[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Does anybody really pay this much? #52580

Just for the record, most of my buffalo have NOT been taken with “high tech, high dollar stuff”. I’ve killed most of my buffalo with a straight end longbow, a heavy hardwood shaft and the 190 Grizzly broadhead. Does it work? You bet it does. Do the A&A fletched, EFOC and Ultra-EFOC carbon shafts and the Ashby BH offer an advantage? Yes. From the same bow it gives exit wounds and the BH is still shaving sharp AFTER passing through a buffalo. My heavy hardwoods and the Grizzly didn’t give me that type of performance. If I were starting out to shoot all those buffalo again which arrow setup would I use? The one that gives me the best performance I can get.

What arrow setup do I now use on smaller big game? The same one that works best on the big stuff. If it works best on a buffalo it’s certaily going to work on the smaller big game too.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #52556

Kingwouldbe wrote: Doc, that’s it….. you are now the mad scientist……..lol, I’m just a wouldbe hunter who gets to reap the benefits of guys like you and Adcock.

Is everything a test for you?….. I think you hunt with a slide ruler and a calculator in your back quiver, I don’t think that’s traditional…lol

I think I resemble that remark!

I’ve had several experiences like what you describe, David. I had an impala do a total backflip and end up 5 yards from where my arrow struck. That was on a 15 yard shot, with an arrow having 6”, helical, parabolic cut 3-fletch.

My first Chobe bushbuck (which, to the best of my knowledge was the first taken by a modern bowhunter) wheeled and started to move before the arrow arrived and I hit it squarely through both hips. That arrow had the same fletching pattern. Fortunately it was a heavy Forgewood with a 190 Grizzly. It broke both hips, right through the ball joints, and severing the femoral arteries. The arrow hung by the fletching on the exit side. He went down right on the spot and expired in seconds. That was also the longest shot I’ve ever killed a big game animal on; 42 yards.

I had a hog in Australia do like your deer. It was an 18 yard shot at his RIGHT shoulder. The arrow hit mid gut on his LEFT side. Fortunately the arrow/broadhead did its job and he only traveled 160 yards before going down. That arrow had 4”, helical, parabolic 4-fletch.

I do seem to notice far less before-impact animal reaction to the shot since I started using the A&A fletching. I believe that the sound of the arrow in flight is (at least) as big a factor in before-impact animal reaction as is bow noise. However I want both my bow AND my arrow to be a silent as I can get them. I believe it does make a difference.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Does anybody really pay this much? #52523

dabersold wrote: Well Doc – With all due respect, for not having any connection with ABS, you just gave one heck of an endorsement for every product I mentioned.
Are they the absolute best? I don’t know. Are they the most technically advanced arrows, heads, and bows. I don’t know and don’t care. Will they make you a better shot or bowhunter? No they won’t. I think my biggest beef is the lies that most business advertise that you have to have the biggest and best of everythin, every year to be a good hunter. All in the name of the all mighty dollar. Free enterprise? Yes. The rape of the american people? Yes. You are right in that it isn’t just in the trad industry or even archery as a whole. It’s every where and it’s sad.

Dabersold, First off, let me clarify: I’m not endorsing anything. I do not endorse products. What I stated about the ABS shafts and Ashby and Nanook broadheads is merely the results of the testing. Nothing more, nothing less. Note that I didn’t mention any of the other ABS broadheads. How good are they? I have never tested them, so do not know.

If you read the Studies you’ll find that the most durable production shafts are not the Grizzly Stiks, it’s the hardwood shafts – and they’ve been around for eons. You’ll also find that there are several other broadheads that perform very well indeed. However there are only a very few broadheads that did not suffer any failures at all. The ABS Ashby and Nanook are among those, as is the 190 grain Grizzly and the long out of production Pearson Deadhead. Another broadhead in that ‘never damaged’ group which comes readily to mind is the Blackstump. I will say that the Nanook and Ashby broadheads held their sharpness better than the others in that group. The standard Eclipse and A-Bowyer broadheads also performed very well. Note that the products I just mentioned are not necessarily new nor are all ‘top of the line’, pricewise. It just how they performed in the testing.

You said:

dabersold wrote: Will they make you a better shot or bowhunter? No they won’t.

