[David Petersen]

in reply to: EFOC (20+ %) and Aluminum Shafts #56604

Michael — We could use more details, esp. per the “couple of things” you’ve already tried. Starting from scratch, I’d say to swap the standard aluminum inserts for brass, which are much heavier and stronger too. Impossible to find until recently, but now at least one entrepreneur is custom making them and I expect the larger marketplace to catch on fairly soon. Barring that, there are much heavier 2-blade heads available, like the 250 Abowyer Brown Bear and the 320-grain ABS Ashby (both screw-in with steel adapters). Both are expensive with the ABS far out front in that category. Grizzly El Grande and Tusker Concord are also superb heads, much cheaper, both at 190 grains. But if you really want to max FoC and gain other advantages, relegate your aluminums for stump shooting and small game and go with carbon, which have endless advantages including brass inserts in several weights, brass weight washers, “internal footing” weights, adjustable nocks, a wide range of spine forgiveness and a much slimmer thus better-penetrating shaft diameter. My 2 sense. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Grizzly tough! #56600

Thanks, Ron. Even though I’ve been doing it for a while now, I still need an occasional refresher course from the Master. I might add that this same method works equally well for all double bevel broadheads I’ve tried it on. Half as much sharpening, twice as much sharpness (due to the single bevel).dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Shorty #51083

😳

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Carbon Shaft 2nd's #51081

“Unfortunately, my friend is not alone.”

No, he sure isn’t!

[David Petersen]

in reply to: 2 Blade Blood Trails? #46634

Jesse — I got poor penetration on elk because I was shooting fat, light (500-550 grain) aluminum arrows with 125 replaceable blade heads (Thunderheads). Overall weight too low, low/almost no FoC, relatively poor penetrating heads all added up, from a 64# recurve, to provide insufficient penetration for elk, esp. when hitting a rib going in. Not always: I killed my biggest bull with that setup. With double-lung penetration but no pass-through, and a shad too high to get the heart, we ran off maybe 70 yards and I cow called him back to die about 20 yards from me, all of which took about a minute and he’d covered over a hundred yards. That was the best. The worst was a bull I hit in the shoulder with a cedar shaft and 125 grain Wolverine, about 550 grains with same 64# bow. The thin Wolverine tip bent and broke off down to the ferule and fell right out, having penetrating only an inch or two to the bone. Elk was unhurt. That flimsy Wolverine, I understand, has seen been taken off the market. Then there were several more in between — I’ve written the full story of the “Same Bull Twice,” which survived 2 weeks with a Thunderhead in one lung before I found and killed him. Others it took me hours to track down with lousy blood trails (that’s with 3-blades) and often needing a follow-up shot. Since I adopted the Ashby basics of heavy arrow, heavy strong 2-blade head, etc., I’ve killed every elk I’ve hit, and had to trail none because they died in sight. And that’s after dropping about 10 pounds of draw weight to the mid-50s with longbows … ah, but these newer r/d longbows produce more speed than that older recurve! We can, and will, argue circumstances and hypotheticals till the sun turns blue, and it’s fun and educational, but that pragmatic personal experience is the source of all my conviction and proselytizing of Ashby’s work and all the proof I need. Oh, and yes Jesse, all my arrows, then and now, have perfect flight or I don’t take them hunting. Time to go split some firewood. Winter will be here again before we know it, and none too soon for me. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: EFOC woodies #38065

Clay Hayes wrote: Dave,

In your testing of woodie weights, what broke? was it the shaft or did the impact cause the BH to seperate from the weight?

ch

Clay — Sorry for the delay in responding. Both — that is, I had separation of the field point from the woodyweight, and I also had enhanced incidence of shaft breakage behind the head due to the longer “lever arm” and torque of the double-length head on angled impact with a hard target. I must assume until proven otherwise that both these issues would perhaps be even worse with a broadhead because it’s longer and “catches” the target material more abruptly on impact. But remember, I was trying to make this happen so was doing comparison shooting at a consistent angle of about 30 degrees into a big old ponderosa pine with thick bark to provide some cushion. So long as shots are straight in, if you get a good glue joint between head and WW (I wound up using epoxy after several failures with hotmelt), I saw no difference in my admittedly amateurish test shots. But then, we are working to build arrow systems for just those “wabby-sabby” occassions when things are less than perfect. I’ve totally abandoned WoodyWeights, but that doesn’t mean others can’t make them work. Thing is, as good broadheads increasingly come available in ever-heavier weights, with field points to match, why not use those rather than a lighter head and a WW? Restated: I’m uncomfy with adding another potentially weak link to the arrow system. The tungsten rod, because it’s stiff, sounds like the ticket at this point, since it adds notable weight and strength where it’s most needed as well. And I doubt, per unit, if it costs more than WWs. My 1 cent. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: The Running Woodsman #38036

