Compound Bow

The Rambo III Compound Bow.

Rambo's Compound Bow is John Rambo's main non-firearm weapon of choice, save for his survival knife. Rambo uses a vintage compound bow in every film after First Blood when he can't use a gun or is too far away to use a knife. He equips his bow with various accessories, including flashlights, glow sticks, and explosive arrow tips to make it easier to kill enemies.

Having been trained on the tool for hunting and practice since childhood, Rambo is highly skilled with the bow, and he is able to take out enemies from sixty yards away, usually pulling back so hard on the tightly-wound bow that it is capable of exerting massive amounts of pressure, the arrow being able to travel at speeds of 250 MPH, just slower than a bullet.

Design and Assembly

Rambo uses his ML14 Mountaineer Longbow to fish in the Salween River.

The Compound Bow, unlike other traditional bows like the Longbow or the Recurve, which were both made of one piece of wood, the Compound Bow is a more sleek, advanced version of the traditional instrument. When disassembled, the bow can fit into a single tube, and is very light, only weighing about six pounds. Made of three basic parts, the handle and the two limbs, all composed of lightweight aluminum and fiberglass, the limbs can be snapped onto the base and then a crank must be turned to wind and tighten the bow. There are two strings, unlike the one as seen in more traditional bows, although only one is used for firing. The other string is wrapped around two pulleys twice to reduce effort that the archer has to place when drawing the bow's string back. The sights are relatively simple to assemble, but must be put together manually. On the side of the bow is a place to put the arrows, although Rambo usually carries them in a holster on his back. The bow can allow for flashlights and other accessories to be placed on the bow to customize it. Rambo also has explosive arrow Torque tips that he screws onto the tips of arrows.

Because the Compound Bow is designed to transfer energy, it can harm the bow if you dry fire it without an arrow. This is because the energy has nowhere to go and it snaps back into the frame, putting pressure and tension on it and gradually weakening the frame. Rambo says in the Rambo II novelization that this could kill a man instantly or take down an Alaskan Kodiak Bear.

Novels

Rambo with his compound bow in Rambo: First Blood Part II.

The 1981 novel First Blood gives no mention to Rambo's Compound Bow or Survival Knife. Interestingly enough, the idea for Rambo to carry a survival knife was thought of on the set of First Blood by Sylvester Stallone himself, as he was a fan of knives. In the 1981 novel, Rambo only carries guns or explosives, which he uses to kill people. The film versions are much more tame, and Rambo uses his bows and knives to fashion elaborate traps. Rambo first uses the Compound Bow in David Morrell's Rambo: First Blood Part II novelization. He is given the compound bow by Marshall Murdock, and Rambo becomes excited, as he believes that the mind is the best weapon, and you can use a bow to your advantage more than a gun. As Rambo assembles the bow so he can assault the NVA convoy, he recalls how he learned to become an expert archer. As a child with a heavy amount of Navajo American Indian ancestry, he was taught by wise elders how to shoot a bow at a very young age, and soon became proficient. The Navajo were experts at using bows, battle axes, and other weapons against their enemy, and it became tradition to teach the young children how to use the traditional tools. Although Rambo's mother was a German who preferred rifles for hunting, the Navajo used bows, and Rambo was taught by the town's elder that, although strength was important, skill and endurance were more important, and that concentration was the most important of all. Although a young Rambo convinced himself that he would never become an archer, Rambo soon learned

Rambo shooting his Hoyt Archery compound bow in Rambo III.

on a longbow (a bow made out of a single piece of curved wood), and later trained on a recurve bow (a bow that originated in Ancient Greece and bent the opposite way when pulled), but when Murdock introduced Rambo to the military-grade Compound Bow, a three-part bow made out of metal and fiberglass, Rambo jokingly dubbed it the "Ram Bow" and used it throughout the rest of the novel.  

Rambo: First Blood Part II

Rambo uses a custom built Hoyt Spectra compound bow with glass limbs and Omega wheels with explosive torque tips to destroy buildings and cars in a North Vietnamese prison camp, and personally executes Lieutenant Tay with one as revenge for killing Co Bao.

Rambo III

Rambo threatens Lewis with his Martin Cougar II compound bow in Rambo.

Rambo again uses a Hoyt/Easton Archery compound bow. He first uses it in a fight with Soviet soldiers in a cave where he attaches blue glow sticks to arrows. Later on, he uses arrows equipped with torque tips to destroy helicopters.

Rambo IV

Rambo uses another vintage compound bow, a Martin Cougar II to fish in the river and later to massacre a band of Burmese soldiers that are murdering civillians. He later threatens Lewis with it when Lewis attempts to turn back from the rescue mission.

Accessories

• Blue Light
• Flashlight
• Explosive Arrows
• Arrows
• Arrow holster
• Accessory rail sights
• Drawback pulley system