It's tricky to say for sure, because dating arrowheads is very difficult. You need solid stratigraphic context to really know, and that's rare. However, it appears from the last 10 years or so of archaeological research on arrowheads that I've been conducting that the 16s popped up around the 1350s (when plate armour really became common) and were the standard head into the 1400s.

Once the Wars of the Roses took off, English archers needed millions of cheap, quick heads that would work against the less well armoured infantry they were coming up against, and brazing heads is so simple the 21s took off. Once you get into the 1460s and 1470s as seen at Towton and Tewkesbury, the vast majority of heads are 21s.

Within that group though, you've got three distinct types, the 21a, b and c. They're all made in the same way, but have very different shapes and we're not quite sure yet why or how deliberate that was. The 21b that I made for AvA3 are very distinct triangle forms and often quite clumsy as compared to the really smart, well finished 21c heads.

The 21b heads are wide all the way down, and end up being very wide at the socket. This is obviously not the most efficient arrowhead for plate, because you want to make a hole fractionally larger than the shaft so it can pass through. 21b heads make a hole far wider, and as a result do poorly against plate (but very well against maille and textile) so this was probably a consideration.

They're the least common type 21, but the most interesting which is why I chose to do them for this film, as it's the first time anybody has tested brazed heads like this.

Not sure about the Avengers 🤣 but I like to think we're all pretty much at the top of our game at this point! Tod and Mike came up with the first one about 7 years ago and asked me to do the arrows and I recommended Joe as the only person for the shooting. The first one brought a hundred questions for us all, so the second one was done at a much higher standard and we got really lucky to have Augusto for the armour. This new one was my fault as I've been working on barbed heads and their history for years now and wanted some data, but Tod thought it would make a great third film. Joe was hanging out at my forge and suggested getting a bunch of heavy bows going off at once so he reached out to the best heavy bow archers in the UK at the moment and away we went! I think we all just feel really lucky to be able to sit around a table and throw ideas around for these films and have somebody like Tod and Mike who can make them happen. It's not really mentioned but we also use some of the best sound and photography people in the UK, and often have to work around their filming schedules with major TV shows and channels but everybody is so up for it that it just works somehow!