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Hello, I was wondering if you still had your "Van Helsing" crossbow and if so is it for sale and if not do you know where I can buy either a replica or the toy version? Thank you for your time & consideration. Sincerely, Paul

check the new co2 parker crosbow tough as for old weponry the french had some awsome big bore airguns lewis and clark had one and yes they were military grade back then hmm the chinese had a neat repeating crosbow so maybe a hybrid of the chinese and parker bow with a quick acting cylender

i have built a none working replica of the van helsing crossbow ,here is just a few pictures

Sure basically it's all the same as it would be today, in your head replace the steam with a Co2 capsule... The only problem is that noone ever would have made on as all the parts would have to be individually lathed or worked as they had no way of mass producing many intricate parts accurately, that's why steam engines were rubbish until newcomen took advantage of some new boring techniques that made tolerances much smaller for his enignes rather than leaky engines from watt...

i have built a working version of the rapid fire van helsing cross bow and it is for sale , im asking 1,200 dollars i ll post pictures soon !

Hello all, I don't know if this will help but after a lucky find, I stumbled upon the website of the original art designer for the movie crossbow, Simon Murton (http://simonmurton.com/index.html) If you navigate to 'Illustration', the original sketch is the fourth from the bottom. Kind regards, Rigo

@Jtobako and blckthng The only way that I can see the compressed air being used at ALL that would make sense would be in the recoil system, like in an automatic rifle for example on the AK-47 on the angular tube behind the aiming sight traps the access gas from the fired round and is transferred back into the reloading internal mechanism parts in the chamber of the gun. Now with the gas-operated automatic crossbow just like in an automatic rifle (seeing as though it's automatic in the film) you'd also have to work on the timing. BUT of course you'll point out the blatantly obvious that it's a crossbow and not a rifle so how can the same principles apply? The answer my friends lies in as as jtbako said in the compressed air, if one were to build one, he could time the releasing of the compressed air with the releasing of the trigger, so, at the same time the bolt is released the gas is as well, following small guid tubes if traveling at something like even 400fps(assuming this is the fps) it could travel the distance of say 30 inches in 0.075 of a second, so all you'd have to do is design a small catch on the bowstring that (if you can imagine) travels along like normal as you pull the trigger, the compressed air travelling parallel with the bowstring underneath, (if you could also picture) having 2, 30 inch tubes connected with a angle corner piece at one end, where the top of the straight tubes connect with the angled corner piece is where the small catch on the bowstring will be. The compressed air will travel from the compressed air tank down the tube, up around the corner and to the tube above pushing the small catch on the back of the string. The catch will be connected to a spring that gets compressed as well but the spring will have the distance enough to go behind the nut (or catch that holds the string) and the access gas (as seen in the design of the crossbow) can be released. Does that help?

A while ago i chimed in about making a workin version of the van helsing crossbow, but i never got the pictures posted due to a hectic shedule and a lot of computer issues but i will attempt to post them today. i did run into a few problems but have since ironed them out, and its about 85% complete to date.