Joe, I remain unsure of the usefulness of this exercise, as all it tells us is what others are using … when what really matters to assure we recover every animal we shoot at, is how well an arrow performs on big game, especially with less than perfect shots. And as another contributor has noted, bow weight etc. does play in: the slower and lower weight the bow, the more weight and FOC we need to assure enough momentum to get the job done even with heavy bone hits, which arent’ all that rare. But if you want it, my friend, here it is, for now:
Bow: Java Man “Elkheart” r/d “long”bow, 54″ length, 52lb @ 28” draw.
Carbon arrows: Carbon Express Heritage 250s, 29-3/4″ long. 4×3″ feathers, 1/2″ high. Plastic nocks. 787 grains total: 75 grain brass inserts, 50 grain steel broadhead adapters, 300 grain Tuffheads. FOC = 28.5%.
Notes: These are my well-proven go-to elk arrows, having produced several complete pass-throughs–some with major bone hits and others not–at 20 yards and less, with elk always going down within sight (in heavy woods where sight distance is short). Zero animals unrecovered. I have no particular loyalty to CE shafts, but the work well and are cheap.
Woodies: Sitka spruce, 29-3/4″ long, same fletching as carbons above. 705 grains total weight with 300 grain glue-on Tuffheads. FOC = 23.5%. I’ve shot only one elk with this setup, a yearling cow about 400lbs. Shaft broke an inch behind the head and fell out, yet head had enough momentum to slice the heart in half and the elk ran only 25 yards before down and dead.
Notes: This is perhaps the last of a long line of experiments with almost every lighter softwood shaft wood, in an effort to get EFOC with woodies. I tried adding a 2″ aluminum collar behind the head for strength and increased FOC a bit (collar weight about 15 grains), but that only transferred the breakage (testing by shooting at an angle into live pine trees). Until someone proves me wrong with well-documented and repeated test and hunt data, I have given up on EFOC with softwood shafts and heavy heads. Hardwoods are the only woods that are strong enough to not break on angled impact with bone … but invariably too heavy to produce EFOC, esp. for me as I prefer to start with a heavy reliable braodhead and work back down the shaft from there. For me, if you want to shoot woods it means working with weight alone, with little to no help from FoC. I’ve done it and it works, but depending on bow weight and speed and ect. you’re looking at a minimum 800 grains total weight, which works against lighter slower bows. On the flip side, part of the multifold magic of EFOC is that you can get great penetration, even on heavy bone, without super-heavy total weight, though I follow Ashby’s advice for minimum weight of 650. All of life is a trade-off and as much as I prefer to shoot wood and still do when I can, I have become convinced via personal experience that if you really put the animal first, and if “most of the time is works” isn’t good enough, it’s carbon shafts for big tough animals like elk, moose and big bears. Successful exceptions are noted, but exceptions are just that … exceptions, not the rule. Ed Ashby has established the rule and after years of testing it, I haven’t been able to find a single fault.
In the end I must point out, as always, that all of my archery gear is set up to hunt big elk while allowing for the possibility of bad hits, though I do my best to get good hits, as do all of us who holds our shots to our personal max range (long shooters are creeps and slobs, no matter the weapon). If you’re hunting nothing but whitetails, you don’t need the weight and FOC of my arrows … though, for reasons of conscience and because I was a pre-C Boy Scout (“Be prepared”) and at almost age 70 with life’s usual injuries, can only accurately handle low-50s bows these days, I won’t hunt any big mammal with less than 650 grains and 20% FOC.
