Here is my opinion and you know what the say about them. People get carried away with it! I have been kill'en critters with a bow for 30 years and only had one arrow that was not a pass through. Needless to say it was not in the vital organs and I hit where I aimed and recovered it easily. I will side on speed every day. Only disadvantage in my book with it, you have potential to miss faster. My reasoning is, if I'm off on yardage speed will help compensate that error. If I had a slower arrow, much greater chance of a bad hit. If you want super penetration, shoot skinny arrows! That's the answer. Less surface area=less drag. Although nothing replaces razor sharp heads and proper shot placement. If your concerned hitting other than vitals, good chance that is where your mind is going to place it.
I've heard this mentioned allot and I was believing It but I have proved this to be not as big of a factor as most think. I used to shoot fence post's (XX75 2216 Aluminum's) and I got just as many pass throughs with them as I've gotten with my 340 FMJ's. My 2216's were even lighter then my 340's were, by a long shot too. I've shot both arrows side by side and my 340's got maybe an Inch of more penetration then my 2216's did. Was It less surface area or more weight that won the penetration? I'd say weight being my 340's are 144 grains heavier then my 2216's were. The 340's also flew much slower.
The skinny arrow thing is a joke IMO. The furrel of your broadheads are the same diameter or slightly larger than most standard diameter arrows. So, I don't see how it makes that much of a difference if the shaft itself is smaller than the furrel of the head. Is there less drag? Yes, there is, but its not enough to concern yourself with. One of my experiments this summer is going to be playing with arrow weights and FOC on my new bow. I've been using 6gpp in all my setups for years now and haven't had a single issue. However, I'm with tfox and prefer higher FOC's if I can get it. It might require new shafts, in a 340 instead of the 400's to allow me to screw in 125 heads to increase FOC. Higher weights do several things in my opinion. One, they do increase pentration, especially out of today's bows. Secondly, they make your bow quieter and I believe they also are easier on the bow since there is more mass weight to take up the energy of the bow. Have you ever taken an old, heavy aluminum arrow and shot it out of your bow? Big difference in noise and vibration.
Joke? Yea I thought it was a joke too till I saw it, not heard it. The arrow my friend had, furrel was allot larger than the shaft. We both set the same weight with the same bows. Arrow weight was within 20 grains and mine were heavier. We also used new reapers. The skinner arrow had allot more penetration through wood than mine. I didn't figure out the FOC but new he had something up front. Maybe it was a combination of things but it worked! I agree with a higher FOC though. Maybe do a experiment with that and extreme FOC.
Feathers will help the FOC as well. To get my bow to tune with a 340 spine and 125 head, I had to use the quickfletches for added weight to the rear. By going to a .300 spine I was able to greatly increase my FOC and used feathers in the rear. My arrow is right at 400 grains, at 70 lbs, that's rougly 5.7 grains per pound and 15% FOC... I'm really digging this combo. The only change I'm going to make is to test a 3 inch feather. This may help with using a large fixed blade.
A smaller shaft will help, especially on bone hits. Once the ferrule is through, now there is a big hole for the shaft to fly through. Heck one more advantage to feathers is I have seen fletch cause an arrow to hang in a hole. I would like to see all that believe in the magical speed will overcome yardage misjudgment actually test their theory. If you misjudge by 5 yards at 40 yards. A fast arrow and slow one will be within a 1 1/2" of each other out if same bow. Assuming we are talking 30 fps or so. Which is about what you will see from a really light arrow and heavy one out if same bow. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
But that's wood! How can you compare penetration on wood to penetration on deer with blood and fluids lubricating the shaft? After the BH makes a hole in the flesh/muscle/organs I don't think it matters to much if there is 1/32 of an inch difference in shaft diameter.
1/32" won't make much of a difference but we are talking about an 1/8" from a fat aluminum to a skinny carbon in some cases. Flesh wont make a difference either but bone might. Even Dr. Ashby has started talking about the advantages of skinny arrows with high foc. Imo a carbon arrow has an inherent advantage in penetration because it is a much stiffer material and doesn't flex as much on impact. When we use aluminum, it is much better to use thick walled to minimize flex at impact. That's why my son used. 016 thick walled shafts. They work well too. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
I understand but were aren't usually talking extremes, fat aluminum/skinny carbon, we're usually talking the normal ranges, something like a .340 carbon and then a skinnier fmj perhaps. If bone is what we are talking about then light/fast shouldn't enter the equation but, once again, I thought we were talking about a normal kill shot. The BH used makes more of and a much bigger difference when talking about impacting bone than arrow diameter. I can see where a skinnier arrow may make a small difference but the difference is not going to be enough for me to worry about.
i just started hunting but my older brother got a couple passthroughs with a 50lb bow at 28" draw. I dont know how much his arrows weighed but i have the basically the same set up as he did now and i shoot 340 grain arrows so i think ill be fine to get a pass through. if i get a lung the dears gonna die whether the arrow passes through or not.
my setup right now is 50lb draw weight and my bow shoots somewhere between 296 and 300 fps. I shoot 250 spine arrows at 28" which comes out to 238 grain arrows plus a 100 grain tip which comes out to 338 not including the fletchings and nock which would probably be 340 (i know some people go as far as including these into the weight). my question is can i shoot heavier arrows if i increase the poundage or do i need to wait until i invest in a faster bow (which will be several years since this is my starter bow)
Haha that's exactly where I was going with this. Everyone sort of went off track into a whole other debate though. Probably my fault for making the subject so lengthy!
I shot a 334 grain Easton axis N-fused arrow with a 75 grain Muzzy and i just got a passthrough on a hog yesterday morning. I feel that the type arrow and speed = penetration from my experience (which is not much). The Easton Axis arrow penetrated 6" more than the Beman ICS hunters @ 356 grains with a 100 grain muzzy. I dont think that if I had the Beman arrow I would have gotten the passthrough on the hog. I will stick with my lighter faster arrows. I might switch to the Victory VAP for more penetration. But they will be about 30 grains heavier then what I have now.