Hey Clay — I’m thinking that your title gives the wrong impression … I expected to see you post about the joys of jogging in the forest, seriously. Maybe a more apropos title will get more folks to take a look. Good idea by the way, but it’s so damn hot here right now that sleeping in the shade sounds better than running in the woods! 🙂 dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: 2 Blade Blood Trails? #37121

Well said, Todd! I may well steal your John Dodge quote as my “signature” here, as it says everything I tried to say in my book-length intro to this forum, and more, in succinct beauty! Put up (try it for yourself) or shut up and leave me alone. We are fighting modern bowhunting cultural inertia, and good on us for that: “Swim upstream! Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” My motivation is straightforward and devoid of pride: For years I had “disappointing” results (a self-serving euphemism for doing sloppy work) with “well placed shots” using “shaving sharp broadheads” on elk. Once I started experimenting with Ashby’s research findings, that soul-shredding-painful history found its happy end.

IronCreek — you won’t be disappointed this fall! Put your heavy, high FoC, single-bevel, two-blade heads sharp heads low and forward and unless you’re hunting in a jungle where you can’t see 20 yards, they’ll drop in sight. Of course, ground-level shots are a great advantage in gaining double-lung/heart pass-throughs as well.

In my half-century of bowhunting, we’ve forgotten most of what basic knowledge we’d learned in eons of painful experiments. Of course primitive hunters often did a sloppy and “unethical” job of killing game with gear and tactics that would be considered unethical today and mostly illegal. But what choice did they have? I have a friend in bush AK who “fishes” with nets and considers catch-and-release “playing with your food.” When survival is the object, higher ethical considerations go out the window. We’ve all seen paintings by Catlin and other early white painters in the West of Indians on horseback with short bows drawing to shoot yet another light wood arrow into a buffalo who already has several shafts sticking out of it, none with deep penetration. That’s how they did it, because that’s all they had to work with. We have neither the moral justification nor the need for that sort of BS today.

OOps, there I go again, being an “elitist” … sorry …

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Shooting Game Already Dead..issues? #35504

Good discussion. I will absolutely “test” my elk this year, should I be blessed to get one. I’ll have four different heads on four otherwise identical arrows and rotate them on the string throughout the hunt so that the one that does the job will be by lottery, as it were. Whichever one kills the elk, the other three will go into a shoulder blade, or maybe both shoulders, after propping the animal in an upright position to make it realistic as possible. I’ll then try to take the animal apart in a way to photograph and show penetration and bone damage in detail. And I don’t expect this to ruin more than a very few bites of meat total, and all of that on the shoulder(s). No biggie in my ethical view given the addition to knowledge that has the potential to prevent massive amounts of wounding loss and suffering. Nonetheless I’m deeply impressed that we have hunters among us who have such deep respect for the animals they hunt that they choose not to do this. Not everyone needs to do this — just enough of us to confirm repeatedly what Ashby’s research has shown, conducted by a variety of hunters on a variety of game, etc. But first, I have to find a cooperative elk! Dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Arrow weight #34641

Steve is on as usual. By combining Ashby’s research results and my own experiments, I feel that FoC is more important than total weight … up or down to a point. Specifically, with all else equal I get better penetration with 680 grain arrows and 20+ percent FoC than I do with 750-grain arrows and -20 percent FoC. What you are hunting counts for a lot here. All of this research and talk is focused on getting lethal penetration with inevitable heavy bone hits on really big game like elk. So indeed, as many will point out, you don’t need as much Ashby Umph! for a 120-pound whitetail. But as Doc and others point out, when the goal is full penetration no matter how bad the hit, there is no such thing as over-preparing or overkill, so long as you maintain perfect arrow flight, the beginning and end. My own opinion is that your overall weight is low for any big game. I humbly suggest you may find happy results with 550-grains overall, more or less, and bumping up to at least 145 for broadheads. My own rule is to pile as much weight up front as the arrow will handle accurately. More FoC = improved stability and accuracy in my experience, as well as enhanced penetration, so there’s really no loss. Check out the Ashby Arrow Lethality forum here form more input from those who have tried it. Dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: I'm new here #33293

