High FOC woodies?

[sou-pawbowhunter]

I've been reading Dr Ashby's reports with great interest, but have a question.  Does anyone have a clue about what kind of hardwood footing has the density to move the FOC on say an ash shaft? I am starting to work out next years hunting arrows and am starting with a tapered hardwood shaft spined at 70-75#. I'll also be using a modified Grizzly 190 head. Any ideas or guidance will be greatly appreciated.
Don

[Jeff U]

Don't know about footing but how about this to load up the point on a wood arrow:

Adapter to allow screw in points (50 grain)

   

Steel adapter to allow glue on grizzly (75, 100, or 125 grain)

   

Add your 190 grain Grizzly and your looking at a 315 - 365 grain point on a wood arrow.

[SlowBowinMO]

I've been working on "Ashby" wood arrows myself.  It is not going to be easy.  On a Fir shaft starting at 400 grains, you need over 300 grains total point weight to get to 20% FOC.  Not only is that extremely difficult to achieve, think of what it will do to spine requirements!  I have some old high spine woodies around to experiment with though.

Footing ash is not going to increase your FOC much IMO, not matter what you use.  This is an interesting and difficult problem, I'd be very interested to see other's ideas too!

What Jeff U just posted is probably the easiest way to add point weight, but I'm not sure that is going to be a perfect solution either strength wise.

[sou-pawbowhunter]

Jeff,
Thanks for the idea, I'll keep it in mind.

SlowBowinMo,
Iknow this is going be a challenge, and I'm not just looking at ash as a shaft material, but any hard wood that I could foot to make a diff.  I gues my original post wasn't very clear on that point.

[SlowBowinMO]

I'm enjoying this challenge.  I am thinking a hardwood footing on a lighter shaft would be just as strong and give more yield on the FOC.  The heavier the original shaft the more point weight you need to boost FOC, and point weight is already a problem!      

sou-pawbowhunter if you get any ideas or work out any solutions be sure to post, I want to hear them.

Thanks!  Tim

[owlbait]

I had cedar shafts this year with purpleheart footing. Not sure how heavy purpleheart is but I think it is fairly dense. I think tapering the shaft would help the FOC but then your total weight drops. I hear there are some heavy broadheads possibly coming out soon above 200 grains. Maybe we will see something at K-Zoo?

[Onehair]

Any how toos on footing shafts for dummies?

[Bjorn]

Wood is my material of choice too........cedar has about the best stiffness to weight ratio you can get; but Ashby says it can break on heavy impact. Footing could help that and provide some weight up front; but not a whole lot. Using a 190 grain Grizzly on a light/stiff cedar shaft it was still under 15% FOC. For my set up that called for an 85# hunting tapered shaft. 300 grains up front would mean over 100# and tough to get from both a broadhead and shaft perspective. Jeff, can you tell us more about that 'adapter'?

[Orion]

I can get about 15% FOC with a tapered, hardwood footed cedar shaft with 160 grain broadheads.  Can probably up that a percentage or two with a heavier head, but that's about as much as you'll be able to get out of wood without further tinkering.  

One of my shooting partners is experimenting with an internal metal footing.  He drills a hole about 3 inches long on the point end of the arrow and fills it with a nail or screw or whatever.  Depending on the size of the hole and filler material, he can add up to 100 grains to the end of the shaft.  

The insert is centered and small enough so it's still possible to taper the shaft for the point, and, because the insert extends about two inches behind the point, it should aid in strengthening that area as well.  Just started putting a few of these together.  He says they improve arrow flight.  Haven't had a chance to test them  rigorously yet though to see how they hold up when shot into tough stuff.

Need a drill press to do this right, and do need to make jigs to hold the shaft and center the drill bit.

[Jeff U]

Originally posted by Bjorn:
... Jeff, can you tell us more about that 'adapter'?

Not really, I saw it in the 3 Rivers catalog.  Here's the link:

 http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.asp?show=rate&c=57&s=47&p=258&i=4364X#full

I have not tried it so I have no hands on experience.  But if you look at the above site, there are four reviews and all gave it high marks.

[SlowBowinMO]

Good news I think.

I just tried an experiment using the screw in adapter Jeff posted.  My Fir shaft jumped to 18.4% FOC just using a 170 grain screw in point with the adapter.  Apparently the adapter shoves the weight enough forward you can get more yield from the weight.    

