F. O. C. how important is it really?

[shortstroke 91]

Just wondering how important F O C really is and what do you shoot out of your bows? I'm about 16%-17% right now and it seems that I'm way too high acording to the charts but someone told me once that most trad shooters need a little extra.
Just curious if I'm way off the mark here.
Thanks,

[Pete W]

I shoot up to 425 gr on front of carbon shafts with up to 26%FOC.
 Let the arrow flight tell you when it is wrong for the shaft you have.

[Squirrel Bait]

I've never tried to figure it out, to complicated for me , if it flys good shoot it. I shoot 28" 2018's with the inserts, with screw in BH adapter that's 42 gr. and a 190 gr.Ribbie.

[Orion]

The old rule of thumb (until a few years ago) was 10% to 15% FOC, but that was pretty much a statement of what was common at the time, not necessarily what was optimal.  10%-15% was about all the FOC you could get with a wood arrow, even hardwood footed and tapered, when almost all of the broadheads weighed about 125 to 135 grains.  

Ed Ashby's research has shown conclusively enough for me that even more FOC yields even better penetration, and perhaps better arrow flight as well, and carbon shafts with brass and steel inserts and point adaptors certainly make it possible to achieve much higher FOCs.

That being said, I'm sticking with wood and moderate FOC.  It's been killing stuff for thousands of years

[Dr. Ed Ashby]

I won't spill all the beans just yet, but I finally have clear-cut results on just how much penetration can be gained through Extreme FOC. It's ... sizable. However, everyone will have to wait until the Updates are out to see the answer as to 'how much'. I will say this, I've laid my beloved Forgewoods aside, and there are some ... well, lets just say 'unique' ...  Extreme FOC arrows in my quiver now.

One thing for sure: the light draw weight shooters are going to like what they see!

Ed

[shortstroke 91]

Being a #45 shooter I can't wait. How long is the wait gonna be?

[JRY309]

I believe it is important to wood and aluminum to be around 10-15%.But carbons can handle more,my carbons usally run around 16-20%.

[Bill Carlsen]

Historically the evolution of the higher FOC is interesting to me. It all started with light weight carbon arrows which in the beginning were too light weight to shoot from trad bows without voiding the bowyers warranty.As carbon arrows became better and more trad guys wanted to use them all sorts of methods were tried in order to get the weight up to the magic 10 grains per pound. As it turns out most carbon arrows are too stiff for most trad bows when shooting. Guys like Bob Morrison, who was the first to do it, started to experiment with heavier weight points in order to get arrow weight up and to tame the stiffer carbon shafts. As it turns out the added FOC did two things, it made the stiffer carbons more spine friendly with trad bows and got the arrow weight up. The added bonus was that better penetration was achieved...a really good thing. On my Axis or Beman shafts I use 200-225 grains and it gives me an arrow in the 575-600 grain range on a 340 shaft 29" long...a perfect arrow for my 60# DAS, My wife also likes the Axis/Beman shafts and with 200 grains up front on a 27" 500 shaft she gets perfect flight from her 46# DAS. Her arrows weigh in at 500 grains and she gets two holes in the animals she shoots.

[Ray Hammond]

40% and higher FOC in carbons. You can make it whatever you like- you just have to start out with way too stiff an arrow, and tame the arrow with more and more tip weight to get it to fly right out of your setup.

I don't care for the high FOC in woods or aluminums like I do the carbons though.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

With carbon arrows you BETTER like a lot of FOC....there isn't many ways to get them to flex without it and still get a heavy arrow without using weight tubes....

[rbbhunt]

I hav some aluminum arrows that were too stiff, used steel screw-in broadhead adapters and 150 gn braod heads.  Flys great and got my arrow wt about 11 gns/lb.

[BobCo 1965]

Isn't it strange though that HH suggested not going over 150 grains on tapered POC's.

His FOC couldn't have been all that much.

I'm sure he tried them all. It's just a little counter to what people feel today about FOC extremes.

Just a thought.....

[Rick McGowan]

Why would carbons be any different? The only reason is, you can't buy them with enough mass weight, so after people gave up trying to shoot them unweighted, they started to figure out how to add weight. Most of those ideas don't work very well. Adding a bunch of weight to the front is an easy way to add weights to carbons and for most people its the only way, it dosn't mean its the best way. Carbons don't defy the laws of physics, 10-14% FOC is still the best flying shaft. If heavy weight carbons were available in a wide variety of spine weights like wood or aluminum, this topic would never have even come up, its only because of us trad guys trying to make them work. The high FOC carbons are better than badly weighted carbons. Me, I'll stick to 12% foc arrows that fly perfectly at 35 yards with no feathers.

