Heavy Dangerous Game Arrows....

[Terry Green]

OK guys....if you were going to shoot a 1000 grain arrow at an OZ buff, would you prefer one shafted loaded and flying perfect, or one shaft inside another for added strength flying perfect?

Would a 110# spined carbon be strong enough by itself if loaded and flying perfect?

Would you consider a fiber glass shaft?  And if so, what weight would I expect from a 29" BOP glass shaft?

[tonto]

terry
 I remember reading somewhere about an archer who took a few buffalo and used solid fiberglass "fish arrows" Seems like they also performed penatration tests on a dead Rino with the same arrows. Have you ever heard of this? Those arrows are mighty heavy.
Dean

[Cory Mattson]

Terry --  One - is it makes no diffrence to me how a hunter arrives at their heavy arrow. Several methods work and I think all would perform equally well. Stuffed is cool - sleeved is cool - fish arrows are cool. You mention 110# spine - something to watch out for here is that when you add weight - you lower the spine value - and by a lot more than most folks would guess. I am shooting a 2020 with a 1716 inside - these two spine values on paper are well above the 65# that actually shoots the arrows perfectly. Same thing with Rick's recipe - - we shoot 2219's with a full sleeve of gold tip inside. I can remember shooting 2219's out of 70# bows a long time ago - and yet we get perfect arrow flight with the gold tip in there out of 80 to 85 # limbs now. Monty went from fish arrows to stuffed carbon - and he gets those very stiff - and heavy arrows to push off traditional design longbows very cleanly. I have noticed among some of my friends that the stuffed arrows are not as consistent in weight as sleeved --- not that you couldn't - but it is another step to watch

[revharry]

Who was it that filled aluminum shafts with sand for weight? later, Harry.

[Rick McGowan]

Cory, is right it makes no difference how you get there, but I will tell you when I first started working up my buff arrows I had some serious headaches. We get spoiled shooting "normal" weight bows, all you do is check a spine chart, slap some big feathers on it and go and usually that is good enough, but when you get to shooting animals like buffalo that tend to get annoyed when you bounce arrows off them, not to mention the guy with the big rifle behind you is not to happy about it either. If there was a small diameter heavy weight shaft that I could buy all I wanted, whenever I wanted I would use them in a second. I tried some 100-105 spine Forgewood shafts and they were awesome, but they are hardly ever available. The fish arrows that Monty uses on everything EXCEPT BUFFALO are only about 55# spone weight, his small diameter carbons don't have enough spine for me either. The GT BigGame 100+ is as close as I have been able to come to an off the shelf buffalo shaft so far, but it is still to light in grain and spine. Rick

[AkDan]

something else to look at, I have heard of now a Lam Hickory/Oak shaft thats out there, not sure what kind of weight you can get with it but its there.

[AkDan]

also if I may, Fred Bear shot a water buff.  Dont quote me but I think he was shooting a 65lb bow.  Might be another thing to look into.

[Rick McGowan]

I don't recall hearing of Fred shooting a water buff, I did read the story of his Cape buff hunt. I don't remember the bow poundage, but it was more than 65 and I believe he used a pod on it also. Rick

[tonto]

There is a story i read of Fred hunting some kind of buff on an island some where in a tropical climate as i recall. Very swampy terain and he called it one of his toughest hunts. I thought it was water buff also but when my Brother returns from Calf I get the book and see if it was. I believe he even hunted his elephant with a low poundage bow (75#) thats what the video says anyways. Remember he was already in his 50s and 60s when he hunted the dark cont.
Dean

[Terry Green]

Rick,

Getting 1000 grains from a carbon is a breeze.  But the dynamic spine changes when you load it, and its a chalenge out of this heavy ACS I'm shooting.  Like you said, when I load up the shafts, you can throw the spine chart out the window.

[AkDan]

Rick,

It was a buff of some kind.  I'll also dig up the perodical as I also remember pics of it.  Thought it was an aussie waterbuff.  Never was good with the land down under though.  I definatly know it wasnt a cape buff.  I'll see what I can find in my old books and get something scanned and see if it says anything about his equip.

Dan

[AkDan]

Rick,

it was an asiatic water buffalo, I believe he was hunting with Sweetland at the time.  I am still looking for the dern article uggh.  It has a pic also of his buff.

I'll keep digging.

Dan

[Bowhntr]

It was in Brazil with Bob Munger and it was Asiatic Water Buffalo, here is a good website, look at the slide shows.

 http://www.mooseran.com/

Tom

[Rick McGowan]

Tarz, I have some 1000 grain carbons that I made up with help from Mark Land and I can even get them to fly pretty well, only problem is trying to get the balance forward, those new brass inserts should help when I get my hands on them, but it would still be nice if there was an easier way to do it.
I never heard about Fred hunting the water buff in S. America. They are a different breed than the ones in Australia, the ones in OZ are swamp buff, the ones in S.A. are riverine buff they have a different horn configuration and are a bit smaller. Rick

[AkDan]

Thanks for he help Tom!  Still flipping through my old IA mags to find it lmao.  I think I got side tracked reading some of the old hill articles, ah the good ole days.  DOH, the brazil hunts are the only ones I couldnt get into, go figure.  OH well, thanks for the link, I'll keep my eyes peeled

Rick
They all buff to me, I'll never get to hunt them LOL.  I wonder what the size difference was as if I remember that critter looked 1-1200lbs or as big as a mature bull moose up here.   The horns were pretty dern big from what I remember of the pic, I'd go a solid 60"es, but know I know where to look!

btw, I found one of the pics I remember.  Its an amazon water buffalo pg 189, trailing a bear by Munger.  I know there was another one (picture) of either the same or another bull.   I'll see if I cant find it.  Also if you want the pic I can scan it and post it here for all to see.  I'll do the same if I can find that old stinker thats eluding me  


Dan

[Terry Green]

A 30 inch length of cable co-axle wire weighs 360 grains for you guys wanting to really add some weight.  I'm going to cut this length to 28.5, and load it into a 29 inch Nitro Trad heavy.  Maybe a tad longer to make sure that when I put the insert back in, it scrunches the wire so's it wont rattle.

[Rick Boyer]

If I recall corectly fred told me that he took the eliphant with a 90# bow.. but I could be wrong it was years ago that the conversation took place..

  gator

[Terry Green]

I loaded it into a Trad Lite instead. Loaded from the front end, the shaft took 21.25 inches of cable to the narrowed taper...and the 29" BOP Trad Heavy with a 100 grains steel adapter and 160 grain Grizz weighs 835 grains.

30 more grains of head....half inch more shaft and cable is gonna be real close to 900 grains.  Definately over 900 with a Trad Heavy.

[Rick McGowan]

Terry the problem I ran into when I tried loading up shafts was that anything full length that didn't have any spine, like rope, weedeater line, aquarium tubing etc. reduced the dynamic spine of the shaft. Thats why I ended up with a shaft in a shaft, to give me the weight AND spine. Rick

[Twang]

As a starting point on a heavy carbon.

What are some of the heaviest Carbons sold these days?  I know the Grizzly Stick is heavy, but who sells these?  What about some of the new Gold Tip Hardwoods or others and where to buy them?   :confused: