An Introduction to Blowguns

A blowgun is a weapon that dates back to ancient times. Fashioned from a lightweight, thin tube, the user would blow air into one end of the blowgun and fire a tiny dart or projectile at their target. Although it is quite simple, the blowgun is an excellent hunting weapon used by many indigenous peoples across the globe. Tribes in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Madagascar, and South and Central America have used blowguns for hunting and protection.

Blowguns are powerful and precise weapons capable of taking down various small game such as rabbits and similar animals with the proper dart. Depending on the region, the length of a blowgun varies from 18 inches to more than 23 feet. The simplest form is a single tube, typically made from a piece of cane or bamboo. Single-tube bamboo blowguns are most common, and are also frequently used as toys.

Darts are the most often used type of blowgun missile. They are made from palm leaf midribs or wood or bamboo and range in length from four to 100 cm. A cone-shaped piece of pith or a twist of fiber at the base of the dart ensures that it fits tightly inside the tube, assuring that it will fly out with a hard puff of human breath. Certain tribes also utilize clay pellets or fragments of bone as darts. Typically, a hunter carries his darts in a bamboo, basketry, wood, or leaf quiver.

Blowgun darts require poison to be effective against prey larger than small birds. Frequently, the darts are grooved to allow the poisoned tip to break off in the animal. The most common poison used was the sap of the upas tree, snake or bug venom, or decomposing flesh.

Although blowguns are classified as a weapon in the United States, most people aged 18 or older are legally permitted to own and use one in the majority of states. Today’s commercial blowguns employ the same straightforward design but with tighter tolerances and more sophisticated materials — seamless aluminum tubing for the barrel, for example, and injection-molded plastic mouthpieces. These enhancements reduce air leakage around the projectile and maximize its velocity as it leaves the gun. Along with typical one-piece blowguns, backpackable takedown variants with several barrel sections joined by plastic or metal couplings are available.

Modern blowgun darts are more sophisticated than their earlier counterparts, with a shaft made of spring steel wire and an aerodynamic cone-shaped seal made of injection-molded plastic. Due to the extremely thinly wound channel created by the wire, hunting darts may include plastic or steel broadheads to boost their lethality.

A blowgun is unlikely to be the first weapon that comes to mind when considering survival preparations. And while other weapons may rank higher, a blowgun does have some advantages.

Blowguns are available for less than $40 online, and they come with a sufficient number of darts to practice with. While a bullet can only be fired from a gun once, blowgun darts can be retrieved, or even made relatively quickly. This can be important in a survival situation.

Blowguns are also completely silent. As a result, practicing in the backyard will not disturb the neighbors. The dart may also not frighten away any intended prey if the dart misses its target.