I wouldn't have thought I would need to extend my range beyond that same amount, but after this last week of sitting and watching, just seems like your opportunities will increase if you can push your range out a bit. I am comfortable shooting out to 45 at the range, and although a live target is not a range, just seems like more practice could make it as such. But with that range increase, I still have lethality and penetration at the top of my list of requirements. Something I am super fascinated with now is playing with "numbers" to find that right balance of penetration and speed/trajectory. But I am not one to so much just take someone's word for it and use it. I am "DIY" kind of person and like to experiment. Adds to the fun of the hobby.
Of course the farther out your circle of "shot taken" increases chances increase, that goes without saying. I practice on the regular out to 60 yards. 100 yards a few times a year even. At 60 yards it is very rare for me to miss bullseye by more than four inches and somedays I'm grouping just like I do at 20 yards...but I've never personally thought about changing my hunting shot distances. Personally I've taken only one shot over 30 yards and it was a 33 yard shot on a feeding calm doe - I would on a calm deer and not a strong wind take up to a 40 yard shot on a whitetail, but not a foot more. However, my normal max imposed upon myself is 35 on calm and 30 on any deer I stop or is on edge. Bowhunting to me is all about getting em close, and I've watched shooters walk out of my life at 42 yards...this year that very thing happened actually. This is one thing that makes hunting so incredible, many aspects of it are solely up to the individual hunter and the challenge is within themselves and each can approach hunting vastly different.
so you say I will still have decent trajectory with that 440-450 gr arrow? And i mean no further than 25 yds but one pin
Decent, easily - IMO. I say this again as someone with a "shorter" draw (hair over 28) and low poundage (62) out of a seven year old bow (E32) that when I built my arrow build years back (614 grains) never cared about chrono speed, trajectory or anything other than getting above 550 grains and shooting tons of build weight combinations until I found the one I felt the best when shooting from a feel and grouping and arrow flight/impact view. I let the bow and arrow flight choose and it chose the combination of my arrow selection with 200 grain heads tipping it.
I as I told you in a PM. I can shoot to 35 with a single pin on my set up and not move the slider, just a matter of practicing holdover. Inside of 30, it is not even necessary.
At the time of the shot, I thought she was broadside and didn't think she was quartering at all but that shear indicated otherwise. I am a dedicated shoulder hugger whenever possible, and really glad I was tight to her shoulder on that shot. A G5 Striker has kind of a hybrid CoC/Trocar tip. They're really sharp but not quite razor tips. I haven't shot any other animals with them. I have bigger fixed heads that I'd rather use on whitetails. Wow, we are way off topic here FWIW, the Strikers are pretty quiet in flight for a vented fixed blade. Not nearly as loud as Magnus Black Hornets
It seems appropriate to say "GOOD LORD!" again...but capitalized with exclamation marks!!!! I'm not attacking your setup in any way for crying out loud. Sorry that you're so touchy about the speed of your 600 grain arrows, but I wasn't trying to attack a heavy arrow setup in any way! I'll say it one more time, I wasn't attacking a heavy arrow setup in any way! I don't know how to be any more clear. I was commenting on a post that said he was getting 270 fps with 60 lbs and 600 grains. My comment was simply saying that it would take a heck of a DL to achieve that. Others posted skepticism as well. Guess what? He came back and said he misread the chart. My comment saying I'd get 170 was a guess that I thought was a bit of an exaggeration. Thus the laughing emoji behind it. That obviously escaped your lack of a sense of humor. What the heck, lets run it. Plugged my exact specs into a calculator. A 346 IBO bow, 75 grains of string weight, 27.5" DL, at 60 lbs with 600 grain arrow comes out to 183 fps. 170 fps wasn't as much of an exaggeration as I thought it was. Plugged his info into a calculator. It would take a 34" DL to achieve 270 fps with a 340 IBO bow (random guess), 50 grains of weight on the string (random guess), at 60 lbs with a 600 grain arrow. "Good lord I wish I had your DL" make some kind of sense now??? In what way did I knock or attack having "TOO MUCH arrow and TOO STRONG of a fixed head"?????? I commented that it would take a heck of a DL, because, well, it would. I don't know about you but 34" is a heck of a DL to me. I commented I'd be lucky to see 170 fps, thought that was a bit of a funny exaggeration. (That's what a laughing emoji means). That I was only 13 fps off was a bit of a surprise to me, I'd have guessed around 210-220 if I hadn't been trying to be funny.
while we are off topic, what yall think I have weight wise on my string? I got an average peep, average kisser, and average d loop. plus the 2 standard monkey tails on my mathews...I always put in 45 gr but I may be way off
That is probably a pretty accurate guess. I might even bump it up to around 60 gr. (peep 25 gr, kisser 10 gr, loop 10 gr, tails 15 gr) just to be conservative.
