Heavy arrows and speed

[Shadowhnter]

Ive killed plenty of deer with a bit less then 450gr too. Dont get me wrong, im not saying those heavy weights are needed to kill deer. OP wondered if his arrows were to heavy and slow for whitetail, not if they were effective for penetration or not...im asking a legitimate question...how many have actually pushed the limits of comfort (in ones own mind), and actually accomplished using 650-800 gr arrows on live deer and scoring with a 45lb bow. We all know what a 450gr will do on a deer. Im asking how many, in first hand experiance, knows how a 650-800gr arrow does on whitetail with a 45lb bow? I dont know about anyone else, but the only way I really was going to know, was to do it.

[Zradix]

Originally posted by JohnV:
If it flies good and you are okay with the trajectory don't worry about it.

I shot a nice doe at about 17yds with a 45# longbow.
Had about the same setup as you...can't remember exactly the weight of the arrow.
It was a Beman 500 with the 300 grain VPA 3 blade up front.

Nice pass thru. Dead centered a rib and broke it on the way in and sliced a rib about 1/2 way thru when going out.

Personally I'm very thankful for the extra weight I was shooting.
Without it I'm not so sure the arrow would've passed thru after having to break a rib.

Get that arrow tuned good and learn the trajectory...you'll be golden.

[Tedd]

Consider buying some different shafts. An EFOC arrow doesn't need to be an overweight arrow. If you use most of the "wood grain carbon shafts made for traditional archery" by default you will get exactly that. An overly heavy finished arrow.
Work backwards from the finished arrow weight you want and find a shaft  spine/gpi that fits your needs. It takes no more effort to make a high FOC arrow than it does a standard FOC arrow. Sometimes you order some shafts that are wrong and have to set them aside. No big deal.
I like cedar arrows with 125 glue ons just fine. But realize than by optimizing  carbon arrows FOC, diameter and stiffness you can use the same bow, same draw weight, same arrow weight and trajectory and get same penetration with a wider cutting head.  Nothing wrong with that!
These arrows are about 10.8 gpi and weigh 648 grains shot from a 55lb Kodiak (60lb at my 30" draw).
Currently I am trying a Centaur Big Game single bevel head. Compared to the Grizzly I was using it's almost like shooting them twice! Not sure what I'll use yet. I don't kill enough deer to be a broad head penetration data collector.    
       

Black arrows don't look too bad if you dress them up a bit.
     
     

Arrow testing "lab"
     

[Tedd]

175 grain VPA laying on top of a 180 Centaur with a 125 grain adapter. Black Eagle Rampage .300 shaft that weighs 8.7 GPI.
   

[last arrow]

I shoot about 575 grains from a 45 lb bow and have good results (almost 13 gpp).  It calculates to about 21% FOC, not extreme but more than most.  I find it makes for a very stable/forgiving arrow in flight.  This combination has given an exit hole on everything I have shot with it in since going to this weight  10 or so years ago.  Not something I can say about the 60 lb recurve with 520 grain arrows I shot when I was young and strong.  I am hoping to hunt elk this year and may stick with this bow/arrow combination as I am very happy with my accuracy and the penetration potential it has when using a grizzly head.

[Stumpkiller]

My arrows (wood) are around 620 gr. all up weight.  No idea about FOC but they move faster than I can run or throw a rock and pass through 200# whitetails.

[Wheels2]

I too go with 9 or 10 gpp.
I can go a bit heavier because of the speed that I get from my particular bow.
I have subscribed to at least 400 grains of arrow weight for deer.

So far as EFOC, I stick with 125 or 150 grain heads.

[Chris Iversen]

Originally posted by Tedd:
[QB] Consider buying some different shafts. An EFOC arrow doesn't need to be an overweight arrow. If you use most of the "wood grain carbon shafts made for traditional archery" by default you will get exactly that. An overly heavy finished arrow.

I've been considering that. It will give me even more FOC, by default, using the same heads, correct?

[Terry Green]

I've only been shooting a bow for 44 years.... so maybe I should keep my experiences to myself.

   

[Chris Iversen]

Oh it's the experience, many of you guys have, that I am hoping to tap into. Believe me, I am listening to everyone here. Please don't keep that experience to yourself!

This is why I am loving traditional bowhunting. There doesn't seem to be any baseline/benchmark. I'm just getting into this (even though I'm 45) and plan to hunt for many years. I'm looking at it  as many years to try many different things!

[charles m]

I prefer the Tradgang studies.