I don’t think that’s always correct. It depends on what one is hunting, how one hunts and what equipment one is now using. Arrow/broadhead failures are far more common than most want to admit. Should you doubt that just ask any busy deer processer how many broadheads he’s found in rifle killed deer; and not nearly all those broadheads will be mechanicals or replaceable blade broadheads. It’s just like those premium bullets. Premium bullets don’t make the hunter a better shot and they won’t improve his basic hunting skills but they do alter his success rate, especially when the shot is less than perfect. The same is true for the arrow setup a bowhunter chooses to use. In certain situations it can make the difference between a clean kill and a wounded animal.

Not everything done by everyone is motivated by greed. I’ve made not one penny off the Study. Indeed it has cost me a sizeable pile of cash to do the testing (and it’s not tax deductible, either). For years I have, however, lobbied manufacturers hard for better quality produces, and some have responded with new, and better performing, products. What they feel they need to charge for developing, producing and marketing those products is solely their business. No one is forced to purchase those products and no one mandates that anyone buy them. The decision to purchase is consensual, and ‘rape’ is not a consensual act. I, for one, am very glad to see the still-expanding diversity of top performing shafts and broadheads available for those who do see the value in them.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #52329

David,

When I ‘pirated’ O.L.’s turbulator concept (from his flight arrows) and started adapting the concept to hunting arrows the main goal was to reduce the arrow’s noise, not to increase arrow speed … and not even as a way to up the FOC. How much difference in FOC it could make (at high FOC levels) didn’t dawn on me until I saw what happened when I reduced the fletching on an EFOC arrow.

Based on his aeronautical background, O.L. said that a square back, straight taper feather would create the least air turbulence and therefore less noise in flight. Nevertheless, there was a lot of experimentation with small fletching’s of different profiles before I was convinced that O.L. was correct (again :?).

Most of the sound evaluation was conducted much as you did; by hiding behind a wall or tree and then having the arrows shot past the observation point. A number of arrows were shot in each string and the observer would record his (or her) impression of the sound, without knowing which fletching pattern/profile was on each shaft. For ‘observers’ we used several people, ranging from experienced bowhunters to some who have never fired a bow.

The results were unanimous and clear cut. It truly is amazing how noisy most fletching is in flight. Once it is close to you the A&A pattern sounds much like a small bird flying by, real close to your head, but its approach is very silent up to that point, compared to every other fletching pattern tried.

Oh, almost forgot to mention that the testing was done with both traditional bows and compounds using a range of different arrow weights, in order to evaluate the effect of arrow speed on the sound. We also used both field points and broadheads, and some broadheads made more noise than the fletching! These were mainly broadheads with vented blades. For uniformity there was no mixing of bows, arrow weights or point types within any individual string of test shots. The testing was conducted across several months an in different weather conditions.

I think the results were worth the time and expense invested in the test. Like you, I found some fletching patterns so noisy in flight that I think I could almost ‘jump the string’ at 20 yards or so!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Does anybody really pay this much? #52196

Before I say anything else I want to remind everyone that I have NO financial connection with Alaska Bowhunting Supply – nada, nothing, none whatsoever. That includes the “Ashby” broadhead. Having ‘no skin in the game’ I’m free to say what I’ve found about any product I’ve tested.

As for shafts, the Grizzly Stik has, by far, the lowest damage rate of any production carbon shaft tested, and a damage rate significantly lower than any other production synthetic shaft tested. Can one build up their own carbon shaft that’s more durable? Absolutely. An ordinary carbon shaft can be Internally Footed to produce a shaft more durable than the Grizzly Stik, but achieving that degree of durability requires a correctly designed IF, not just a section of smaller diameter shaft or a hardwood dowel shoved into the shaft. It’s a lot of effort and, by the time one has worked up a well-tuned arrow design, not an inexpensive operation in itself. Indeed, the first dozen will likely have cost well more than a dozen Grizzly Stiks, or the new Momentum shaft.

Both the Ashby and Nanook broadheads are designed for one purpose; top performance, sharpness, retained sharpness, durability and absolute reliability on every shot on every class of game hunted under all impact conditions. Are they worth the price? I’ll address that this way. While I was guiding with Gordon Cormack Safaris in Africa we had several Bowhunters but, as is the case for most PH’s, the bulk of our clients were rifle hunters. We always corresponded with our clients about what ammunition to bring, stressing the need for use of only the best premium bullets. Nonetheless, every year we would still have clients showing up for a hunt that was costing them many hundreds of dollars a day, often shooting top dollar rifles sporting high dollar scopes that cost more than many rifles, and then they would bring the cheapest ammunition they could buy at WalMart. As a consequence many of these folks wounded and/or lost game due to bullet failure. In Africa, you draw blood and you pay the trophy fee; more hundreds of dollars. What’s the point? It’s the bullet that kills, and minimizing the odds of having a failure requires the use of only the best bullet available. For the bowhunter it’s the entire arrow system that must perform. Just as for bullets, minimizing the odds of having an arrow failure requires the use of only the best arrow components.

