Selfbow question

[Michael Arnette]

I'm currently hunting Whitetail with a selfbow that's shooting a 450 gr arrow at 140 ft./s using this wiki Eskimo broadheads. What do you guys think of this set up for Whitetail? Should I get adequate penetration?

I hunted with it in Kansas this morning and just chronograph to a local shop.

[Msturm]

Should be alright in close. put it where it needs to be and eat well!!   the Chronograph has ruined a couple of my selfbows lol.

[Michael Arnette]

Right lol

[moebow]

Quit stressing over numbers.  You are fine, GO HUNT!!

Arne

[Roy from Pa]

Just hunt and put the arrow where it needs to go.

[woodchucker]

Indians never had chronographs...

[mwosborn]

Nothing wrong with using a chronograph.  I don't own one, but I like borrowing my brothers to compare my bows to one another once in a awhile.  Just one way to compare bows.  Keep in mind that many chronographs will have a degree of error so the numbers themselves may be lower/higher than the actual speed.  Either way - as has been said - your set up should work just fine.  The closer the better!  Just out of curiosity, what is the draw weight of your bow at your draw length?

[Possum Head]

Originally posted by woodchucker:
Indians never had chronographs...

Zwickeys either  

[Schmidty3]

If it counts...

I was curious about the same thing once. So i tested it on a buck corpse. So i gave it a shot with my poorly made self bow at 135 fps, with  a super sharp Magnus 2 and 450 gr gt Trad arrow.

The buck was  ~150 lbs 3-1/2 year old North Oklahoma deer. Killed it with my recurve. After we drug it up i leaned it upright and gave it a go at 10 yds. With a perfect Double lung hit the arrow penetrated to the fletching. I think the arrow was about 30", so maybe 24" of penetration. That should do the trick.

What I'm not sure about is whether or not live deer goop reacts differently then dead deer goop in regards to arrow penetration.

I was a pretty darned good shot to 15-20 yds. But 20 was pushing it. It fell off fast after that. Still the quietest bow I've shot. I doubt the deer would hear it coming.

[MnFn]

I don't know if it correlates or not, but my first buck, was taken with a 40 lb Shakespeare Wonderbow.

I didn't know much (Really anything) about tuning and such, but it got through both lungs with a two blade. It was about a twenty yard shot.

[D.B Cooper]

I'll break my answer into two parts.

Is a 450 grain arrow traveling 140 fps adequate to hunt wild game?  Yes.  That covers the equipment portion of the equation.

Could I be an efficient shot with an arrow traveling 140 fps?  Not really.  A few years ago I had some 650 grain arrows that were in that speed range and the amount of drop was hard for me to deal with.  I use a single crawl and gap shoot from the crawl and I just couldn't reach the level of consistency I'm comfortable with at yardages outside of the single crawl distance.  If you're shooting that bow and arrow combo well, go with it.

[frank bullitt]

Yes.

From my 25 plus years and several whitetails taking with selfbows, I would suggest high performance string, and heavier arrow!

[BAK]

I've never once shot an arrow through my chrono and been happy with the results.

[Friend]

Looking forward to reading of your success.

[ChuckC]

Throw the chronograph away.  Shoot the arrow at a target.  If you think it is marginal, get closer.

Archery is a game of close up.  We have developed equipment that lets us shoot farther, and we have fallen into that theme, but you can still do it from closer up, though you might have to change your game.

Go hunt a deer with it, be sneaky and game smart.  Get close.  Very close, and then kill it with that bow.

Oh.... then show us pix of your deer and bow !