[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Paper and Bare shaft tuning? Different results? #40301

I gave up on paper tuning several years ago. I’d have everything perfect, then change nothing except my shooting distance and the tear would be ‘off’ again. When I get my bare-shaft tuning finished now (I start close and work back to 40 meters) the point of impact is both ‘strait’ in the target and ‘matching’ for all ranges, with the bare-shafts, fletched field points and fletched broadheads.

For the first couple of years after changing to bare shaft tuning, when the tuning was completed I would go back and see how my bare-shaft tuned arrows ‘looked on paper’. Just like the paper-tuned ones, they would be perfect at one range and a bit off at other ranges. Nowadays I NEVER check how my bare-shafted arrows look ‘on paper’, it just messes with my mind!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Elephant with a bow #40011

My experience in Africa is that Conservationist support wildlife survival … but it’s Hunters who PAY for wildlife survival.

Most of the bow-killed elephant taken recently have been one arrow kills, but that’s beside the point. Even when guiding rifle hunters for elephant, or any other potentually dangerous game, we always wanted them to keep shooting as long as the animal was still going … and “pay the insurance” at least once after it was down! As a percentage of those taken, I suspect that more rifle-killed elephant taken in recent years have been multiple shot kills than those taken with arrows.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Carbon Arrows: A Stiff Side #39140

That’s a pretty seitched-on observation Patrick. I use that tuning trick with the Grizzly Stiks too. If you want to see how much difference the stif-side orientation really makes, try bare shaft tuning some to a compound being shot by a champion shooter. It was fun to watch Wesley literally ‘shoot circles’, depending on which way we turned the stiff side! As far as I know the Grizzly Stiks are the only shafts that have a stiff side.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Performance Report: A successful failure #38922

Patrick, perhaps the biggest hurdle of all is that no three-blade BH penetrates heavy bone well; at least none of the ones I’ve tested, and that’s most of them. When heavy bone is hit the four-blade BH’s average far better penetration than the three-blades. A lot of that difference in bone-performance is a result of the same reasons why there are no three-sided splitting wedges; that profile isn’t very efficient at splitting things.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Abowyer Brown Bears #38622

Patrick, I’ve not yet tested any of this ‘new crop’ of Abowyer BH’s, but did a lot of testing with the earlier ones. They performed well, although I had some skip-angle problems with them, especially the wide 190 grain vesrion. That’s a big reason they got redesigned. I never had any steel-quality problems with the ones tested. It sounds like a tempering problem, and I’d darned sure contact them about it.

Yep, it’s a shame you didn’t get a photo … but, even after all these years of trying to pay attention and collect information that JUST MIGHT be of use sometime, I still find myself making the same mistake; failing to photograph something I SHOULD have taken a photo of. Must be some secret curse … or (he says with dread in his voice) the onset of ‘Old Timers Disease’!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Performance Report: A successful failure #38611

Patrick, the photos shows a catastropic failure of the ferrule too. I’ve not had a total ferrule failure like this in my testing, but I must also say that I didn’t push the WW to the testing extremes I put most BH’s through. That’s simply because I encountered problems in the inital testing phase; broadside heavy-bone impact shots from 20 yards. I consider those the easiest shot, and there’s no reason to progress to the heavy-bone angular impacts; much less the extremely heavy-bone direct and angular impacts; with a BH that repeatedly fails on the ‘easy impacts’. I routinely had tip curls with the factory needle-tip, but they were easily cured by adding a pyramid tip; but there was no cure for the bent and collapsed blades.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Performance Report: A successful failure #38392

Yes. Apparently it’s is a very good BH for hunting bricks (LOL). All jokes aside, I’ve found no other ‘test medium’ that gives a clear indicator of how any BH will perform on fresh bone. Bones are not only hard-surfaced, they have surfaces that simultaneously curve in multiple directions. Mother Nature specifically designed the skeletal system to deflect, redirect and disipate impact forces, forstalling penetration.

Bones are also constructed is such a way that they can absorb a huge amount of impact force, relative to their mass. Our modern armor’s technology is just starting to catch up with that. The so called ‘smart armor’ now used on military vehicles and on bullet-proof vest function similar to bones. There’s a hard outer surface that’s set at angles, to the maximum amount possible, and then there are inner layers that are ‘less hard and less brittle’ than the outer layer. Those inner layers absorb and disipate forces during penetration, reducing total penetration.

Arrow penetration seems so simple but, in reality, it’s a very complex process.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Wyoming Pronghorn Spot and Stalk Success #36113

What modest success I’ve had in bowhunting is mainly due just one thing … stupid persistence! The more often you try, the more often you ‘get lucky’.

Congrats again!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Solid Bone Hits and Recovery Distances (?) #36107

I’ve had WAY more successful shoulder and hip joint hits on big game than any other bowhunter I’ve ever met. They probably just shoot better than me, and don’t make those hits very often! 🙂

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: A long look at fletching and EFOC #36096

Here you go, Brett.

Normal FOC: Any amount up to 12%.
High FOC: Between 12% and 19%.
EFOC: Between 19% and 30%
Ultra-EFOC: FOC above 30%

They’re in the introduction of the 2008 Updates, Part 1.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Wood Arrows, single bevels and EFOC #36092

Snuffy, I hear that the first mock-up heavy, single-bevel STOS BH’s have been produced. These were a test run of the new stamping dies, and were just spot welded together. Nonetheless. that’s a step closer to having them on the market.

