified wood and notched to hook onto the bow string. Oh, wait! Is that a turkey in the video? Oh no! Don’t hurt the turkey! Whew, he’s just there to provide a few feathers for fletching. That turkey is going to be long gone by the time you finish this. Anyway, you hunt down some tree sap to use for glue and chop up those feathers for the back of the arrow. Then you harden the tip in the fire (you know how to make fire without tools, right?) and sharpen it. Easy peasy. Then you use another hot stick to trim the fletching and create a quiver to hold the arrows. Regretting throwing that cell phone at your boss when you decided to live in the woods, huh? Not that the pizza guy could find you here anyway.

The bow measures 55 inches and shoots two foot long arrows. At 10 meters (which we learn in the video notes), accuracy for the weapon was better than 50% for a narrow target. No, the turkeys aren’t laughing at your bad aim. You’re just delusional from hunger. Actually, maybe you’d better rethink this whole living off the grid thing.

Please tell us one of you is going to give this a shot. Get it? Shot? I’ll be here all week. If you do, tweet me/us @JennaBusch/@Nerdist with video. Or maybe just order takeout. We’ll have the egg fu yung.

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HT: Primitive Technology

Image credit: Primitive Technology