Suggestions for Cape buffalo Arrow?

[Steelhead]

Looking for some suggestions from you Big game archers

My brother is going Cape buffalo hunting.he will be shooting a 80 # Morrison Shawnee with Dakota  limbs made of carbon and foam.He has a 28 inch draw and arrows will be 29 inches long.

For a broadhead I am looking at a 315 grain  Ashby 2 blade head

What would be a good carbon arrow to match this head up with?I am looking at the gold Tip big game and Alaskan Safari right now.Any other suggestions on another shaft welcome.

Let me know and useful tips on setting the arrow up to get in the ballpark for  spine and what total grain weight he should be looking to get on the finished arrow.

Thanks for any feedback!!!

[Rick McGowan]

Its nearly a guarantee that no single shaft with have the spine and weight he will need. I've tested both those shafts and I couldn't get them to work for buffalo arrows. I would recommend a 900 grain arrow minimum. How long before he goes? Most guys worry about the bow, which is no problem and can be taken care of with a five minute phone call, the arrows are the big problem and can take months to work up. My draw is a bit longer at 29.5", but I use 2219 aluminums with a 35-55 GT inside and 300 grains of total tip weight(190 Grizzly and 110 grain adaptor)for a total arrow weight of 970 grains at 30.5 inches and they are the best flying arrows I have ever seen. The option is available now to use a carbon inside of carbon.

[Steelhead]

Thanks for the response Rick.It will be more than  a year before he goes.I will consider the 2219 stuffed with a GT no doubt.sounds like the Ashby head would be a good match for that arrow at 315 grains.

What poundage is your bow Rick?

Any other suggestions welcome guys.This is a work in progress and the more information the better.After I get some ideas we will be testing them and see what works best out of his setup..

Thanks Rick

[ozy clint]

out of curiousity rick, what poundage are you shooting with that setup? did you find that the carbon inside added to the spine of the aliminium?

i got a g/t big game 100+ to work out of a 69# recurve drawn to 28". but that was at full length and with a ridiculus amount of weight up front. total is 1010gr! with no weight tubes. i would have thought that they would work on a heavier bow.

i agree that it is difficult to come up with a 900+gr carbon arrow that will work out of a 80#+ bow.

[Tilzbow]

Steelhead,

Take a look at the new Easton Full Metal Jacket dangerous game shaft. I'm not sure if the spine is heavy enough but at .250 deflection they're the heaviest spined arrows I know of. The shaft alone will weigh 500 grains at 29".

[Steelhead]

I will take a look at the Easton Full Metal Jacket Tilzbow.Thanks for adding to the pot.

Anyone else

Appreciate it!

[Rick McGowan]

I have 84# at 29" limbs for buffalo on my Black Widow, but its a few years old and not as fast as the current models. I called and talked to all the manufacturers, before I went on my first buff hunt and most just said they had nothing that would work. Gold Tip didn't have the Big Game 100's on the market yet, but sent me four to test, I still us them with my 80# limbs for other animals, but I can't get the weight above 700 grains even in the 80# bow. I have killed lots of stuff with them, anything smaller and not as tough as a buffalo!
The carbon inside adds LOTS to the spine, normally I shoot the 2219's out of a 63# bow. I do wrap a spiral of cotton blend sewing thread around the GT, before I push it in, that makes it a snug fit and it dosn't "buzz" in flight, it also raises the spine a bit more, I'd guess about 5#.
To give you and idea of what is involved, I probably have $350 worth of failed buffalo arrow experiments sitting over in the corner of my office. Some of them in fact work great, but you just can't get them on a reliable basis and some of them are probably collectors items!
Cory Mattson, whos photo is at the top of this page, just copied my arrows exactly, he was using an 85# Brackenbury.
The problem with the majority of the big/dangerous game arrows is that they are designed for heavy weight compound bows, not trad bows, hence the reason the GT's "100+", supposedly they are for bows over a 100#'s.

[Al Kidner]

Rick, I once read an article in TBM a ways back about a hunt you did in Africa on Buff but it was called off due to some reason and instead you went and hunted a small type of deer in the jungles.

It was a top read but I think buff arrows and bow may have been some overkill!


I'll have to look it up when I'm home next and re-read it.


ak.

[Rick McGowan]

Al, I have been in TBM a few times, but that one wasn't me. I have been accused of "overkill" more than a few times. Like when I "educated" some of the nuciance crows around camp with my open sighted .375 H&H! At least none of the hunters questioned my ability to hit a buffalo at close range after I took out five crows with six shots! Also probably the 80# bow was more than I needed for muskox, impala, caribou and it was definately more than I needed for a 30# jackel! In retrospect though, "overkill" is always better than underkill!

[Al Kidner]

Sorry Rick... thought it was you, like I said it was a ways back and I do have the memory of a goldfish at times.

I know how you feel about the crows too.


ak.