[Naphtali]

Rich:

Were I a betting man -- and I am -- I would bet one significant reason why high FOC arrows function successfully with carbon shafts is the recovery speed of shafting from severe initial flex.

Upon string release from full draw, arrow's tail moves -- but not straight toward a target. Archer's paradox begins. The quicker the shaft recovers from poorly controlled flex, the more predictable will be its flight path. The less vibration the shaft has, the deeper it will penetrate.

That's what I think goes on. And I'll back my belief with up to a nickel cash money.

[Ray Hammond]

In my reading of Doc's paperwork, there is something going on with carbons with heavy tip weight where the heavy nose of the arrow is actually PULLING the shaft through the target, rather than what is generally thought of as a "normal" (is there such a thing? now) arrow pushing its way through..at least that is the way I read it in his text.

Sorry, I can't take the time to extract that..as I have 400 pages I think but i know I read it - but don't have time to find it right now.

Anyway, its hard to argue with the anecdotal evidence I have on hogs and such using these..there is something 'cool' going on with my high FOC carbons...and I tried to duplicate it with wood and with aluminums but couldn't - maybe outside diameter also has an effect? I don't know..I'm not that smart.

[Doc Nock]

I can't recall what I ate for breakfast, but long term stuff sticks..sometimes.    

Back way when carbons (GT's especially) first hit the net in trad circles, some of the engineering types weighed in with descriptions of carbon arrows having a "dynamic" spine vs. alum/wood's "static" spine.

Whatever the heck that meant, their learned conclusion was that due to the modulus of the composites in carbon arrows, they came out of paradox so quickly, they blew all the stuff of standard arrow learning of generations out the window, like Neapahli said.

An old Gold Tip high speed video proved the point quite nicely. One occilation of the arrow from the bow and it was flying totally straight. Alum and wood were oscillating all the way to the target as I recall! Amazing stuff!

I would humbly submit that the high foc to lighten spine might not be the only benefit of heavier front weight w/ carbons.

Another method OL Adcock taught me that allows trad guys to use stiffer arrows is the amount of center cut on a bow's riser.

Morrisons (used to?)cut recurve risers to 3/16 past center.  My 3/16"past center Cheyene riser w/ 50# limbs require 29.5" Gold Tips for my 28" draw, 100 gr. brass insert and 160 gr. points to bare shaft quite pretty to 30 yards...my limit to get any measurable group.

That's not excessive front weight, but if I try to shoot that same set up outa a 54# longbow cut 1/8" SHY of center cut... they nearly fly sideways. Too stiff!

Heavier draw... but no where near center cut riser and they're stiff...WAY stiff.

Carbons just open the door for more possibilities and while trad is "simpler" it's still got a lot of neat variables if you want to consider them in tuning a set-up.

[Rick McGowan]

All arrow shafts have "dynamic" and "static" spine, dynamic is what actually happens when you shoot it out of a bow, static is what happens when you measure it on a spine tester. Yes you can front load wood and aluminum shafts just like carbon, but you don't need to, because you can buy them the right weight and spine.
There really is no big mystery about it other than people like to create one around carbon shafts. Why? They are very light and they come in VERY limited spine groups. Yes they do recover faster, but add weight to them in the wrong way and they will "noodle" just like wood or aluminum. Which brings me to this point, these penetration tests usually compare, unweighted carbons, badly weighted carbons and front loaded carbons, out of those three options, yes the extreme FOC carbon is best.

[pseman]

I'm with squirrel bait, if it's flying good and I can hit what I'm shooting at, it's good enough for me. I don't like tuning my arrows with my calculator.

[Ray Hammond]

but doc wasn't comparing carbons to carbons only...he was testing all vs. all as I remember, Rick -When I come over there with you, I'll set up my rig to shoot arrows like you have and we'll smoke a buffalo together. What kind of papers you use to roll them in?

[beachbowhunter]

Originally posted by Ray Hammond:
When I come over there with you, I'll set up my rig to shoot arrows like you have and we'll smoke a buffalo together. What kind of papers you use to roll them in?

Zig-Zag --- just like my arrow flight!