The early results from the Ultra-EFOC arrows (carbon shafted) also indicates that a heavier tip weight will be a big, big help there too. It’s just about as hard to get Ultra-EFOC with carbon arrows as it is to get EFOC on woods. I’m chomping at the bit for a 250 garin (or heavier) glue-on BH!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Waterproofing Fletching #36052

Rainy conditions are one more, barely recognized, situation where EFOC can help you hunting arrow setup. Check out the ‘fletching and EFOC’ thread on the Arrow Lethality forum. We haven’t tried water soaking any other small fletching patterns, but the A&A fletch, without any water repellant treatment at all, can be soaked in a bucket full of water for a full 30 minutes, then shot without even shaking the water off and still show perfect arrow flight. Build your own EFOC arrow and try it for yourself!

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Wood Arrows, single bevels and EFOC #36037

Without adding some additional point weight it’s hard to get to much EFOC with wood shaft setups. My Forgewoods (because of the differential compression between the shaft’s front and rear), with a 190 grain point gets to 19% FOC. Just as with carbons, it helps with FOC to use the lighest weight shaft you can and as much point weight as you can.

A heavier glue-on BH would help, and I understand that both STOS and ABS have some in the works. There are several folks adding weight by drilling the shaft at the front and inserting a metal rod; steel, tungsten or lead. I’m told that someone even makes a tool for aligning the hole precisely in the shaft’s center.

It’s my belief that wood shafts have one, rarely mentioned, hunting advantage; on a shot that misses the sound of a wood shaft impacting seems to alarm animal less than a miss with a synthetic shaft.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Solid Bone Hits and Recovery Distances (?) #35989

Steve, I’ve had a FEW pass-through hits, shots that just zipped through the thorax, that resulted in the animal merely flinching, then resuming feeding until it collapsed. Now that’s a short trail! But those have been rather rare occurrances.

On the other hand, any shot that diables a nerve center or inhibits locomotin by disrupting the skeletal support system in some major way almost always results in an animal down very, very quickly. Every animal that I’ve taken out BOTH shouldes on (ball joints) have virtually dropped in their tracks, never to arise; none have struggled more than a very few yards. Take out the ball joint on ONE shoulder and they often drop at the shot, but are up quickly, but don’t usually go far, often dropping in sight, but sometimes making it 60 to 100 yards or so. Take out ONE ball joint of the hip and the distance to collapse has probably averaged 10 yards or so. Take out BOTH ball joints in the hips; down in their tracks.

When you get to scapular-flat hits, it depends a lot on how much damage is done to the skeletal support system, and how much penetration and damage your arrow creates post-breaching. Any damage to the scapula creates some locomotion instability, and that always helps IF you manage the shot. Because the traveling becomes more difficult the animal generally stops traveling sooner (after the initial flight). If your arrow has done decent damage post-breaching the animal will expire right there … if you don’t follow-up too soon, jumping the animal. Penetrate both scapulas and your arrow has done a hunge amount of damage.

Animal size has a noticable effect on scapular-flat hits. On modest-size big game it has more of a disabling effect than on larger sized game. Whenever the ball joints are taken out, the result is the same, regardless of aminal size. the difference comes in what it takes to break out the ball joint on a big critter!

There’s an old saying among the African hunters, a lot of whom use nothing but solid, none-expanding bullets that more or less punch a tiny hole through a lot of tissue, “An animal lives between its shoulders”. What they are implying is that even the tiny wound created by a non-expanding bullet is quickly lethal when it penetrates through both shoulders, passing through the major life-supporting organs located between them. That’s true for arrows too.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Performance Report: A successful failure #35929

Dave brings out the correct point. This is all about sharing and learning from what we share. It’s neither to promote any product nor deride any product. At the same time, no effort is being made to be “PC”. As Dave said, “it is what it is”.

If we, as bowhunters, are ever to get to the real meat of the information there has to be a open examination of true results, letting the “chips fall where they may”. There’s already plenty of special-interest promulgated misinformation ‘out there’; we need some straight talk, unclouded by personal loyalty, special interest or industry influence. Bowhunters need to know what really does work, and when and why it works. They also need to know what doesn’t work, and when and why it’s likely to fail.

That’s the whole purpose behind this forum; to share real information, educate ourselves and, I sincerely hope, improve evey bowhunter’s chances of making a clean, humane kill on as many hits as possible. And that’s why we need each of you to become active in this forum. We need you to post your real results, from both your successful hits and your failures.

If you ever begin to feel that the ‘negative reports’ are getting a lot more ‘air time’ than than ‘positive reports’, remember this: Most any setup works when everything goes perfect. It’s only when a shot fails that we are given an opportunity to find out what it was that caused the shot to fail. It’s the failures from which we learn the most. That’s a compelling reason to examine the failures much more closely than the shots that don’t fail.

We need you to post your finding. We need you to download and send in those field report data sheets. Just like the Study, this forum won’t be a brief project, but the more information that comes in the faster the data builds, and the sooner clear answers emerge.

Please become involved.

Ed

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