Arrow weight vs speed for Africa

[eugeneb]

Hi,

Apologies ... did not try and "hi-jack" the thread ... I realise now that my post is not really related to the initial thread topic ... will post on another thread.

[hybridbow hunter]

Margly, with such top of the line a bow , 66# @ 30" the 650 gr arrows will be at the 190 fps line or even a little more.
650 gr was determined as the "bone breakage threshold arrow weight" in the Ashby reports.

KE will be over 52 and momentum 0.55 which is very good with a trad bow :
So those numbers mean you can put everything down from hare to Cape eland in that real world. Only for buffalo (or 400+ pounds old european hogs  :eek:  ) your 840gr arrows are needed.

My only concern with that bow is the noise. in my hands I found it is very difficult to tune these HEX limbs for very low noise level (at least for my own hearing) and noise is the key there.
Hope you will have a lot of fun there.

[Johan van Niekerk]

One other thing about quieter bows to avoid string jumping animals. Friends of mine spend a lot of time in a hide doing "research". They shot arrows fletched with vanes over drinking impalas into a sandy hill on the opposite side. The impalas would run away everytime. They repeated the same with feathers (which to us is sometimes noisier) and the impala would only spook a little.
I think the feather sound is simmilar to waterfowl comming in to land and the animals are used to it.
I won't put money on it being like that always, but it is something to remember if you're going to compare reaction times of animals between compound and tradbows...

[Don Stokes]

Listen to Johan- no bow of any kind is fast enough to compensate for a jumpy animal. Shoot calm and close animals. When close, heavy and quiet is always better.

[Brent Hill]

I concur, Johan is right about the string jumping ability of piggies and impalas.  The kudu I shot was fine but I needed over 600 grains for some more penetration and I have already set up 600 plus arrows for the trip back this July to SFA.  But them darn warthogs and impala.  These are not thick animals, no big bones, just like piggies and deer that I shoot all the time in the states except for their unique ability to jump, duck and laugh at you.  Both my warthog and impala ducked over 6 inches resulting in high shots at less than 15 yards.  The arrows on both the pig and impala took out both lungs but no pas through do to wieght and the animals twisting and jumping upon imact. I did recover both and the video clearly showed the arrow striking the exact spot where I aimed on the pig, except for the fact that the pig refused to stay still.  My bow, I thought, was quiet and I have taken 2nd shots with the same bow on the same animals before.  Obviously the setup wasn't quiet enough for those two.  You can clearly see the warthog start to move away before the arrow left the bow.  I thought it was calm and watched it and the other piggies for several minutes while they ate and watered but it must have known something was up.  The one thing I took from that trip was a new found respect for the warthog and impala as a bowhunting troghy.  I still love my kudu but ... it seems easy compared to hunting the string jumpers.