Bender wrote: Not saying that EFOC causes bad flight. Haven’t seen what Ashby uses. But it wouldn’t surprise me that he would use a reasonably sized fletch. He seems to know what he’s doing. What I am saying it that way too many have ignored basic principles of tuning in their efforts to achieve EFOC, and as a consequence wind up using huge fletch just so they have something that kinda sorta flys. It seems to happen most often with new folks with little or no experience in arrow construction. They read about somewhere like a website or forum and they take it that EFOC is the be all and end all of arrow construction. Its becoming a dominant mindset to the exclusion of the basics. I’m not saying that EFOC is “bad”. But the well tuned arrow put in the right spot will do far more for your penetration and kill ratio than any amount of EFOC ever will. Follow the basics, get some time and experience, and over time that experience will enable you to play around with stuff like EFOC and determine for yourself what does and does not work. There is no reason what so ever for new folks to be confused or worse yet be out there shooting crappy set ups.

Bender,

“Haven’t seen what Ashby uses”. Please read under the Ashby Lethality Forum: RE” What Broadhead Weight is Better” and the “Silent Arrow” posts. Dr. Ashby goes in detail in describing his feather recommendations. Not sure who is recommending the “huge fletch” you describe, but that recommendation is not coming from Dr. Ashby.

In the 2007 Study,Update 8, “Penetration Enhancing Factors”,
Dr.Ashby lists arrow flight as #2 when it comes to penetration. There are at least twelve other factors to consider (ie, MA, arrow mass, shaft-diameter, etc). As you correctly point out, some are possibly spending too much time on FOC,EFOC and Ultra-FOC and not looking at the entire
twelve pieces of the pie outlined in update 8.

You might want to read the 2007 Study, Update, Part 2, Misconceptions. Ashby provides research regarding putting “the well tuned arrow put in the right spot”

Ireland