How do I make a heavy carbon arrow?

[evonichr]

#4982

Hello, new to the forum. This is my 1st post. I was hunting in Africa last fall and lost several nice animals (expensive) with what looked like reasonable shots because of sub-optimal penetration. I shoot a 53# shrew, GrizzlyStik Sitka shafts and Ashby broadheads. I previously shot Carbon Express shafts with weight tubes, but anytime I hit anything semi-solid I’d lose the nock even if the tubes were glued in. I was at the Kalamazoo Rendezvous several weeks ago and Monty Browning gave a fantastic talk on the importance of heavy arrows. He glossed over how he did it, but I believe he uses a carbon shaft with copper wire on the inside. The arrow weight was ~1000 grains. I was waiting to talk with him after the presentation, to get the how-to specifics, but my family got into a car accident in Saginaw, so I had to drive to the hospital on the other side of the state. Everyone is OK now, but I don’t know any more about how to make my arrows heavier. Does anyone have the particulars? Again the problem I see is losing the nock everytime you connect with a stump as the weight inside bounces around.
Thanks,
Rudy

[Patrick]

#35865

Howdy,
If you are not using full length shafts, you could possibly add weight by switching to a full length shaft. Both, the extra length, and the necessity of a heavier spined arrow (the Alaskan or Safari), could give you a substantial weight increase without alot of other messing around.

[David Petersen]

#35882

Rudy — let’s hope Dr. Ashby soon recovers from his latest med setback and is able to help you with this. Meanwhile, I believe he would reiterate that while overall arrow weight is very important to penetration, EFoC (extreme forwward-of-center) weight distribution is even more important. To use and example close to your own, I shoot 54# Shrew Classic Hunters, drawing 28″. In my experiments a 650-grain arrow with 25+ percent EFoC out-penetrates a 750-grain arrow with 19 percent FoC. I too have had nocks pop out on hard impacts, more so with GrizzlyStiks than with CE shafts, and it has nothing to do with internal footings bouncing around as I don’t use them. As the ABS folks explained it to me, it’s the shock of hard impact being transferred to the back of the shaft. You can glue them in place, or put up with it. To adjust FoC with carbon shafts without using internal footings, you have a good start with that heavy head, and can add pretty darn heavy steel broadhead adapters (I use 125s) and brass inserts (I use 100s). Since you’re shooting a fairly light bow on heavy African game, you’d do well to get overall weight really high as well as EFoC, but Ashby’s research says that of the two, EFoC is primary. Good luck. dave

[Timbow]

#36179

Hi Rudy,
I am not exctly new here but this is my first post. I suggest doing some reading in the Ashby Libray as well as Dr. Ashby’s post on “internal footing” in this forum. It appears you have the rght broadhead and your arrows are plenty heavy. You could probably get by with less weight as long as you stay above the heavy bone threshold of 650gr. I agree with David that increasing your FOC would probably help the most. Start with a shaft that has the lowest “GPI” you can find in the correct spine for your bow. You may have to go with a stiffer spine than you are used to beacause you will be putting most of the weight up front. I shoot 53# and use Easton Flatlines at 7.4 gpi. Using your current broadheads and heavy brass inserts should fill the bill.

Tim

[L82HUNT]

#36276

With your current setup you had both good arrow weight (600 + grains) and fairly high FOC 20% at least. I would have thought you would of had no problem with penetration. Perhaps you were not having perfect arrow flight. I would look there first.

[Treetopflier]

#36324

I like all of the responses so far! Too often we look to gear for all the answers. And certainly the wrong setup (in one way or another undergunned) for the game you’re after is a tragedy waiting to happen. But maybe part of your problem could be as others suggest, say for examples, shots that were too long therefore bleeding off accuracy and momentum, bad hits on heavy bone, etc. I agree that it sounds like you have basically a sound setup. While fine-tuning with more FOC should definitely help, you’ll still need all the other ingredients working for you as well, including perfect arrow flight, reasonable range to target, correct shot angle, killing accuracy, really sharp broadheads (even the ABS out of package ain’t there yet),etc. Traditional bowhunting seems so very simply. Yet when we seriously analyze our failures, a confusing number of “working parts” come into play. Good on you for ‘fessing-up to “something ain’t quite right here” and working to correct it. I think you’re getting good advice. Best luck, Snuffy

[evonichr]

#37745

Thanks for all the great feedback. I’ve tried the Alaskan and Safari shafts and the spine is too stiff for my bow. When I cut the Sitka to 30″ it flies perfect with the 75 gr insert and 315 gr point (bare shaft). With the Ashby head on a 4 fletch arrow my arrow flight looks pretty clean. I’ll admit the Eland I lost was poor shot placement (about 2 inches too far forward). I hit exactly where I was looking (it was a 12 yard shot), but the problem was lack of knowledge of the animal’s anatomy. I hit the shoulder and the arrow bounced right out. I lost a huge Gemsbuck with what looked like a perfect shot at 15 yards. Hit right behind the shoulder, but only got ~12″ of penetration. I’ll see what I can do to increase weight on the front end further. Thanks, Rudy

[Fletcher]

#37789

Rudy, you haven’t mentioned checking arrow flight, so I’ll bring it up, as good arrow flight trumps everything else for good penetration and arrow performance. I prefer to paper tune, but some others like bareshafting. Whatever method you choose, make sure your arrows are flying straight and true. No matter how heavy or fast, an arrow flying even a little bit sideways will not penetrate well.

[Patrick]

#37823

Fletcher wrote: I prefer to paper tune, but some others like bareshafting.

😆 What perfect timing! I just posted on the other thread how I just did a complete 180 and now believe bare shaft tuning is better. Than you throw this curve ball.
[Disclaimer to all: I don’t know squat compared to Fletcher]

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