When I shot aluminums my experience was exactly the same as Rick's... the man knows his stuff.
To complicate things a little for you, though, my experiments with carbons has changed my feelings on FOC. I load the front end of carbons up with a steel broadhead adapter, a 160 or a 190 grain head, a brass shaft insert, and sometimes weights behind the inserts, to achieve good heavy shafts. As you know, carbons are comparatively light on their own..and through the years we have been putting weed whacker line, aquarium tubing, other carbons and just about anythign else you can come up with to get them heavier, because our kind of bow does better with a heavier arrow. Some carbons with just regular field points in them in my opinion are close to a 'dry fire' on some recurves and longbows they are so light.
I am usually shooting 625 to 800 grains..and as you can see, nearly 300-375 grains can be on the tip end of the shaft. This is because I shoot 61-65 lb bows normally.
What I find is that the heavy tip and smaller column (even most of the fat shafts are smaller OD than most aluminums I could shoot) it SEEMS that the tip weight PULLS the shaft through the target..something like a locomotive engine pulls a train full of cars...and you know how long it takes a big train to stop..momentum is everything to penetration. They straighten up very quickly coming off the bow..its just a 'dot' of color from the bright nocks actually, pulling away from the bow.
One caveat however- this only works if you buy the stiffest spine available in the particular shaft you buy. If you buy the charted spine shaft you cannot load it up with weight like that under normal conditions because even cut down to your draw length they are just not stiff enough to handle that weight forward- as it really lowers the spine of the shaft to have all that weight in the tip.
Or you can just use hickory shafts with a regular head on them...and achieve great mass, great strength and durability without the excess FOC. Options, options, options.
Topic: Arrow F.O.C. what is ideal, and how is it measured? Anyone? (Read 780 times)
