how badly are your arrows affected by a crosswind?

[ozy clint]

in the last few days i've been practising in windy conditions. two days in a row i had a right to left crosswind. my arrows were landing nock left which had me thinking my arrows were weak. (i'm r/handed). then i had a calm day and my arrows were good again. then today i had a left to right crosswind, with arrows landing nock right. even as close as 5m there was a noticable effect from the wind. wind was about 10-15 knots. arrows are 5/16" carbon, EFOC. 4x4" feathers. anyone else had a similar experience??

[KrEn]

Yes.
I regularly shoot behind the house, and the target is in the free wind, and when i shoot @ longer ranges I am in free wind, but the arrow path is shielded by the house and garage. By the sea, here is always wind.
Sometimes the arrow will start with a strong sidewind, fly into quiet, or even opposite, and then into even stronger sidewind. They do all sorts of flying maneuvers, then landing nock way out to the side.


K

[Biggie Hoffman]

An arrow is very affected by crosswind. I shot a caribou some years back where I swear I could see the whole arrow before it hit. Always something to consider.

[Boomerang]

Yes they are extremely affected by a cross wind because there is alot of surface area contact with the wind. If you want to tune your arrows it needs to be in calm conditions or they will show wrong readings.

[tiur]

you will have less cross wind effect by going with small dia shaft ( axis  ) + high FOC and you can use a hunter style feathers 4" x 7/16 height. Here is my set up Easton axis nano 400, 30 1/4" 300 gr tip, 4 hunter style feathers. Morrison Cheyenne 51@28 draw 27,5. This setup gives me the least amount of drift,good luck

ASL

[Paul J.]

Monday evening I had a 140" 8pt @ 25yds that
I had to pass on because of 30mph winds. just
was unsure of what the wind would do to my arrow.

                            Paul

[aromakr]

Clint:
Thats not uncommon, and the more feather you have the more its effected. One of the reasons I have difficulty understanding guy's using 5 1/2" high back fletching. If that much feather is necessary to stabilize an arrow something else is wrong!!
Bob

[bayoulongbowman]

4inch fletch!

[O.L. Adcock]

Oh yes....Unpowered projectiles are part of the air mass. They will stabilize into the average of the vector velocities. The only thing that reduces the amount of drift is velocity...The more the better....Things like skinny shafts, smaller fletching, high FOC, all contribute to more velocity down range......O.L.

[pdk25]

Huge difference in the effect on my grizzlystik arrows with 5 inch shields and my axis full metal jackets with 4 inch low profile paraobolic feathers.

[KrEn]

Unpowered projectiles... They will stabilize into the average of the vector velocities.  

No O.L. It is much worse. At least for bullets
I hate to contradict you of all people, and I may be wrong and arrows are wastly different from bullets, but you say "projectiles" yorself. A Frencman by the name Didion figured this out long ago. I do not understand why or how, but shoot enough rifle @ long range to know its true. The faster your projectile decelerates, the more it deflects.

Lateral deflection = Windspeed * (Flight time at constant velocity - real flight time)

Read this:   Didions Approximation  

K

[Bill Carlsen]

I shot my first caribou during a windy day  (in Labrador it was considered just a "breeze"). When I released the arrow I knew that about half way there the wind would take it in front of the caribou's rib cage. Then the 'bou helped by taking a step to the right and I got him in the jugular. I much prefer to shoot with the wind than across it.

[Wary Buck]

I remember my first year of bowhunting, 1981, with a used Browning compound and Bear Metric Magnum or Metric Hunter (?) arrows.  Was practicing on a real crosswind day, and after the first three arrows I could tell something was wrong.  Walked up to the target and I had three bent arrows.  The arrows had obviously not been very straight at all when entering the straw bale and each of the arrows was bent.  I think at the time I had only six arrows, so I was pretty bent too.

[O.L. Adcock]

KrEn, "The faster your projectile decelerates, the more it deflects."

I agree, the fatter the shaft, the bigger the fletching, the faster they decelerate. I'm confused as to what part you disagree with?   ...O.L.

[Rufus]

Hey, we had a calm day here in the Texas Panhandle and I didn't have clue what my arrows were gonna do.               Really, we have bunches of wind and if you shoot in it enough the instinct deal works for you as it does with elevation and distance. Shoot at what you wanna hit and go for it. Of course common sense dictates that to far of a distance and too much wind speed will make it very unlikely that an arrow will penetrate an animal in a straight path for a humane kill. We do try to shoot as straight an arrow path with that being one of the reasons right? Tailwinds and headwinds can cause some funny things to happen sometimes too. Paul J. has the right idea, if it's that windy put it up so you don't get a bad hit.

[MikeW]

Trad Gang Member
Member # 4946

   Icon 1 posted December 11, 2008 01:23 PM      Profile for KrEn     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote

    quote: Unpowered projectiles... They will stabilize into the average of the vector velocities.

No O.L. It is much worse. At least for bullets
I hate to contradict you of all people, and I may be wrong and arrows are wastly different from bullets, but you say "projectiles" yorself. A Frencman by the name Didion figured this out long ago. I do not understand why or how, but shoot enough rifle @ long range to know its true. The faster your projectile decelerates, the more it deflects.

Lateral deflection = Windspeed * (Flight time at constant velocity - real flight time)

I shot competitive benchrest for a few years and I use to think I shot pretty well and could shoot small groups till I hooked up with the benchrest crowd and then I learned what it really takes to shoot groups measured .0000. Until then you could never convince me a 1 mph wind would or could effect a 70 grain bullet doing 3800 fps at a 100 yards.

Long story short...yes the wind will mess with your point of impact.

[GingivitisKahn]

My arrows are dragging 4 5" feathers.  In the wind, my penetration may suffer, but the way that arrow spins, I might just cut a deer in half.

   

[ozy clint]

interesting. another thing learned.

[Brian Krebs]

there is a basket racked whitetail buck that lived through my 5 shots at it with a severe- 60 plus mile an hour wind. I kept waiting until the wind seemed to stop; and kept missing.

 I think one controllable factor is the shape of the fletch and the length. I shoot 5 1/2 inch high profile shield cuts... and that buck lived at least in a big part due to that.

 Here is a 'simple' test- I see Clint that you use a bow quiver. Load that quiver up with one type of fletch and hold the bow out the window while your driving down the road. The try another fletch shape and length. I bet you find a big difference in a smaller fletch and a big fletch.

 Same thing happens when the arrow is in flight; and is hit with wind.

 I believe most people with sail boats have figured this out.

[3Under]

I've noticed when shooting in heavey crosswinds that the EFOC carbons(Carbon extremes 150's & 3555 GT's with 250 grains up front)"tail wag" more then my wood arrows (non-EFOC's) but they are not blown as far off as the woodies. Both had 5"shield fletching. The woodies seem to fly with much less wagging but are blown farther off my "spot". I worry about less then perpendicular entry which would reduces penetration on windy days with the carbons.

Excuse my ignorance but I've never heard about the Frecnh ballistics engineer, but when I did alot of rifle hunting and reloading(Win. .270) I prefered the 150 grain longer bullets to the 130 grain projectiles. The 150s started out a little slower but retained velocity better and were faster at 300 yards and deflected less due to the crosswind less than the 130's.