HH BUG GOT ME - Part Two!

[Okie man]

I hope it has some of your 80 yard accuracy mojo built in.

[centaur]

James, do you have an MG or Austin Healey to go with that cap?

[Ron LaClair]

ShrewHill  "I'm back"

   

I have that itch to get another bow, my problem is I am too old to have much patience.  I remember one day back in the early 90s when I was shooting hundreds of arrows every day and talking about my new bow and my old bow.  My old bow 25 years old and my new bow was 12 years old.  Now my new bow is a year and a half old, pretty sure that it is not worn out yet, who knows maybe it's on its last leg and the elevens are showing and all that. I had to check in the mirror, I don't think my elevens are showing yet, so maybe.  It is a good thing this bow is not 14 pounds heavier and a few inches shorter, I'd fight ya for it.

[jeffg]

A woody question. I have a 64" Wesley Special 50#@27". I draw 27". My arrow I like to keep short 27 1/2" 125 or 145 head Doug Fir. I am thinking 45-50 or 50-55?

[Hermon]

Sounds close.  Just order a test kit from Surewood Shafts and make sure.

[Jim Picarelli]

Jeffg...most of my Hill's are around that weight and they like 50-55 spine

[jeffg]

Yea thats what I wss figuaring. The 45/50 flow ok and bare shafted a tad weak if my for wasn't perfect. The 50/55 were consistant.

I don't bare shaft wood, but with my 26 plus draw on my 52 to 54 pound bows, I get perfect arrow flight with tapered cedars and tapered surewoods that are all 27" back of broadhead, from 48 to 60 pound spines. What varies is the point weight. 125 to 145 to 160 grain heads.  Last night I found a set of acme cedars with 160 grain points that were 62 to 64 spine originally that flew perfect out of my 53 pound at my draw Morningstar and my 52 at my draw Robertson.  When I use my net length arrows, they are generally 5 pounds lighter, but I have been surprised to find that even net length blunts that are not lighter shoot perfect as well.

[jeffg]

Is 160FPS out of a Wesley special a slug? 50@ 10GPP

No, it is fine, your arrows may be leaving your finger tips at less than 27" which will give a lower poundage, or a softer release can cause a loss of a few feet per second, or your brace height may be a bit high, or you could have a B50 string.  The reality is you have enough to kill deer and although it may be possible to squeeze out a few more fps, how your set up shoots for you is what is going to matter.

I have come to hate chronographs.  I gave a fellow a nice shooting longbow, he proceeded to kill deer with it and declared that it was a deer killing magic wand. One day one of the guys wanted us to come play with his new chrono thing.  The bow that I gave to my friend was the slowest in the group and it made him feel bad. I did not give it to him because it was slow, it was longer and lighter than I used at the time and heavier than others in my family could use.  I knew that he could get use out of it. It was a 70" 54@29" Hill, it shot 500 grain arrows at a 28" or so draw, a bit over 160 fps and a couple a bit under 160 fps.

[Mudd]

I always get a good chuckle when the subject of speed comes up.....and it does....over and over and over.....lol

The animals that are killed with "slow" bows NEVER KNOW THE DIFFERENCE...LOL

God bless,Mudd

[jeffg]

Speed matters to a degree. Speed and arrow weight determines energy. Energy plus a good sharp broadhead is what gives penetration.

10 gpp is about the lightest weight I want to go. To light just for speed goes the other way.

Certainly, to a degree, what is far more important than speed is  a straight flying arrow and a suitable broadhead. I know a nontradganger that has killed a few elk with a low 50s longbow throwing less than 170 fps 520 grain 27"cedars with Hunterheads and Grizzly broadheads. He had the arrows coming out the other side of the elk every time so far. If you by rare chance have two bows that shoot and feel the same except one is 10 or 12 fps faster, most would prefer the faster bow. Throw something into the mix that would make that faster bow less accurate or easy to shoot, most would pick the better feeling bow.  Power comes in stages, depending on the broadhead and arrow and what you expect it to shoot through. Lets take a real slug, a 37 at my less than 27" Cheetah, an uphill 18 yard shot at a fat doe with a skinny but heavy wood arrow pushing a 140 grain Hill.  The arrow was in the next corn row and the deer went down at the edge of the woods maybe 125 yards away. It was not the power of the bow, certainly not the power in my drawing arm that had a muscle nearly torn in half earlier in the year, it was that straight flying arrow with an easy penetrating head, it perhaps helped that I only skidded off one rib with the hit.  I have hit lots of ribs and shoulder blades when shooting from the ground, they seem fairly easy to shoot through.  The next power level would be the shoulder joint, that is a big jump requirement for arrow, broadhead and bow.  Even when I shot deer with an 85 pound bow, I did not want to hit the shoulder. It is a questionable messy hit that can involve a lot of tracking on a painfully injured deer, once was more than enough for me. After an all day trailing job, I was thinking a bounce off would have been better. It took a second arrow to finish the deer and I felt awful for it.

[John McCreary]

I once entered into a "debate" over speed with local loudmouth who owned a part time bow shop. We where shooting in a group at a 3-d course and he continued to brag on his 340 fps compound. By about the 20th target I finally said, my Hill is  faster, which got an instant response from him denying my claim, so I clarified. I can put 3 arrows into a deer before you can, I said, so of course he was up to prove me wrong. Standing next to each other at 20 yards I put three wood arrows into the deer target before he had his second arrow nocked...he continued to claim his bow was faster that I could simply shoot quicker, and my response was, in a hunting situation which is more effective? He ended the conversation...

[Dan bree]

Good  one John.

[jeffg]

I was just shooting through the chrony. I evidently was not pulling it back to anchor, once I consistently got to anchor the average speed is 169 that is a whole lot better. The chrony not only tells me the speed but knowing that helps me to concentrate on bringing the bow to full draw. So it is not all about speed but consistency.

I think what a lot of target based philosophy ignores is the need to be able to shoot with fluid versatility when hunting, especially when hunting from the ground.  While it may be easy for some to think that a 3d deer equals a live deer and to rate their hunting ability on their ability to pick a spot on a motionless chunk of foam. The high sprung nerves and attentiveness of a live deer is a much different thing to shoot at.  That foam deer is never concerned with all the preparations that goes into a shot sequence, while the ground deer hunter is fully aware that every motion he makes is easily detected by very wary game.  It can be a completely different mental state, it helps to have a shooting style and equipment that allows a natural almost no-thought fluid shooting style.   I had one Hill bow that was taken when I left it behind for a half hour.  I had a heart arrhythmia and left my stuff lay because I panicked when I could not get my cell phone to work.  The arrhythmia quit, I went back for my stuff, it was all there except the bow.  That bow was slower than my others, but my wife said "knock it off".  She was talking about rabbits and mostly squirrels. Actually I was getting a bit edgy when I shot at squirrels, because I just knew that I would be skinning one when I shot at one. I would love to report how that bow killed deer, but it was gone, along with my trust of my fellow area hunters, before I had the opportunity.  The arrhythmia was caused by a reaction to Celebrex, I have since found healthier more natural means of dealing with stiff joints.

[Sam McMichael]

John, don't waste your time with guys like this. The difference is, in many cases, the trad guys shoot what they please and don't worry about others, while the compound guys tend to harp on why you should not shoot trad gear. No, not all of them do, but I seem to have observed that a lot.