Craft Your First Better Crossbow

Locating the Crafting Recipe

Before you begin gathering materials, you need to know what goes into your crossbow. The exact recipes vary by crossbow type and aren't immediately obvious from in-game observation.

Install a recipe viewer mod to see the crafting patterns:

• Use Just Enough Items (JEI) if you're playing on Forge
• Use Roughly Enough Items (REI) if you're playing on Fabric

Once installed, open your inventory and search for the crossbow you want to craft. The mod will display the exact arrangement of materials needed on the crafting table.

Gathering Materials and Crafting

Collect the required materials based on your chosen crossbow tier. Copper requires early-game resources, while diamond and netherite demand more advanced mining.

Arrange the materials on your crafting table exactly as shown in the recipe viewer. If the recipe doesn't work, double-check that you're using the correct materials—some recipes may require specific item variants from other mods or vanilla Minecraft.

Once crafted, your new crossbow is ready to use immediately with standard Minecraft arrows.