The bad news is I fail to see how these are any stronger than the other aluminum systems Ashby trashed on...but I still think it has potential.  A steel insert instead of aluminum might help.

[Bjorn]

A wood like Ipe weighs about double that of Cedar or Fir, so an Ipe footing would add maybe 70 grains and a 190 BH would get you over 15% but still under 20. Arrow weight would be 700 or so, depending on what it was to start with. And the shaft strength would be much improved; but not your pocketbook.

[Dirty Bill]

Purple heart wood is very heavy.it seems to be a preferred footing material. If you got some tapered shafts,and footed with purple heart,you could probably achieve 20% foc.

I put a 200 grain field point on a 28" cedar non tapered shaft and my foc was 15%. I'm going to get some maple laminated shafts that are tapered from dinks arrows and see what I can get with them.

I'm going to try footing a couple of them also.I'm going for an arrow weight about 650 grains.

[Dirty Bill]

BOOT...  

[Glenn Newell]

I alter the amount of taper on my shafts once footed, I just taper the shafts less on the head end and more towards the feathers, works well...Glenn...

[sou-pawbowhunter]

I think I might have stumbled upon the answer to our dilemma. If we were to start with a 160 gr. or 190 gr. glue on field point and take a handful of these along with a long screw in adapter like one would use to mount a trad broadhead on a carbon or alum. arrow to a sympathetic toolmaker or machinist, I believe a short time on a lathe would yield a very strong adapter that could answer our FOC problems.

[Jeff U]

Not that I know or have tested, but I think the worries over weakness on that wood screw adapter are probably for naught.

The weak spot Dr. A notice in his testing was the shaft of the aluminum screw in adapter.  It's a fairly small diameter shaft that is prone to breaking or bending.  In fact, I've broken a few that I used on judo points.

I would think that shaft would have very different strength characteristics than a hollow aluminum tube.  Especially a hollow aluminum tube filled with the solid steel post of the steel adapter.

[capt eddie]

I use the adapters on cedar to add 90 grs.  It weakened the spine about 10 lb.  It does penetrate more with the extra weight.  I see no differance in trajectory at 25 yards.  I did notice in 25MPH wind the tip of the arrow stayed straight while the feather leaned downwind. Once the arrow corrected from paradox the wind was not enough to override the momentum of the BH. It is like throwing a roch witha string tied to it. The rock stays straight while the string flaps in the breeze. That said alot about the FOC concept.  I will always shoot the extra weight on the tip.

[SlowBowinMO]

I've been fooling with the screw in adapters, thought I'd post what I've found so far for those interested.

My primary bow is cut to center, not past, which helps tremendously with point loading.  That and I have years of various arrow spines around to play with.    :D    I usually shoot "normal" set ups and around 55# spine from this bow at 29".

60-65's, 28.5 BOP, 180 gr., 15% FOC - too stiff.
60-65's, 28.5 BOP, 225 gr., 18% FOC - Ex. Flight!
70-75's, 30" BOP, 255 gr., 19% FOC - Ex. Flight!
85-90's, 29" BOP, 255 gr., 18% FOC - too stiff.

I am surprised by a number of things here.  All the arrows flew very well.  I've never been able to put this kind of weight on aluminum with good results but the woodies don't seem to care.        Since these arrows were already fletched, I was shooting BIG broadheads, that will tell you what's really going on in a hurry!

I'm also surprised how good of alignment I was able to get using the adapters.  I thought they would be a pain but I was able to get excellent spin with a minimum of effort.  

It looks to me if I take the 70-75's down an inch and add 75 grains or so to the point, I'll have an over 20% FOC arrow that fly's well.          The 60-65's are going to be weak if I add more point weight to up the FOC, they are already maxed out at 225 and 18%.

This is going to be do-able.  Now to strengthen the foreshaft.

[SlowBowinMO]

One more update.  I took the 70-75's down a half inch and point loaded up to 305 grains with a Snuffer out front.  Lazer straight flight, spine is right, total arrow weight of 725 grains.  This from a 51# center cut longbow.  Trajectory didn't seem much different from my normal arrows at 600 grains, at least out to 20 yards.

FOC WAS 21.7 %!    :D

I am surprised at how well this seems to be working.  The proof will be in long term shooting though.