Cost? Today most all hunting is an expensive proposition. Start adding up the total cost of everything you do to put yourself into position for that one shot, from the magazines you read to learn new tricks and tactics and the gas for truck for pre-season scouting to the licenses fees you pay and the clothes to keep you hidden and warm. In Texas, unless you’re a land owner, you’re probably paying for a hunting lease or a place to day hunt. If you’re after elk even the license will be expensive if you’re out of state. If you’re using a guide anywhere you’re spending big dollars. Bear, caribou or moose in Canada or Alaska? Break into the piggy bank, big time. Starting to see the point? The cost of using premium arrows and broadheads become a relatively small percentage of your total hunting expenses. Spread that cost over the life span of a premium arrow and it becomes a truly insignificant expense.

How long will do premium arrows last? I still have half of the very first dozen ‘premium arrows’ I ever bought. They are Sweetland Forgewood shafts, purchase in the early 1960’s. Compared to other arrows of the day they were truly expensive. At the time one could get a ‘complete kit’ to make a dozen POC arrow for $4.00, from Herter’s. That’s about 1/9th the cost of that dozen Sweetland Forgewoods shafts.

The Sweetlands originally wore Pearson Deadheads. In the mid-1980’s the broadhead was change to the 190 Grizzly. Back in my early days of bowhunting it was my custom to put dots on my arrows, between the fletching, for each animal killed with each individual arrow. Each of the remaining Forgewood’s from that first dozen wears at least 5 dots, and most have far more dots than that. Were the ‘premium’ Forgewoods worth the ‘extravagant price’ I paid for them? I think so.

As for bows I don’t consider myself a bow freak. To me the bow launches the arrow and then its job is completed. The bow I’ve taken the most animals with, just over 300, is a straight end longbow I built myself. Does that mean I don’t care how a bow shoots or how good its performance is? Not at all. I have many other bows; way too many; and I’ve gone through many bows that I no longer have. Some were pricy, and some of the ones I still have were not inexpensive, like my Border longbow, Border recurve with 2 sets of limbs, and Thunderbird T/D longbow. None of my Hill Longbows were exactly inexpensive. But today I’m looking more and more at the high-performance bows. Why? I’m getting older. I can no longer shoot many of the bows I’ve used in years past. The draw weight is becoming too much, but all is not lost.

Some of today’s modest draw-weight top-line, high performance longbows (which usually command a top dollar price) can produce the same (and sometimes greater) velocity with the same weight arrows as the much higher draw-weight longbows I once shot with ease. Is the cost of a bow my major consideration or is it the ability to continue launching arrows at a level of force that I’ve come to have total faith in as being “enough”, when used with the ‘premium’ arrow setups I prefer? No, cost it is not the overriding factor.

For the record I’m getting ready to try out a Carbon Nano. Will it be the bow I’m now looking for? I don’t yet know, but it is worth a try … and ABS will let you try before you buy, and they even pay the shipping. Does anyone else make an offer like that? Not that I know of. That tells me they have a lot of faith that you’re going to be impressed with the bow’s performance. Will the performance be impressive enough to make it worth the cost? Time will tell.

Don’t misread any of the above. I’m not saying that the equipment from ABS is the best in the world, nor am I saying it isn’t. I will say they make top quality products that have performed extremely well in the testing … and they ask a top price to go with it. On today’s market there are more great broadhead choices available than ever before … and there are also the worst broadhead choices ever available (at least in my lifetime). Today’s choices available in shafts is expansive and, just as for broadhead, some are great and some are not.

Equipment cost is a relative thing, and how personally valuable the particular equipment is to any individual depends on what he’s looking for and what he values most. If that Carbon Nano bow seems too expensive check out the price of the top line compound bow, fully set up. Which bow do you think will have the lowest ‘upkeep cost’ and which will still be giving the same great performance 30 years from now?

