Home › Forums › Friends of FOC › Dang Dr. Ashby Reports
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I have read the reports here and now you have me questioning my entire bow hunting set-up. My arrows are to light, my broadheads to fragile, and it is just the luck of my shot selection (and the extreme blood trailing skills I’ve had to develop over the last 40years) that has allowed me to take as many deer as I have(75-100 with my recurve) with so few losses..
Thank You so very much…
I now have some work ahead of me to make my set-up better and by following your research I know I can get it done…
Again, Thank you so very much for your effort and making me realise there is a better way to ensure there is a dead critter at the end of that blood trail…
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I know how you feel. I was privileged to get some 1:1 email and PM input from the good Doc years back as this whole EFOC stuff fascinated me. After my seeming family member, Arty Ritis, came to live at my house, I had to start dropping draw weight and was concerned for penetration.
I also learned that the Broad Head sharpener I was using, although it gave very sharp edges, were only 19* bevels and very fragile.
So I revamped my arrows. I had gone to heavy loading em up with weedeater .095 line and all sorts of stuff… then backed up and went with the lightest grain weight shafts that met my spine requirements and put the weight in the heads.
At my 47# draw weight, out of a very efficient Bigfoot bow, they do well to 30 and I won’t shoot that far on game anyway! Too much brush for my eyes to see all the small stuff and chance deflections.
Using 300 gr. up front at 27% FOC, I’m happy with my 589 gr. arrows. Got a KME shapener and some tutorial from Ron on his gear and now I have durable edges that are super sharp…and sharp when they bury in the dirt. Those 19* edges were dull going thru the deer! (and left sparse blood trails)
Make no mistake…tons of critters are killed and retrieved using lower foc arrows w/ sharp heads. I personally just like the “margin off error” the higher foc gives me now shooting lower draw weight. That, and I now use much smaller feathers and have WAY quieter arrows in flight…
With lower draw weight, I don’t have the flatter trajectory as the EFOC rose that I may have had before… but since I limit my shot distance, it’s a trade I made willingly.
Don’t make yourself crazy…especially IN SEASON! 😀
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After checking my arrows 30.5 length gold tip expedition hunter carbon arrows, 5inch syn. Feather fleching, 100gr muzzy 3blade ‘head I end up with 12% foc…
I don’t have any idea as to total arrow weight…
Arrows do hit where I look, there is some visable “wiggle”,but out of all the deer I’ve shot, I would guess that only 10%have been pass-throughs…(I do go for that behind one shoulder to pin the off shoulder shot)
Should I get a scale to weigh arrows and try to increase over-all weight, by using heavy inserts??? Heavyer b-heads????
Got me wondering now…
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A ton of people have shot 12% for decades…it was what old school believed.
If by “visible wiggle” you mean that as distance increases, there is a discernible “arrows behaving badly” in flight… well, you might could improve on that.
I like pass thru shots in our heavy cover as it gives me more blood on the ground…
Once you embark on the higher FOC, things change. I had to leave my Bare Shaft Planning method of tuning behind and use Troy’s method. I printed it out from Tuff Head site and it changed how I do tuning totally.
Also learned once they flew and stuck well in a homogenous target medium, then I started ‘backing up’ and found I still had issues at longer distances… kept tuning.
Now when one behaves badly in flight, it’s my release or overall form… not my set up. I shot for a week solid and kept all sorts of notes. Yeah, I’m anal about such stuff, but I don’t trust my consistency like some perhaps so I kept records and marked arrows!
As for buying this or that… that is a personal choice. I did without for years. When you increase the FOC, weight often goes up… but they don’t need to be heavy arrows to get higher foc.
BTW, even cap wraps screwed my foc. Tiny bit of weight at the rear eats FOC while more up front enhances foc slower but is the goal.
Now I buy light GPI target type arrows, put alum over footing on front to increase durability and strive for higher foc w/out all the total weight. I spray a white cap on the shaft (no 11 gr. cap wrap) and smaller feathers (made big difference) and am happy.
