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The products we offer can be found here, including custom fitted thumb rings and accessories.
Asiatic Nocks
Asiatic Nocks
Our nock designs are intended to fill the heretofore largely unmet need of truly traditional designs, merely adapted for modern bow strings and modern arrow shafts; nocks meant to replicate the form and the function of the originals. This entire nock project was initiated by, and completed with the generous help from, Mike Loades. We owe him a huge thank you for his invaluable help and expertise on this, and many other, projects. It was his desire for a modern Mughal style nock which began everything nock-related, and ultimately lead to where we are today.
Our nocks are sold by the dozen and made to fit your typical modern bowstring (~3.15mm) as well as the most common/popular carbon arrows. The typical carbon arrow possesses a nominal internal diameter of .246”. (Gold Tip Traditional carbon shafts pictured) Installation instructions can be found here. Please note that these nocks are not presentation finish, they display witness lines and other marks of the moulding process. They can however readily be sanded or buffed up to presentation finish, giving them a look much like polished water buffalo horn.
Have a historical design in mind we don’t offer? Want a truly custom nock design? We can do production runs of anything from custom colors to fully bespoke nock designs. Use the contact form in the top right hand corner to get in touch.
Ottoman/Turkish - This curvaceous nock style is seen on both flight and military arrows. Traditionally made from multiple parts and wrapped/reinforced with sinew, this bulbous design is easy to grip and draw, indexing naturally in the hand. 2.233 grams / 34.46 grains
Mughal - Another bulbous nock design, traditionally these had very shallow and extremely fat string grooves presumably for the fitment of very thick strings. They did not have a great deal of “flare,” as a fat string with a fat groove will act in the same manner to rapidly guide the nock into place. The much smaller diameter of modern strings thus presents a problem: a thin string in a correspondingly thin groove with minimal flare would not be fast to nock in the same way as the originals. Thus we’ve added just a little flare so the nock should behave comparably to the originals but with modern strings. 1.344 grams / 20.74 grains
Manchu - The non-pointy-end of the iconic Manchu arrow is actually a comparatively simple shape. The gentle outward taper aids in retention and indexing. While for authenticity we offer a fuller, longer, and fatter Manchu nock, for practicality we also offer a somewhat smaller “Manchu Mini” nock. 1.932 grams / 29.82 grains and 1.174 grams 18.12 grains
Korean - These slim and elegant nocks are our interpretation of what is found on traditional Korean bamboo arrows, both military and target variations. Amusingly, many originals too were a type of insert-nock, being made from wood and inserted into the hollow bamboo shafts. A great slim and minimalist nock, these are quite comfortable to shoot with a ring. You may be surprised by just how natural they feel and how much you like shooting with them. 0.967 grams / 14.92 grains
Mughal Speed- All too often the “asiatic style speed nocks” are really nothing of the sort, speedy yes but traditionally styled? Not so much. In antiquity string grooves were very large to accommodate correspondingly thick bowstrings, and at one end of this spectrum were the MASSIVE Mughal nocks. This made it much easier to guide the nock onto the string, as the target was larger. Instead of having an aggressively flared nock, the thick bowstring acted as the “wedge” to guide the string home. Modern bowstrings are vastly thinner, so is it more authentic to keep the Mughal’s lack of nock flare, or more authentic to provide a roughly comparable target for string-and-nock? (that is to say, an opening almost the full width of the bulb) It is an open question, but one we hope to address with this nock. Our approach was to add a flare, but keep the styling and feel as traditional as possible. The bulbous shape provides positive retention and solid indexing for fast drawing and manipulation. It also provides positive retention on the string particularly with the thumb draw, as it interacts with the index finger to be gently drawn rearward. Finally, a comparatively shallow string groove, just like on the originals, helps speed string-seating in the nock. 1.158 grams / 17.87 grains
**Photography Credits**
Sadly, due to the nature of how the internet works, originators of many of these historical artifacts/images have been lost. If one of the above images belongs to you and you would like it cited PLEASE CONTACT US. It is only with the greatest reluctance we share these images in their current state, that is to say lacking individual citation. We would also like to give credit and a huge thanks to the following:
The Grayson Collection for being the source of innumerable priceless archery artifacts.
The inimitable Peter Dekker of Mandarin Mansion and Manchu Archery.
ATARN, the progenitor of a majority of modern interest and research on Asiatic archery.
Thomas Duvernay for his tireless work to bring Korean Archery to western audiences.
Dr. Murat Özveri of Tirendaz for his work both to educate and rejuvenate Turkish archery culture.
Mike Loades for pushing us to do this project, and supplying original documentation for some of the designs seen above.