Just make sure that's _almost_ straight up into the air, otherwise, you'll be having a Wiley Coyote moment when the z-coordinate meets back up with X=0 and Y=0. :o

and again the SCA would have a very real advantage here.
infact while we're getting medieval on raiders throw in some heavy guage small ID welded ring chainmail. done right i can stop a bullet(i've tested this in a non laboratory setting and while it is tedious to make it works decent enough).

oh and for cheaply made weapons i found this low maintenance weapon. it would work for those of you displeased by the M16EZ in the source book.
http://weaponsman.com/?p=4032

If you troll the net here and there and read magazines like Small Arms Review, you'll find a lot of firearms that can be easily made, though some are dangerous to their shooters. Almost every war that has featured asymmetric warfare has has one side armed with makeshift weapons or weapons built in garage shops. Oh, and I'll say it again, a $9 a month subscription to Scribd will net you a gold mine, of such things and others.

I used to be in the SCA in high school and part of college. Chainmail takes a LOT of getting used to, but once you get used to it (and are in good shape), you eventually don't really notice it too much. And proper use of a medium or large shield is a great workout for the arm, torso, and legs -- with that type of shield, you actually use your torso and legs more than the arms -- you twist your body to block blows.

Somewhere (and I have located several places) you would find basic aramid fabric--Kevlar, etc. A shield built of plywood layers with a kevlar/epoxy sandwich or spall liner might make the best of both worlds--hand-to-hand and some unexpected defense against projectiles and fragments. A liner might be better, as the plywood will degrade into wood mush after enough impact, but the liner could be designed to be removable and reusable.

And speaking of medieval armor, the latest and greatest in personal defense armor looks an awful lot like scale mail.

For those of us who are not familiar with SCA. The SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. Founded in 1966, the society has 60,000 participants.

In the film Zombie Apocalypse (or 2012: Zombie Apocalypse)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_...pse_%28film%29 the main characters encounters a group of students armed with crossbows and compound bows, group is former college/university archery team lead by their former coach. He explains why they use bows, because they are silent and because in all the sporting goods/outdoors stores they encountered all the archery equipment were left in favour firearms.

bows
 

I was very sure that crossbows would be best a few years back when thi sthread started.

But after reading up on tribal conflict in Kenya in recent years - the self bow or easily produced bows seem an obvious choice. Arrows for it are made from wood and any kind of steel or hard metal found.

"IFR" is reportedly several hundred yards.

Cheap and relatively effective. Bear in mind that these work as an effective combat weapon because there are so few firearms available. That means that a group can position themselves with good lines of sight - relatively un covered.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Bows...s_war_999.html

other sources are available -this one came up high on the google search..

One of my Rules of Life: There are no such things as obsolete weapons or tools, merely obsolete thought in the manner of their use.
the corollary: You can get just as dead from a stone axe as from a lightsaber.

montagnard crossbows seem easily made a used quite good for taking out sentires, ect