I guess for a youth it's a cool thing. Every kid wants a crossbow at one time.
I have thought about building one from a medeival pattern. Takes a lot of sinew and horn, though it would be fun.
The trick is to pre-stress them, like a Turkish (and Korean) bow is pre-stressed. That will throw an arrow, but still not like a pre-stressed bow.
A regular longbow or recurve starts off on a force draw chart at, say, 15 pounds for the first inch of draw, and rises evenly at about 3# per inch.
A Turkish bow, which is recurved to the maximum so the tips overlap when it's unstrung, starts off at about 50# the first inch of pull, and each inch thereafter is maybe only one pound. It's a lot harder to pull, but stores a tremendous amount more energy, as you can see on a curve.
So while the maximum amount of draw on both bows can be, say, 65 pounds, the super-reflexed bow is storing three or four times the amount of energy.
Same with a crossbow. Except they're shorter, and the draw is not as long, so they should be reflexed even more.