Several of my Western buds who hunt elk and comfortably shoot farther than I will, think this EFOC stuff is nuts! Do what feels right and makes sense in your own head/heart!
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Thank You DocNock for the replys.. The visable wiggle is right after release, bare fingers, then the arrow kinda stabilises and continues on target…
My lack of pass-throughs is what has me thinking now about getting a higher FOC, Penetration was never an issue before, I always WANTED that arrow in the lung area, churning around doing more damage as the deer ran off…
I’m going try and forget all this (if my tiny, OCD brain will let me hehehe )untill after my deer seasons (NY and AZ) then work it hard for the future…
Thanks….
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I guess I was typing too long a reply and got kicked off timing out.
Suffice it to say that there are people on here who are experts at this EFOC stuff, I’m just a student there of!
Your set up works for you. Aiming at the offside shoulder to keep the arrow inside works. If you can track and find them, that is all that matters. I like 2 holes.
I wish I could still shoot 60# to get more of that but I have found the higher FOC to help!
Keep on till you have relaxed time to learn and play. Then there are people and posts here that will totally help you!
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I can only tag on to what Doc has already said, but here are a few of my general observations, based on actually shooting these setups (as opposed to many who argue to the contrary about FOC, and have obviously never shot them…):
– Sure, many animals have been taken with low FOC setups over the years, and you’ll always hear the, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” argument. Well, I think the old-school approach to low FOC arrows IS somewhat broken. You can always point to the successes, but what tends to get ignored are the failures – in this case wounded and/or unrecoverable animals. And while many animals have been taken with low FOC setups, the part that no one seems to want to mention is that there are also many animals that have been shot, and haven’t been taken, or have at least suffered more than they should have before they eventually expired.
– The more I shoot and play around with EFOC (I’m currently shooting 29% and 650gr.), the more I have really started to believe that the low FOC approach to arrows is rife with increased potential for tuning issues, not to mention a variety of inefficiencies. Why else would an arrow “need” that much fletching? The simple truth is because many low FOC setups are more unstable otherwise. Proper high FOC setups are inherently a great deal more stable in flight (and far easier to tune, in my experience). And guess what? It doesn’t take long to realize that they also require significantly less fletching (and helical), and they still fly dead straight. Excessive fletching and more than necessary helical are just additional inefficiencies, but many people continue to use them, because otherwise their arrows would fly like crap. Or, because they’ve never considered experimenting with other approaches, and have simply “done what everyone else does.”
– I have a friend who was completely convinced that my arrows would nosedive 10ft. from the bow, when I described my arrow weight and FOC %. That is, until he watched me shoot it @ 20yards, and saw that the trajectory was just as flat as a 500gr. arrow with 12% FOC, and how much more it penetrated the target. He’s a believer now…
– Lastly, I think it’s important to note that none of this is anything new, despite the number of disbelievers saying that all this “new-fangled” tweaking isn’t really necessary, and that people are just trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be. There are plenty of historic examples of archery cultures that understood the benefits of increasing their FOC.
Everyone should make up their own minds, and like any path of experimentation, there will be successes and failures until you find just the right combo. But if/when you find it, I guarantee that some light bulbs will go off. I just encourage everyone who has an opinion on the subject to speak from actual experience, rather than pre-conceived assumptions. 😉
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I would have to agree that high Foc is nothing new, I have found and collected arrowheads since I was a kid, most arrowheads, are realy knives, but a flint arrowhead that was made to be shot from a bow has a lot of “throw weight”…
I just never put it together, dang I can feel so dumb sometimes hehehe…
Note- bows didn’t show-up on the NA scene untill 1000-1500 years ago and most bows (eastern US)were only 25-30lbs draw weight, that along with a higher “throw weight” would have been just what the good “DR.” has shown in his research…
I’m a believer now that these “lights” are going off in my head like staring into a laser pointer…
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I totally agree with the ASHBY reports and his findings. Read most , if not all of it last year for the first time and readily could understand the gains vs. the losses when utilizing high FOC.