[YosemiteSam]

I can't speak to the penetration factor.  I'm a rookie in that department & don't mind admitting it.  But I shoot 630 grains out of a 50# bow (not much more than 45# at my draw) and know my trajectory well enough to have fun.  I like to gap shoot -- especially past 20 yards but sometimes even at closer ranges.  Slow arrows make for smaller gaps.  Small gaps are less prone to errors in range estimation (until you're past the point-on range), at least for me.  From 0-20, I can put the tip of the arrow on the belly of a deer target & land somewhere in the vitals.  Sitting down on the ground with my bow held at about 30-degrees off horizontal, it's a little more compact and about 9-10" off to the left.  I like that kind of simplicity.  If I were to try to stretch my yardage out to 30 or 40 yards, I'd opt for a faster arrow.  But the 0-20 game is easier for me with the heavy setup.  And I figure if I can put it in the right spot, then the penetration will take care of itself.

[oldrubline]

A consideration:    The woodland and midwestern Native people's seem to have preferred heavier woods making their arrows easily over 600 grains.  Often hickory, ironwood, or serviceberry were selected.   I don't think they shot very fast bows but must have liked the advantage of weight or toughness.   I've killed deer with hardwoods and they seemed to make up for loss of speed with these other qualities
Dan

[DanielB89]

I know a guy who shoots a low 40's pound bow with around a 375 grain arrow and killed several different animals this year.  

I also know a guy who killed a mule deer around 40 yards with a 471 grain arrow. He was shooting around #54 at 29".

I also know a guy who killed an elk with a 450 grain arrow.  

I also recall listening to a podcast not too long ago from a guy who has killed ALMOST everything under the sun with around a 525 grain arrow.  


Shoot whatever makes you happy, as long as it's ethical and abides by the laws of your state.

I have an annoyingly long point on, just think of what an advantage it would be if I just hunted with solid fiberglass carp shafts.  Since I have an under 27" draw with Hill style longbows, if I made a shot and could see that it was off, I could just knock it down and try again. I read somewhere that certain arrows with certain mechanical heads can have an upper stable speed limit, where flight becomes unstable. I wonder if an arrow can have a lower stable speed limit.  A pilot friend of mine that likes really old and slow planes told me once that with some faster sleek planes flying with a strong tail wind that people can get in trouble when turning with the wind when flying slow and low, the ground is still going by at the same speed, but the plane may be near stalling air speed. If a heavy slow arrow is only going 70mph and is shot with a strong tail wind, wind in an eddy current can even be faster than the flat wind speed, which could mean that arrow would only have about 30 mph of variable air speed.

   The other day at my friends farm a large whirl wind came through.  We shot through it, wow, those arrows were on a heck of a carnival ride. We get them every spring before the crops come up. This one had lofted corn leafs up hundreds of feet in the air.

[Sam McMichael]

I agree that heavy is good but only up to a point. A good combination of weight and speed is far more important than seeing how much stuff can be attached to the front end of a shaft. I have found that almost all of my arrows (woodies)do well with 125 or 145 grain points and no additional front end weight. Granted, our deer in Georgia are not nearly as big and dense as some of the animals a lot of guys pursue, so I don't need an overly aggressive arrow design. Most of mine weigh a tad over 500 grains, fly well, and are both easy to make and tune.

[Orion]

The 650 grain threshold that Ashby talks about is for large, thick skinned game like the water buffalo he did his research on.  You don't need that much for deer.

If you want to shoot the 225 grain Tuffhead, could still drop about 100 grains of arrow weight by going to an aluminum adaptor rather than the 125 grain steel adaptor. Would likely also have to drop to a 500 spine shaft, which would reduce arrow weight by another 15-20 grains. Would still give you a plenty heavy arrow with a lot of FOC.

Years back a farmer that had a few buffalo sold them cheap to just get rid of them.  A couple of deer hunters figured the best way to do it was to treat them like game.  They used their 50 pound recurves. One with wood arrows and the other with aluminum. Of couse, these were domestic, but they had no problems with getting the arrow through them.  I was asked to shoot them with one of my heavy bows, but I wanted no part of it.

[swamp donkey]

You can't kill what you can't hit. I gotta agree with Terry on that. I've tried everything from 400 to 700 gns. 700 lasted about 1 hunt after it lumbered along and barely stuck out the far side of an elk. I shoot aluminum with 160 Ace heads for 630gns out of recurves and 620 gn wood with the same heads out of longbows. I use those because I shoot around 60lbs and the 2219's are durable as are the heavier woods. Sometimes I consider those a bit too heavy even for 60lbs. If I shot 45lbs I wouldn't go over 450gns. Efoc is something I would jump on if I ever went cape buff hunting. But I've passed thru everything from mature bucks to moose over the last 52 years of hunting with stickbows without efoc or super heavy arrows. My heavy limits 10.5gpp, my low limits anything that won't break the bow and shoots well. Deer ribs are soft so that's not even a factor for me.JMHO....P.S.  To answer your question, yes it'll work but wouldn't be my choice.

[-Zor]

I'm new to this, so I don't have any answers, only questions. What in your opinion is the point of diminishing returns for arrow weight? Is it a certain grain per pound threshold or is there an arrow weight threshold regardless of draw weight? What's the reason behind your threshold?