Mickey custom g made some good points on another thread to me but I have to wonder. Is there a point when your arrow is too heavy and you lose KE and MO? So for a guy like me, short 26.5" draw length, shooting 61# is there a point say 500 gr or 550 gr or 600 gr would give me less KE and MO than say a 385-450 gr arrow? I hear a lot about heavy arrows for lighter lb bows and short draws... I mean my son shoot 46# and 321 gr arrow, should he be shooting a 450 gr arrow? Somehow, KE/MO are related to mass and speed right? so slowing the arrow down would then potentially cause a loss of KE but yet may still hold more MO than a lighter arrow...I truly don't get it so I ask.
What you here about short draws and lighter arrows is crap. I shoot 26.5" this year I am trying three arrow set ups 535 grains, 560 grains, 600 grains. These are up from shooting 475 grains the past two years. These hit the same POI out to 40 yards. KE sells bows. KE only describes the energy that the bow can put into the arrow. It sounds sexy and sells bows. It loses all relevance the instant the arrow stops touching the string. As arrow speed drops off the further distance the arrow travels, the more quickly KE is lost. KE is irrelevant to evaluating a collusions, like an arrow hitting animal, because KE does not evaluate mass. MO evaluates changes in mass and velocity and is the correct way to evaluate the effectiveness of an arrow setup at impact. At impact arrow velocity slows so much from preimpact speeds that speed at impact is irrelevant. So what other factor is there is evaluate? Mass. The goal of hunting is to kill an animal, with a bow and arrow, you are much more likely to kill an animal when pass through is achieved. Every deer I have lost, I failed to achieve pass through. With speed being irrelevant at impact, what is going to be the best guarantee of pass through? Physics say mass. Here is a different real world example: If I drop a bowling ball and a ping pong ball from the same height, say 100 feet, gravity is the only force acting on the balls to influence speed. If released at the exact same time, both the bowling ball and ping pong ball will fall at the exact same speed and hit the ground at the exact same time. But, which would you rather have hit you in the head? The same concept applies to arrows hitting animals because at impact, the speed is reduced to next to nothing. What will cause the most damage?
yes I understand that analogy. and it is a good one btw... but shooting a short draw give me less power stroke correct? and 60 lbs of pull add them up and I don't get great KE or MO correct? unless, from what I have read I up my arrow weight. so how much arrow weight would I need to reach max KE/MO..? before it starts to go down. it will go down if I go too heavy correct? so if I put a baseball in a pitching machine at 25 yds and hit you with it it's going to do damage right? but if I roll a bowling ball to you at 25 yds not so much...is that correct? is there a point when heavy is to heavy in my situation and set up?
I do not think you can go too heavy at typical SE White Tail ranges other than making your current arrow spine weak and having to buy stiffer arrows. Too heavy is more subjective and about how much of a trajectory drop off you are willing to accept. As I said, there is no difference in POI out to 40 with my three arrow options. 40 is as far as I care to shoot at deer. The arrows I have at 535 and 560 grains are 300 spine. But to shoot 600 or heavier, I needed to go to 250 spine. But, I am also shooting 70lbs, so that is a factor as well. Look up the Ranch Fairy on Youtube. The guy covers all of this very well. He is sarcastic and a little difficult to take but the science is solid, and he more real life examples of success than any "pros" out there on TV.
Today's compound bows shoot too fast for this to be an issue. It could be a potential problem with trad gear maybe, but I do not shoot trad, I cannot really say. I can say that it fun to watch an arrow blow through a Block Target and into the backstop a foot behind it.
do you think with my current bow if I went to say, 450 gr that I could still shoot pen to 25 yds? I can do it now with a 390 gr. I only use one pin and I do not shoot over 25 yds. I think my bow is shooting about 266-268 fps currently.. however, I could just go up to 70 lbs next year with ease because of the switch weight technology of the vertix. change mods and boom, Im there. then I could really be shooting a heavy arrow....but i like shooting 60. when I was shooting 70+ my arrows didn't even weigh what they weigh now. they more in the 360-375 gr range...bows were always loud though, but that hit hard.
so we are basically the same. how far can you shoot with you first pin holding dead on with 500+ gr arrow?
I have a single pin sight that I leave set at 25 yards. With all my arrows I am 1" high at 20, 2" low at 30, 5" low at 40. Most of the spots I hunt, I won't shoot past 30 because it is the cover is too thick. So there is no reason to be concerned about it. If I set my pin at 30 yards, I am 3" high at 20, on at 30, 3" low at 40.
I don't mean to come off as a deck here but this is a great subject, that should have been addressed in the off season. I like to pick one thing a year and make my adjustments in Mayish
This year I tried to find a good balance of weight and speed. I don't buy into the throwing rebar trend but when I really looked at my set up I decided 420 was too low. I'll let you know what 536 does next week
Ranch Fairy has a video out now on short draw success with STUPID high TAW. I know this doesn't address the what point is the too far point, but interesting what he shows. Sent from my SM-G960U using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
I don't get the whole "short draw heavy arrow paradox" debate. It sounds like BS. Your draw length has almost nothing to do with physics of arrow flight in normal archery hunting distances. I appreciate Ashby and RF, but a 26" properly spined arrow that weighs 550gr is going to fly and perform very similarly to one that is same weight but is 4" longer shot out of the same draw weight same make/model bow. The key here is to be properly spined. I shoot a 31" arrow so of course I am going to need more spine than you guys even if we're pulling same weight with arrows of similar grain weight; -OR- I am going to need to drop my FOC.
I ordered some arrows and wanted to beef up the front a bit so I tried to remove the inserts (butane torch on low heating up a field point to transfer heat into the insert)....as you can see I wasn't very successful. ha. Anyone ever see insert adhesive like pictured below? I haven't and have no idea how to remove them. Thanks for any help.
Fix I won't change anything this year.. I will roll with what I have.. I am just not sure this heavy arrow craze is necessary for whitetails..It almost seems like anything under 500gr is too light...
Yes there is point of diminishing returns. On all but the largest game its probably close to the 550 grain mark for me. You cant just look at weight in a vacuum, there are other variables that come into play. Broadhead choice is one, draw length is another and lastly the avg shot distance. I would careful taking advise from anyone that speaks in absolutes. Because quite frankly there isn't any and anyone that proclaiming otherwise is either ignorant or has very limited scope. We see this a lot from bowhunters that have done hardly any hunting other than whittails.
I doubt that you would see a noticeable difference out to 40 yards, especially if you upped the draw weight back to 65+.
I can switch mods from 50-55-60-65-70-75...I will likely go up. I will hunt this year with my current set up and see how it does.
If you have an electric range top on your stove, set the heat on medium-high. Prop up the arrow so that sits 2-3" above the burner. Let sit for a few minutes then carefully pull out the insert with pliers. I have half-out inserts on my arrows so this is pretty easy. Our, once the glue bond is broken by the heat, stick a drill bit down arrow and sling the arrow towards the ground. The drill bit should nock the insert out. Just don't do this on nice flooring, do it outside or in the garage.