I am presently shooting arrows that are far too heavy but can’t do anything about it at this time , being unemployed and a full time student . Hopefully , later on I will get a much lighter shaft and a heavier broadhead to achieve EFOC ; have a super quiet bow ; and obtain better EFFICIENCY from the bow .
Example of my FOC experience :100 grain Judo point and 2216 at around 14 % foc , would bounce and roll walnuts around the yard . Now a solid HAMMER blunt(250 grain plus 180 grain 30 cal. bullet) and same arrow at 24.8% foc litterally explodes walnuts .
My next step is to be rid of the fletching noise .
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SH, Amen, Brother, AMEN!
Now, guys… it’s in the season…we best back off a touch on the superiority of EFOC for 1shot’s sake…lest he go skizzoid on us and start messin with the season open and start mmmm–issin critters! 8)
I read a lot of testaments to how arrows with big feathers are noisy… found the small, straight fletch to be much quieter.
Using feathers to steer bad tuned arrows means you’ve used up the feather’s ability to correct a bad release before you ever make a mistake! I need the help for ME.
IT will come to those who strive. I tried some GT Entrada (now a new name in marketplace)but as Troy and others pointed out in PM’s: Many carbons will have variances in spine, weight, etc in a given dozen, so now I tune EACH arrow…not a couple and then cut the rest to match like before. In latest dozen, I had 3 cut to different length t o get to fly with others… 😯
It can get involved, but the end result is more confidence!
and I’d say as others have, increased lethality. I owe it to the critters that I shoot at!
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mhay wrote:
My next step is to be rid of the fletching noise .
For a long time, I’d been using 3 x 4″ fletching, with cap wraps (for no other reason than aesthetics, and they made arrows easier to find when stumping). A while back (in conjunction with bumping my point weigh up significantly), I decided to ditch the wraps and switch to 4 x 2-1/4″ straight fletching, just as an experiment. I fully expected that it would be nothing more than that, and that I was reducing my fletching by far too much, and that straight fletch was “crazy” according to all the so-called experts.
Instead, I immediately gained a noticeable bump in my FOC %, they flew great (even with broadheads) and they are dead silent. Plus, if cost is a concern, you can get a bag of 50 2-1/4″ feathers for $11 – about the typical cost of a dozen larger feathers. For as cheap as I can get 50 feathers, plus not buying wraps anymore, my arrows have actually gotten less expensive to build…in addition to flying great and penetrating a lot more, of course. 😀
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listen to this guy Smithhammer…he do got the HAMMER!
You write well, sir and say much in short posts! My hat’s off to you!
Doc Ashby keeps telling me I don’t NEED my 3″x1/2″ feathers, but I had gotten a custom built chopper for those size feathers from a guy on another site in an auction for charity.
They are so much quieter, even to my bad ears, that I didn’t think I had to do more..maybe someday.
Point is that fedders are there, from what I’ve learned, to correct OUR mistakes shooting fingers, NOT to correct tuning problems.
EX: I got my new Sasquatch and it would NOT shoot my 28% FOC 5575’s for snot! (100 gr. brass insert + 200 gr. head) that shot fine outa all my other like draw weight bows) I had to bump up in spine to handle all the oomph Kirk put in his limbs!
I get to a buddy’s house and he’s got 3555 with 50 gr. inserts and 125 heads and dares me to try one…they flew like rockets right to the bull.
This freaked me. I got a few 3555 and a couple 50 gr. inserts and tried them bare shaft…flew sideways!
Checked with my buddy upstate and he had on HUGE 5.5″ high shield cut feathers…
Those big feathers CORRECTED all that lack of spine to where they appeared to fly well…and being light as a proverbial feather, were rather fast!
They stuck, but not deep like MINE do! Feathers have over shadowed a lot of HOOEY for decades in this thing called Traditional Archery. The cat is out of the bag!
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1shot wrote: Thanks for the concern about making changes this close to the season… I’ll be shooting my current set-up this year but next year I’ll be starting anew, with more knowledge due to these reports… Thank You to all that replied…
Good call. That’s what winter (and a good pint of stout…8)) are for.
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