I've got 60 grains just in "speed" buttons on my string! (Bowtech Solution has 3 10 grain buttons on top and 3 more on bottom). My guess of 75 to 80 grains in a calculator is probably way light.
LOL you thinking I'm worked up over this is hilarious and just indicates you have no history of conversing with me or know me. Trust me when I say, there is zero wasted minute worrying about this stuff, nor am I worked up at all.
Also re look at my post, the "TOO MUCH arrow and TOO STRONG of a fixed head" was not in reply to anything you uttered or said. That comment was placed before your quoted post which you had posed a question for me, which I responded to.
I would say that a peep and d loop together are roughly 20 gr and a kisser about 10 gr. so there is 30 gr. now the monkey tails are allegedly 38 gr for two...I would say my current set up is roughly 275 fps or so
Anyways, the whole purpose here is this. My bow seems quiet with my current set up, 390 gr is the heaviest arrow I have ever shot. Most of the arrows I have killed deer with were 375 gr with 2" Rage heads. Never once have I not gotten a clean pass through when put in the right spot. A few times I hit spine and well you know what happens. Twice I hit the scapula and the arrow did not penetrate, I didn't expect it to either. So, if I can quiet my bow down a bit more, get even more penetration, and keep my bow somewhat fast enough to still use one pin then I am on board. Probably the best thging to do is buy one arrow from Lancaster at 440-450 grains and shoot it.
Even trying to exaggerate I was only 13 fps off about what I would see with that heavy of a setup. Come to think of it, my 346 IBO rating is in performance and I'm using comfort...so take another roughly 10 fps off that 183 and now I'm only 3 fps off with my "exaggeration". And the guy I was talking to came back and said he meant 170. But you're not worked up and what I said was "false". Got it.
The best thing to do would be to do as I suggested in the PM; buy a couple arrows in different spines at tinker with different weight set ups. Do not go into it with the mindset that the arrow has to be a certain weight. Rather, shoot a wide variety of weights and let the bow tell you what it likes based upon paper tune and go for perfect arrow flight with a heavier weight. When I first started the process, I experimented with arrow weights from 450 up to 700. After much trial and error, paper tune showed me that the my bow shoots a 525-575 grain arrow really well. From there it was just a matter of matching components to be close to this; under 550 this requires a 300 spine, over 550 a 250 spine.
^^^ this. Ranch Fairy and THP did a collaboration video a couple years back and it was evident- different bows just 'like' different grained TAWs despite being very similar specs in DL and DW. The one guy even ended up dropping his DW down almost 10# because even though he could handle it at higher poundage, Fairy could tell by the paper tune that instead of ****ing around with the yokes and stuff, a slight drop in draw weight was all that was needed. Took the wiggle out of the guy's arrows completely. Also made his bow much quieter. While I agree with Justin that deer are reacting to the arrow noise at least as much as the sound of the shot, common sense tells me that a tuned and straight-flying arrow is going to be quieter in flight than one that is oscillating and/or yawing. Less vibration/wind resistance=less noise. Wow, we really are making a lot of noise on this topic. Good luck, @Vabowman
I said it was false cuz I guarantee my set up is not anywhere close to that slow as some would believe or claim based on calculations online.
My current setup showed a bit slower through a chrono than what a calculator predicted. I just know that I can easily qualify to join the t-rex forum that @cantexian and @Vabowman have started.
I think you can easily use one pin and go heavier. A few years ago, I was playing around and testing a couple different arrow weights. I shot 60 yards with a 380 grain arrow and then again with a 430 grain arrow. Not huge but a 50 grain difference. My sight was sighted in for the lighter arrows. I held my 60 yard pin on the same spot on the target for both shots. The heavier arrow hit 17" lower than the lighter arrow. Seems significant right? But then I did another test. I shot from 35 yards but held my 30 yard pin dead on. I wanted to see how much I'd be off if I took an unknown yardage shot and was off by 5 yards. The lighter arrow hit 3" low. Then I sighted my sight in for the heavier arrow and did it again. The 50 grain heavier arrow hit 5" low. A 2" difference between the two. Big whoop. Do as a few have suggested. Buy a few individual arrows and set them up at different weights. See how they tune, how quiet they are, how accurately they shoot for you, and what kind of trajectory differences you see using one pin out to 30 yards.
