Reply To: poor performing EFOC arrow

[Doc Nock]

#52255

Thanks for taking my post in the vein it was intended, Preston.

I couldn’t see that post show up…so thought it got lost in cyber space.

I’ve often said and still believe, Archery is a game of inches

EFOC will go a LONG WAY toward maximize recoveries, but it’s not fool proof.

Arrows must all wrap around the riser with finger release, and with a larger shy of center, like IBO-legal longbows and most self bows, it’s greater shy of center, requiring a lighter/softer spine to allow it to wrap around the extra riser material and then come back in line and stay straight…

Regardless how high your FOC, how fast that particular arrow recovers from paradox is something I cannot speculate upon. I have no basis other’n SWAG (Scientific wild A$$ guess) to wonder…(WONDER) if a lighter spine shaft takes longer to come out of paradox than stiffer?

If so, at that closer range, it may still have been noodling a bit and thus hit slightly off…but you say that set up shot fine in practice. As we all know (or should) standing on your two feet, with zero pressure, one can hit full draw and use back tension well…under field conditions, and pressure of presence of game, it’s totally different…

I had a bow string that would “stretch” a lot in the heat…and it was a wellmade flemish type… I noticed at a summer 3D that I was hitting way low and the flight was squirrely. I checked the brace…way low. Wound it up to where it was to be and bada bing…back on target.

Simple stick bows can be so complex in the things that affect their performance and my hat’s off to you for using a self bow… I cannot shoot them to save my soul! The hand shock in 99% is so great, I think my fillings are going to switch teeth, but in 20 shots, my elbows ache so badly, I quit.

Again, my ONLY point is there are SO MANY variables involved, that it would be unwise to lay the failure at the foot of EFOC that has proven itself in so many ways, under varying conditions, that perhaps its something a bit closer to ‘home’…

Good to examine all factors when game is lost…shows conscience! Excellent! But don’t get miopic and miss the variables