100 grains at 20 yards?

[bear bowman]

A friend of mine ordered a half dozen completed wood arrows from 3 rivers that had been returned. He said they were cheap so he decided to try them out. Upon weighing them, he realized that total arrow weight for 3 was in the 480 grain range and the other 3 were in the 580 grain range. He gave them to me because he felt the weight difference would throw him off.
Well I just picked up a new to me bow in a trade. I've been wanting to try woodies again so I figured that this would be a great opportunity. It appears that these arrows will work out of my bow. I was shooting them for a little while yesterday and I was grouping the heavy and light shafts together at 20 yards. Would this, in your opinion, be expected? I didn't have time to shoot at any kind of longer distance which I'm quite sure I'll notice a difference. I'm just looking for some insight from people that have experience with this.

[joe vt]

I have two carbon arrow models that are approx 100 grains different in weight (shaft weight and field points) from each other. Shooting them at the same time out to 20 yards I see no difference. I shoot like poop past that yardage so I can't comment how much difference there would be 30 yards and out.

[crazynate]

I definitely want consistency in my equipment but 100grains doesn't make that big of difference if I am just plinking in the yard out to 20 yards. I shoot regularly out to 40-50 yards just for fun and that is where you'd notice a bigger drop.

[Pine]

Unless you are competing target shooting , I wouldn't worry about it .

[forestdweller]

20 yards it wont make much difference but the further out you are the bigger the difference.

Curious about this I just weighed the dozen Surewoods that i hunted with last year, 12 grains. I weighed the Wapiti cedars that I used on a different bow, 11 grains, but one is missing it went through a deer and into snow covered switch grass.  If I get a wood arrow that is on the top terr in both weight and spine, I sand them a bit to get both the weight and spine down so they get more into the center of the group.  The ones on the lighter end of the allotted tolerances get blunts.

[Bill Carlsen]

I remember reading an article about arrow weight and accuracy. It was a number of years ago but the conclusion the author made was that at typical hunting distances that arrow weight is not as critical as correct spine. My personal experience over the years seems to validate that to be true.

[David Mitchell]

I agree with the above comments.  For me it makes no difference that I can see at 20 yards.  Maybe if I shot a lot better....   :confused:    :rolleyes:

[YosemiteSam]

In my somewhat limited experience, it makes a small difference but it's a bit asymmetrical in its impact.  With arrows that are already heavy for their draw weight, 100 grains will add more drop even if that 100 grains is a smaller increase to total mass (100/400 = 25% increase whereas 100/600 = 17% increase).  My hunting arrows are 630 grains off about 46# of draw weight.  Adding or taking away 100 grains will change my POI by several inches at 20 yards.  But when I played around with point weights around 500 grains, it didn't matter much at all.  I'm sure you could graph the trajectory if you wanted to take the time to do that.  I just know that my setup is pretty well maxed out and even 50 grains will change things a bit at 20 yards.

i always judge my arrow flight at point on.  For me depending on the arrow and the bow tends to run from 52 to 64 yards.  With Hill style longbows, which have a very high tolerance to arrow weight changes and even draw length changes, at 20 yards, I cannot tell much, if any, changes at 20 yards when the gpp is is between 10 and 11 gpp.  My insistence on getting arrows as close as possible is mostly my OCD kicking in.

[pdk25]

Can't say I notice at 20, but I promise a huge difference at 40.

[M60gunner]

I got some pine shafts that varied over 100 grains in the doz. I got 3groups out of that doz. by weighting them when completed. Like said above at 20 yards and under really can't see any drop no matter which arrow I pick. Actually in a normal hunting shot (20yards or under) I would pick the heavier arrow if for no other reason that a heavy arrow will cover any slight imperfections in form or release.

[Michael Arnette]

Originally posted by pdk25:
Can't say I notice at 20, but I promise a huge difference at 40.

Shooting my carbons, I notice a difference with as little as 25 grains on anything past 25ish yards. Inside about 18 yards I don't notice much difference.
I think a lot of it is phsychological though. For instance sighting in my girlfriends compound with 350 grain arrows traveling at 165fps last summer I noticed about 6" of drop at 20 yards by adding 25 grains.

[Terry Green]

Great thread ....and some people worry about too much feather.  

[longbow fanatic 1]

I have two separate wood arrow combinations. One set are 55/60 Firs and the other are 60/65's. They have the same length shafts, feathers (lighter shafts are 5", heavier 5 1/2"), nocks and tip weights. There is about 75 grain difference between the shafts. They fly about the same out to 30 yards. Its at 35-40+ yardages that the difference really becomes apparent.

[last arrow]

According to trajectory calculations and measured bow speeds, 50 grains makes about 2" difference in impact at 20 yards with a bow shooting about 170 feet per second.  With the bow I tested 50 grains makes about 8 feet per seconds difference in speed.  You be the judge on whether that matters to you or not.  

So 100 grains is going to be more like 4 inches difference in impact.  That is too much for me to shoot mixed weight shafts.  Not that big of deal if wondering whether to use lighter or heavier shafts.

[Sam McMichael]

In terms of hunting, 20 yards is about as much distance as I can handle. Therefore, I don't think weight makes enough difference to matter very much. Out beyond my normal shooting distances, I don't know if weight difference or form issues have more effect on my accuracy. However, since distance tends to amplify the effects of variances, it seems logical to expect considerable performance degradation at longer range. Either way, it is no big problem.