What is your FOC for Footed Shafts?????

[snag]

I cut some fir shafts to 29.5" bop, 9" end tapered them (now they are 5/16" at the tip, 11/32" in the middle, tapered to 5/16" at the nock), with 160gr. field pts they are 610-620gr. The FOC is 13.9....is that about the max for wood arrows that bare shaft tune well? Just wondering what others have found.

[Pack]

I footed and rear tapered some 29" fir shafts with 190gr points and think I remember they might have been a few percentage points higher, so that sound about right.  I find the main advantage of the hardwood footing is durability.  If you want the big FOC numbers, I am afraid carbon is the way to go.  I see where a few people are shooting some really heavy heads on the woods, like 250-300gr, but I doubt those would even break 20%.  It can also be a pain to get enough spine depending on how much weight you are shooting, especially on a 29-30" arrow.

[Bjorn]

I played with foots as long as 10" plus splice-yes the front half of the arrow was a cocobolo foot on a surewood shaft! With a 175 BH the FOC hit 20% but the arrow became underspined for my set up even with a 75# spine.
You can do all the footing you want; insert all the metal you like, and it will still be a compromise of spine vs FOC with wood-which is my material of choice.

[Orion]

Yep.  What Bjorn says.  With a hardwood foot and 160 grain point on 29-inch BOP 11/32 cedar arrows and a rear taper to 5/16, I, too, get about 13.8% FOC.  I find those arrows need to be spined at least 75# to shoot out of my 56# ACS.

[snag]

Ok, well I couldn't figure how you'd get higher FOC unless you did go to carbon. But with these arrows I'm looking for great flight more than extreme FOC. I'm shooting a 55#@28" recurve and usually shoot 70# up to 85# spined shafts. As I recall these are 75#-80# spine weight.

[Fletcher]

You can get more than 14%.  I made up some Heavy Heads for a pig hunt. The shafts were lightweight tail tapered Sitka Spruce, 70 lb static spine, 28" BOP, with a 50 gr insert (1.5" lead wire) and a 190 gr VPA Terminator broadhead for a total arrow weight of 620 gr and 20.6% FOC. They paper tuned beautifully from my 54 lb at 26" Pronghorn T/D longbow, so that is the bow I hunted with. That works out to 11.5 gr/lb and 12 gr/lb is about as heavy an arrow as I like to shoot. I can say that I was very pleased with the arrow's performance on a 150 lb boar.  

My limited experience tells me that total arrow weight and/or spine seem to be the limiting factors with front weighted wood arrows. Snag, I believe that tapering the front of the shaft is going to reduce your FOC.  A hardwood foot would help, but probably not that much as replacing wood with a heavier wood doesn't really add much weight.  The footing's real advantage is strength.  As much as I like fir for arrows, I feel Sitka Spruce it the way to go for upping FOC.  The lighter shaft weight allows for more point weight and that is the best way to increase FOC.  Unfortunately, the spine with spruce maxes out at 80 lb with a 23/64 shaft.

[snag]

Fletcher that makes sense about the lighter spruce for upping FOC. I didn't weigh these shafts before having them footed. They are footed with blackwood. I don't think the blackwood really added as much weight as I thought it would. But it is a very hard wood...so hopefully they will last a long time.

[Rob DiStefano]

(techie soapbox on)

for me, woodies are tough to nail the gpp and foc i like shooting from a 55# hybrid longbow.

if i load up the front end, and tail taper the surewood fir, i can get 20% foc or more, but the gpp soars up to 700 grains or more.  too heavy for me.

also, static and dynamic spine ranges of most genus wood shafts tend to be easy to suss out.  not so with carbons, where the dynamic spine has a huge range as compared to its static spine - therefore, carbons are almost too easy to tune up with a good gpp and foc.

(techie soapbox off)

aaaaaaaaaa, just roll the dang shaft, fletch up, point up - they all kill critters quite dead.    

[Orion]

Yep!

[snag]

But it is fun to experiment. These are the first footed shafts I have made into arrows. Just playing around and seeing what I get. Was wondering if others had similar experience....thanks, David

That's interesting Bjorn. I hope I can bareshaft these with at least 145gr points. I'll start out with 160gr tips and see how they react.

[Bjorn]

This is about the best compromise I have been able to do

 

These are the arrows I made up for my new Schafer; due here in July.

Wenge over POC....8" plus splice they are 32" long including a A&H Brown Bear, and 650 gn total. Balance point is 5.5" ahead of mid point for a 17% FOC and 75# spine.

[RRock]

Man, those are great looking arrows, I'm gonna have to start footing shafts.

[Bjorn]

The shafts were footed by Ted at Raptor Archery; I supplied the 75# 11/32 ACME Supremes.

[Ground Hunter]

You can try building out the side of the shelf.  You can then use a lighter spined shaft.  Too much trouble for me - but its done by others.  H

[snag]

They look good Bjorn. Hope they work for you.

Ground Hunter, I hate to build out the shelf just for one batch of arrows...but that's one way to go about it.

[Rob DiStefano]

imo, lots depends on how centershot the arrow shelf is cut.  with most stick bows at around 1/8" off centershot (then add in the thickness of the plate), i see no reason to build out the arrow plate.  getting as close to centershot makes arrow spine less an issue and allows shooting and tuning a wider range of arrow spines.  

i just reworked the shelf on an ed neat composite longbow, where it was about 3/16" off center, to dead centershot, and that now allows me to easily tune up woodies of very different spine ranges.

[Jack Skinner]

So I'm not a techno weenie but here goes.

Footed shafts around since at least 1545. Internal footing new as far as I know.

Making my own equipment is part of the hunt for me. So I began making my own shafts from boards. Ash was a favorite. But with each board you get a different gr weight shaft. My first came in around the 650-700. Next batch came in at over 750 finished shaft with 190gr point/braoadhead. More weight than needed. Trying other shaft woods lead me to poplar (others mentioned it on this site) My first board the shafts came in around 350gr light and a chance to try internal front loading. 3/16 brass was internally footed to add a extra 100grs but the shaft became weak behind point and broke not enough wood to protect I guess. Next board closer to 400gr and a chance to try footing and maybe 1/8 brass.

Using the AMO measure method here are some results that I got last night.

All shaft are around the 27.5inch from throat of selfnock to BOP. Except Birch it is plastic nock. All shafts have 190 glue on point.

Plan shafts FOC:
Ash 14.5%
Birch 14%
Douglas Fir 17%
Poplar 15.5%

Footed shafts FOC:
Poplar and 100gr internal brass 22%
Purpleheart 6"taper2.5"foot 18%
Bloodwood 6"taper2.5"foot 19%
Bloodwood 5"taper4"foot 19.5%
Purpleheart 5"taper4"foot and 25gr interanl brass 21%

Picture of Shafts
 

[FerretWYO]

Jack those look amazing. Nice work. I hope I get to see those this weekend.

[Orion]

Nice looking shafts, Jack.  Some of those hardwoods must weigh quite a bit.  Internal foots are probably new geologically speaking, but they've been around for a while in modern times.  I was drilling holes in my wood arrows to insert steel rods/nails for more weight, and sometimes points 50 years ago.

[Bjorn]

Jack you have some works of art there!
One of the clues I found is making the shafts shorter-shorten footed shafts from nock end before fletching-Duh! That will increase FOC potential.