Ray — The one and only Hog Terminator Man I wish I could join you down there someday. Esp. when the skeets aren’t bad and the gators aren’t pissy. My elk pal Alex Bugnon showed me pics from his hunt with you, with alligators everywhere! Which tastes best? Pork or prehistoric reptile? Which is meanest?

Ed — thanks for taking time to post the forms, amid your hectic medical travel regimen. I’ll be packing both forms this fall, with a bowquiver carrying four of the best Ashby-inspired heads available, all of which will get shot into a warm elk, dead or alive, assuming I can find a 300-plus to cooperate. Let’s get well and let’s get hunting again! Dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: EFOC woodies #24277

I agree that tungsten is the way to go. O.L. Adcock uses it and though I’d had a nip that night I seem to recall him saying he hadn’t broken off a head with it yet. He showed me a skinny rod of the stuff and it’s amazingly heavy and adds strength back to the drilled-out shaft tip, where soft lead does not. He uses a clever little homemade wood guide to get the drilling perfectly centered every time. I’d expect some arrow makers to start offering these soon, as they would be cheaper and offer more FoC than footed shafts. I I guess you could drill and wire a footed shaft as well.

[David Petersen]

in reply to: EFOC woodies #23408

Clay — look up at the top dark green bar for Ashby Library. Click on that and you’ll see another link to the FoC easy calculation chart (I’ll ask Robin if it’s possible to get a direct link of its own so it’s not so hidden) — no math necessary, just a couple of ruler measurements. Double-check your FoC, remind us what weight bow you’re shooting and whether wood (slow) or glass, carbon, etc.

Good stuff Steve. While some are complaining that we of the Ashby persuasion are troubling the minds of inexperienced archers “with stuff they don’t need to worry about,” I counter that anyone who’s trying to kill our fellow creatures in an ethical way had damnwell better worry about getting it right! So you can hardly “over obsess” with this stuff. Besides, thinking, like real hunting, is fun once you get used to the pain, eh?! 😈 My experience agrees with yours — that it’s easier to increase FoC with lighter shafts, and that EFoC on lighter shafts, all else equal, gives more penetration than normal FoC on heavier shafts … just so we don’t drop below What Ed tells us is minimal overall weight for all big game esp. from lighter, slower bows, 650 grains. My current elk rig is 680 grains with EFoC, selected over 750 grains with high FoC due to consistently better peneteration in foam. In recent years I’ve been carrying a selection of excellent arrow setup choices so that whichever one I wind up killing an elk with, I’ll be able to shoot at least four different combos into the fresh warm animal’s scapula. I never ever want to say “What went wrong?” again when I hear that horrid bone-hit sound and see the arrow bounce back or fall out with insignificant penetration as the animal runs away. Time now for Mex beer, American hamburgers, and Chinese fireworks. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: EFOC woodies #23041

Clay — if you don’t mind sharing, how are going getting 20% FoC on woodies?

Steve — I’ve gone the WoodyWeight route and really like they way they make my arrows fly. But my test shooting at angles into hard backgrounds (pine tree) has them breaking apart far more often than the usual problem of cedar shafts breaking behind the head. As much as I wish this easy fix could be an answer, I just don’t trust them behind broadheads for big game. The only setup I’ve yet tried that provides EFoC and actually strengthens rather than weakens wood shafts is using an external footing via aluminum shaft tip. This has the advantage of allow you to use screw-in heads and weights, but the disadvantage of looking clunky and compromise the all-woody goal if that’s what you’re after. I also tried internal footing via drilling and inserting nails, but the added weight was nowhere near enough. I know that O.L. Adcock was experimenting with a really heavy stiff wire insert, but I can’t recall what it was. This is a huge challenge for those of us who have seen the remarkable gains in accuracy and penetration EFoC offers, yet prefer to shoot woodies. Even purpleheart footed shafts don’t come close. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Arrow weight #19978

Latrans? As in, coyote? Clever!

[Author]

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