Whether any piece of equipment is worth the price asked depends on each person’s expectations, needs and aspirations. A high performing bow and a top performing arrow setup is expensive but having equipment that meets your every expectation, need and aspiration is priceless.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #50502

“Buffalo Arrows” are not at all out of place on hog of that class. “In bowhunting there’s no such thing as overkill” 😀

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #49518

Kingwouldbe wrote: some time it’s not easy to change the standard, or “this is the way we have always done it mentality”.

That is, perhaps, the truest statement I’ve ever seen posted.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: F O C #48193

Just a clarification, so that no one gets the wrong impression. What the data shows is that an arrow of lower weight but higher FOC can out-penetrate a significantly heavier arrow having lower FOC. For space sake I won’t get into the specific amounts of difference in weight and FOC required for this to become the expected outcome. That can be found in the 2008 Updates, Parts 5 and 6. However, WHEN ALL ELSE IS EQUAL (same shaft size, same broadhead, same FOC, etcetera) the heavier arrow will still out-penetrate the lighter arrow.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: The "Perfect WOOD Arrow for Deer? (using Doc's info) #48052

Right on, Steve. The availability of heavier, glue-on broadheads is going to make EFOC within fairly easy reach for wood shafts. The very long ferrule on the TuffHead would allow for a lot of extra weight too; by adding verious materials forward of the shaft taper.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #48048

David, this is an excellent example of why close examination of the soft tissue damage is just as important as taking note of the ‘hard tissue’ performance. The more you look the more interesting things you’ll find. The single bevel’s L-Shaped cut is only common on exit skin, the heart, liver and kidneys. ‘Mushing’ of lung tissue is a common feature, often creating a ‘hole’ rather than a slice.

I hope it isn’t often that you get the chance to see it (and you have to look closely for it to see it; I had to use a dye injected into the intestine to find all the cuts) but the ‘starburst’ cut that single bevel heads often make through the intestines is truly impressive. It represents more damage to the intestinal tissues (and vessels) than that caused be either a double-bevel, wide cut 3-blade or double-bevel, wide cut 4-blade; something like a snuffer or a Delta 4-balde.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #47338

David, go to the article on “Why Single Bevels” (here’s the link: https://www.tradbow.com/members/223.cfm) and check out photos number 17 and 18. That’s the classic ‘L-shaped cut’ that single bevels often give. Besides on some exits I’ve seen it on hearts, kidneys and livers. On the 1″ wide modified Grizzly the 2 sides of the L-cut (combined length of each leg of the cut) usually measure very close to 2″, often a bit over that.

The somewhat longer length of the TuffHead SHOULD give an even larger L-Shaped cut, due to increased tissue ‘windup’ around the blade.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Best arrow material. Carbon, wood, or aluminum. #46917

Even though it’s ‘common knowledge’ that aluminum and carbon are more durable than wood shafts, and while that’s true for the softer shaft woods, like POC, lodgepole pine, etcetera, that’s not true when it comes to the hardwood shafts and compressed wood shafts. The Study’s outcomes indicates that the hardwood shafts are SIGNIFICANTLY less damage prone than either carbon or aluminum, and carbon to be somewhat more durable than aluminum.

That said, the study also shows a marked decrease in carbon shaft damage rate with internally footed EFOC shafts and with the tapered carbons. However, the very lowest shaft damage rate in the study (even lower than the hardwood shafts) occurred with UNFOOTED Ultra-EFOC carbon shafts.

The most durable of all arrows may well be the carbon-shafted, Ultra-EFOC arrow, but I think an Internally Footed Ultra-EFOC shaft would be super-durable (though I have not tested those yet). Nonetheless, a good hardwood shaft is pretty hard to beat for durability, and no ‘ordinary’ aluminum or carbon shaft even comes close.

If you would like to read more on the Study’s shaft durability findings check out the 2007 Update, Part 2 (https://www.tradbow.com/members/258.cfm) and the 2008 Update, Part 7 (https://www.tradbow.com/members/2008_Study_Update_Part_7.cfm).

The entire 2007 and 2008 Update series gives some dramatic information on the tissue penetration performance of the EFOC and Ultra-EFOC arrows, with comparison against the outcomes from earlier testing with arrows of differing mass and shaft material.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #46803

David, is the arrow you used one with the multiple external footings or does it have just a single, short external footing?

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Kingwouldbe & Tuffhead #46077

Dang, I remember seeing those X-ray glasses in the back of comic books … 50+ years ago. Knew I should have bought some. 😕

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: F O C #45963

Dave said it all. There appears to be no upper limit for FOC’s benificial effects,

Ed

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