[Steelhead]

Thanks Rick

Sounds like the 2219 stuffed with a GT is  a pretty easy arrow to set up and duplicate.I will be looking into that combination.What is your fletching setup on that arrow.Regualar or high back, lenght and style of fletching and 3 or 4 fletch etc.

[Rick McGowan]

Steelhead, when I first came up with those arrows, I shot them at 35 yards with NO fletching and they flew PERFECTLY! However I do put feathers on them. Four 5" BLUE parabolic helical feathers at 75-105 degrees. I like the four fletch, because I know that if can go wrong it WILL go wrong on a buffalo hunt and I don't have to take my eyes off the buffalo to make sure the arrow goes on the string the right way, also it does give the arrow a bit more stabilization in case I get excited and make a sloppy release and I can put five of them in my bow quiver and arrange them so that the feathers don't rub each other and make noise. I use blue because it shows up really well even in low light, but dosn't spook most animals, because they can't see colors. We had one bowhunter with a hip quiver and a white cock feather on each arrow, spook every buffalo he tried to crawl up on, just because of those couple little feathers waving around. To be fair I do have lots of other formulas for buffalo arrows, BUT these will shoot all the way through the biggest buff with that bow and they are not real difficult to make and you can take them back apart and make changes if necessary and even at using two shafts for each arrow they are still cheaper than some of the alternatives.

[Rik]

It's probably a little easier to get high quality Ipe shafts in the proper spine and weight than it is to try to modify carbons.

I used Ipe on two buffalo in Australia with great penetration. Plus, like Dr. Ashby's report says, heavy wood shafts have less breakage on impact with heavy ribs than either carbon or aluminum shafts.

Mine were ultra-straight, spined at 75 pounds, and weighed 860 grains with a 160-grain Grizzly. You can easily order higher spined and heavier ones.

If you want them with more weight forward, I saw some glue-on weight-forward adapters at 3-Rivers that would be just the ticket.

[Steelhead]

Thanks for the tips Rick on the fletching.Sounds very practical.

Where can you get heavyspined heavy wieght Ipe arrows Rik.investing in a dozen shafts sounds like it would be realatively low cost and worth a test drive.Are they 11/32 or 23/64 or fatter?

Thanks fellows

[Rick McGowan]

I actually tried ipe, hickory and the compressed hemlock "Battleshafts", however to work, I needed spines around 100#'s and getting those in any reliable quantity wasn't possible, so I gave up on the hardwoods. The Battleshafts were awesome, 5/16 diameter, smooth, round, heavy and had a tapering density, so they were heavier at the front, but like the other woods, I couldn't rely on getting them and now they aren't even made.

[Jay Campbell JD]

Once you get into the truly heavyweight shafts for truly heavyweight bows, Rick (The "Arrowmaster") is right. You are building them yourself. IPE can get close, Purpleheart is even stiffer/heavier, but these are subject to being wider than the broadhead ferrule, variability of spine and straightness, etc. Karen and I used custom Gold TIp Big Game 100s with a smaller diameter carbon arrow laminated inside in the forward 12 inches of the shaft (gorilla glue), tipped with 200 grains of weights, 125 grain adaptors, and a 160 grain STOS. Total weight 1020 grains, FOC 24%, total diameter smaller than the broadhead ferrule. Because of the laminated insert, these shafts are NOT subject to the same breaking stresses that Dr. Ashby and O.L. Adcock (a good friend) describe. The laminated piece strengthens the forward carbon shaft. We each had one arrow kills, and the arrows survived the experience whole. This is not too hard to build, and like Rick, I had perfect bare shaft flight, so did karen. My bow was an 80# BW PLX, Karen's a 70# Adcock ACX. Arrow speed 168 FPS out of both bows. GOOD LUCK! - Jay and Karen Campbell

[Steelhead]

Thankyou very much Jay!!!

I appreciate your input!

Take care Jay

[ozy clint]

jay- same weight arrow, same speed but 10# difference in draw weight! what's doing?    :confused:    

is the ACX that much more efficient or does your wife have a draw 4" longer than yours?

also, what carbon were you putting in the 100+?

[Jay Campbell JD]

The ACX is just that much more efficient. Both 29" draw. I spent a year working up the arrows, testing bows, running everything through the chronograph, doing all of the momentum/KE calculations, etc, etc. Karen spent a year building up to 70# at 29". OL Adcock built Karen 2 custom bows just for the hunt. Ken Beck built mine :-) The Adcock is much faster, apples to apples. Karen loves it. I love the PLX. The old beman "outsert" shafts (Cabelas also sold a version) fit the inside of the Gold Tip perfectly, allowing just enough room for the Gorilla Glue to expand. I bought a bunch before they stopped selling them. The Easton aluminum "Jazz" 1516 (I think) also fits right, but is less stiff. That arrow builds out to a little over 900 grains with the same construction technique. - Jay

[ozy clint]

wow!