Long Woodies = Extra Milage...???

[woodchucker]

My son Tyler & I both shoot matching 50# Bear Grizzlys, and both draw 28"

We both shoot instinctive,and really don't think about how much "extra" arrow is out front. The 2016s we've been shooting are 30" BOP. Tyler has been building wood arrows and we were mounting Bear Razorheads last night. I decided not to cut the arrows,and instead leave them full length. Here's why.....

It's been a LONG time since I've had a large accumulation of old woodies around. Most of them were oddball lengths, having been broken,retappered & retipped. My experiance has been, If you bounce one off a tree, they break in half. If you actualy HIT something(like a rock) and it breaks, it usualy breaks the point off at the tapper. Then, we take it home & fix it, then put it in the bucket. Usualy our arrows go through "stages"... Hunting & Practice, Then 3-D arrows, Then when they're cut down to almost nothing... Stumping arrows.

Our finished "Turkey Woodies" Are 3Rivers PreFinished 55-60# Shafts, Fletched with 3, 5" Shield cut feathers, 1 Green Barred cock feather & 2 solid Green hen feathers. All 12 are tipped with old green Bear Razorheads, mounted horizontaly. The finished arrows are 31 1/4" BOP. A tad light spined full length, just right at about 30", getting alittle stiffer as you go down... I'm hopeing we'll get alot of mileage out of them!!!!!    

[two4hooking]

Food for thought....

The shorter the wood shaft the faster it will recover from paradox.  The shorter arrow is more stable in flight (all this assuming the spine is correct).

Howard Hill would go to great lengths to ensure he had 'net arrow length' with no "Dead Wood" hanging over the shelf.

...but then arrow flight was paramount in importance for him.  A quicker recovering arrow can be shot through smaller windows in the brush while hunting as well.

[woodchucker]

Point taken, and well understood!!!  

As I said, We have been shooting & hunting with a bunch of Autumn Orange 2016's... They belonged to my good friend & neighbor Lou, before he made the journey to the Eternal Campfire. They were given to me by his wife Jean,and were refinished by Joe Skipp.(I never bothered to cut them & left them at 30") "MoJo" Arrows.....

Now that Tyler is building arrows, I'm hopeing to get alittle more "mileage" out of the woodies he's building now. He's almost a man & pretty much fully grown. No more "cutting the short ones down for Tyler" LMAO!!!!!        

[Zradix]

YMMV....sorry couldn't help it..

As long as you're happy with the flight...just have fun!    

[Frenchymanny]

Good luck Chuck and Tyler!

F-Manny

[SuperK]

Don't forget about Repairarrow.  Makes them shorties usable again.

[woodchucker]

Thank You, Manny!!!!! How have you been, Brother???

I like to shoot my wood arrows and my aluminums arrows so that I can use the arrow length as a constant draw length check.  With broadheads I tag my finger with the blade, with same length blunts and field points it is the back corner, with net length field points it is the lead shoulder of the point.  When, i break off a point or stick a broadhead in a tree and get mad at myself and kick the arrow off, then dig the head out of the defenceless tree, I put a net length cartridge or blunt on the shortened arrow. One would and should think that this arrow would be way too stiff, but those net length arrows fly as good as the longer ones.  
There are a number of ways to skin any cat, but I like brand new arrows to be as perfect as possible.

[hvyhitter]

Been doing this for years. Start with 125 points, then 160 then 190. If you start with about 3 extra inches you can break off a point at least twice and still have a good arrow.......... wood seems less picky about spine and length than other arrows......

[Florida lime]

Originally posted by woodchucker:

 ....The finished arrows are 31 1/4" BOP...

Sounds like a good idea -    

 unless your draw length is just over that 31 1/4".    

I've got some arrows I can't use any more because they are 31 1/4".   :(

[The Whittler]

Keith Chastain ( I could be wrong on the name ) who builds Wapati bows. I think I read somewhere he uses full length wood arrows and when they break behind the point he just tapers them again and he's good to go.

He claimes they fly good full length and when they are shorter.