Carbon! Did ya know....

[Shawn Leonard]

that a light spine carbon will shoot over wider range of poundage than a heavier spined one. I have been shooting carbons a lot for 4 years now and I have shot a bunch of different brands, but one thing in common is the light spine shoots good out of my bows from 45#s up to 60#s with great flight out of most any bow I choose. If I go up to a carbon spined say 55/75 it becomes finicky and I have to fine tune by adding weight. One example is a carbonwood 2000 cut to 29"s with 175 grains up front. I can get it to bare shaft perfect out of all my bows up to 60#s. I do not recommend it out of the higher #ages as it is really too light, but it does fly perfect. My next example is a carbonwood 4000 cut to 29"s, for it to bareshaft perfect out of my 55-65# bows I have to adjust point weight from 300 to 225 to get the same bareshaft results. I know this is not scientific, but for me it is a definite fact. Your mileage may vary. Shawn

[Lewis Brookshire III]

I aggree, I found that out not too long ago myself.

[Robert Honaker]

Shawn,form your experience,which Carbonwood and point weight set up would get me in the ballpark with 52lb@29in,recurve,FF string?I'd like to end up with a little over 500gr.

[Shawn Leonard]

Robert, if it's cut past center, ya could go with the 3000 at 30"s and 225-250 up front. This would give ya 10gpp. as well. Shawn

[The Whittler]

I just started shooting carbons this past summer. I bought 3 GT cut 29.5", I can shoot regular inserts, 50gr and 100gr brass inserts. I can shoot 125gr, 145gr, and 175gr points, and 125gr glue on broad head with a 45gr long addapter and everything works great, in any combinations.

This is out of a BW MA11 62" 53#@28" and I pull 29", and everything works out of a Fedora 560 60" 53#@28 and pull 29".  Alan

[OconeeDan]

That sounds encouraging.  I am about to try carbons for the first time.  Just bought GT 3555 full length, and will use 50gr inserts, 150gr points for 200 gr total up front.  In a 53#@27" bow.  Would be nice if they shot well out of my 47# bow too.
I guess I will glue in the inserts, start full length,  and start cutting them down if needed.
Dan

[Shawn Leonard]

Dan, just do not cut them too short. In your case I would not go less tha 28.5"s and start longer. Shawn

[OconeeDan]

You are fast, Shawn.  I plan to try them full length first.  And won't start cutting unless I have tuning problems first.
Thanks, Dan

[Robert Honaker]

Shawn,I don't know how much the bow I waiting on is cut past center.It's a Chek Mate H2,WON'T BE HERE FOR ABOUT 6 MONTHS,just thinkin ahead.

[Shawn Leonard]

Ya should be good to go, those Hunters are nice bows and cut about 3/16ths. past center. Shawn

[Robert Honaker]

That's dang near center shot.Man I can't wait to get my hands on that bow.Thanx for the help.

[stringstretcher]

If you take any carbon arrow, or aluminum for that mater and measure it under the AMO standards which if 26" and a 2 lb weight, you will find that all of those shafts will read a lot higher spine than the way they are measured today....28" with a 1.92 lb weight.  This allows manufactures to show what appears to be a lighter spine but in reality it is heavier.  Take any shaft and try this, you will be amaized at how over spined arrow you are shooting by choosing one from a "chart"

[Orion]

Right on stringstretcher.

[Shawn Leonard]

That is no secret string stretcher why do you think I posted this. The 2000 spines around 45-48#s when using 14" centers but goes up to 60+ when you use 13" center. It is a fact though the lighter spined carbons will shoot over a wider range of #age than the heavier spined one will. Shawn

[SOS]

Dan,

At 53#, you may not need all that weight up front, depending on how long you want your arrow.  Just play with one before you glue too many inserts in!  Steve

[MarkH]

I tend to view carbons about like aluminum shafting in that I have to acquaint myself with the actual deflection of the shafts instead of those weight range designations. Here's a couple handy conversion formulas.


If you have AMO deflection, multiply it by 1.25 to get Easton deflection. If you have Easton deflection, multiply it by 0.80 to get AMO deflection.

[Jeff Strubberg]

I have to say, I was strtled that the carbon express heritage arrows I just set up didn't spine higher.

After all the posts here, I expected to have to use 200+ grains up front to get correct flight out of a longbow.  I wound up having to cut them within an inch of my draw length and drop to 125 grain points to get enough spine.

Moral of the story, make up ONE arrow and tune thoroughly before you do the rest.

[Mike Byrge]

I've done quite a bit of bare-shaft testing lately with both alum and carbon and my results have been confusing.

For example.  ST-Epic 500s (29.25") with standard insert and 125gr points are much too weak for my 46@28 Bob Lee recurve (drawn to 29").  Ironically, a 29.5" 2114 alum with a 125gr point bare-shafts almost perfect out of that bow.

The 2114 deflection is 510 and is "weaker" than the carbon...maybe the diameter of the shafts is he difference.

Out of that same bow, a 29.75" CX Terminator Lite 4560 with a 150 point bare shafts well and that is a STIFF arrow..comparable to a 2020 alum.  No way I could shoot a 2020 out of that bow.

I saw the following posted somewhere and copied it..may be of some use to y'all.
 cx heritage 250 83lbs
 cx terminater 45/60 83lbs
 wolverine 45/60 camo 80lbs
 Wolverine no camo 85lbs
 Cabelas sst 220 62lbs
 Cabelas sst 230 75lbs
 Gold tip trad 35/55 65lbs
 beman ics hunter 400 80lbs
 beman ics hunter 500 65lbs
 easton excell 500 65lbs
 cx thunderstorm 30/50 64lbs
 legacy 1916 53lbs
 fall stalker 1916 57lbs
 legacy 2016 62lbs
 grenn gamegetter 2016 60lbs

[JC]

Originally posted by Jeff Strubberg:
After all the posts here, I expected to have to use 200+ grains up front to get correct flight out of a longbow.  I wound up having to cut them within an inch of my draw length and drop to 125 grain points to get enough spine.
 

Jeff, I'm sure you considered adding centershot to the strike plate...tuning the bow to the arrow is often easier than tuning the arrow to the bow.

[southpawshooter]

Shawn,  

I'm with ya' on that...I've had great results using Carbon Express Thunderstorm shafts.  These are shafts made for kids compounds, but work well in most stickbows in the '50's.  Great shaft and inexpensive.  With 250 up front and 29" long they come in at 540 grains.

What ya' have to remember is carbons react dynamically very different than aluminum or wood.  In fact, Doug Easton chose aluminum as a shaft material because it behaved very similar to wood.  Carbons on the other hand are a different animal.     When a shaft leaves a bow it goes through archers paradox, which can be likened to a sine wave.  This is dynamic spine.  The peaks of the sine wave are smaller than the peaks from wood or carbon.  Since carbons do not deflect dynamically as much as wood or aluminum you must pick a lighter static spine (spine measured on a spine tester).  Also, because the sine wave peaks are smaller you can get away with larger swings in point weight.

Hope that makes sense....