Definitive arrow study-Yates/Litke

[HilltopHitman]

He’s an engineer by trade, probably would be smart if one of these arrow manufacturers hired him as department manager of R&D.

 

[Beendare]

I have been vocal on Ashby ever since he recommended a minimum of 30% FOC- which probably predates some here. I have his original white paper claiming EFOC arrows fly further where he used rubber bands instead of a bow for testing.

To Ashby's credit, in the recent past, he has come around with more reasonable arrow recommendations that make more sense.
Thats^ all irrelevant now that we have scientific data to draw from.

The FOC explanation is here- worth watching the explanation as according to Yates, the chart can be misleading

Thanks again to Mr Yates and Tristan Litke and all of the participants- that was a lot of detailed work.

 

[RME]

I have been vocal on Ashby ever since he recommended a minimum of 30% FOC- which probably predates some here. I have his original white paper claiming EFOC arrows fly further where he used rubber bands instead of a bow for testing.

Is it possible to post that up to the board for us read? Even if it's outdated at this point I would be interested to see how this subject has evolved over time

To Ashby's credit, in the recent past, he has come around with more reasonable arrow recommendations that make more sense.
Thats^ all irrelevant now that we have scientific data to draw from.

For sure. As understanding evolves so too does the way we do things and no doubt with more study it will continue to change. My first career was working as an Arborist and I remember reading an outdated company safety manual that was discussing manilla climbing ropes . Seems nuts by todays standards but at the time that was the state of the art.

 

[Tilzbow]

Crap! This video made me check my FOC for the first time in probably 15 years and my compound setup is only 11.3%. After watching the video I’m shocked I can even keep broadheads on target at that number.

My trad setup is at 17% so that one is okay, too bad I don’t hunt with it.

 

[ozyclint]

View attachment 1072862
This is the one i've been using for a long while

 

[ozyclint]

Can someone report back with terminal ballistic testing if they do any.

You wouldn't make a judgement on a bullet regardless of how much data you have from muzzle to target without data from the bullet interaction with the target.

 

[Hunthigh1]

Still doesn't really explain why it is so controversial, if it groups better it groups better, everyone can decide which they prefer, accuracy or range forgiveness.

Nothing is free so you choose what you think works best.

If the lighter weight lower foc arrow wins everyone would be screaming from the top of their mountain I told you so!

I want a mix of accuracy penetration and speed, my Elk/whitetail arrow is 470 grains at 270 fps. Mule deer I would likely drop to 385 -400 grains and close to 300 fps.

Shot a Javelina with a 365 grain arrow well over 300, why? Why not, tipped with a 2 inch rage it worked perfectly.

I always advocated for people building an all around arrow to be around 400 grains, so your build sounds fantastic, but what if that 485 15% build just flat out shot better?

I literally have dozens of options to play with arrow builds, and let long range groups determine what I chose, the 470 grain arrow I choose for elk/whitetail has 175 grains up front, foc 16-17 percent and most importantly it is accurate and forgiving!

I actually wound up with the heavy weight up front trying to build a bullet proof front end, I made my own footers from aluminum arrow shafts to beef up the half outs I was using.

I don’t know if or why it’s controversial. Certainly seems to be the case for some guys. Like I said I was kinda hoping FOC wouldn’t prove beneficial above 12-15% just because I already have 12.5 and 16% arrows and like a faster arrow, but data doesn’t care about my feelings or my wallet.

I have a 416 at 12.5% Foc and a 458 at 16% foc. Will be fun to shoot them side by side at distance to see if I can recognize any accuracy improvements on the heavier build.

Like some of the posters said, this sure makes the very light GPI shafts super interesting. I will probably play with a couple 5.0 shafts and more point weight next year to see what I can achieve for accuracy and forgiveness.

 

[ozyclint]

Like some of the posters said, this sure makes the very light GPI shafts super interesting. I will probably play with a couple 5.0 shafts and more point weight next year to see what I can achieve for accuracy and foforgiveness.

Yep, if you want a high FOC then losing weight in the back end becomes just as important.
Making a heavy high FOC arrow is easy.
Making a high FOC arrow that is a reasonable weight becomes a juggling act.

 

[Archerichards]

Two points.

First, we all benefit enormously from the bright light Yates et al are shining into the "black art" of modern archery equipment. You can be sure that there are about 25 companies in this industry scrambling right now to recalibrate how they sell their products since big claims and BS will no longer work for many of them.

Second, I note the short segment in the latest report has on the importance of squaring arrows after cutting. I sure would like to avoid spending lots of $$$ and real estate on my workbench for a specialized arrow squaring rig or machine. Any ideas on practical but effective ways to achieve a really square result?

 

[Tilzbow]

Two points.

First, we all benefit enormously from the bright light Yates et al are shining into the "black art" of modern archery equipment. You can be sure that there are about 25 companies in this industry scrambling right now to recalibrate how they sell their products since big claims and BS will no longer work for many of them.

Second, I note the short segment in the latest report has on the importance of squaring arrows after cutting. I sure would like to avoid spending lots of $$$ and real estate on my workbench for a specialized arrow squaring rig or machine. Any ideas on practical but effective ways to achieve a really square result?

G5 ASD device and a battery operated drill. Lightly tighten the chuck on one end of the arrow, hold the arrow in the device in one hand while operating the drill using the other while it’s sitting on your workbench. Flip the arrow and do the other side. Blow the outside and inside of the arrow out with compressed air if you’ve got a compressor (do this outside, lots of carbon dust). I use low to medium low speed on my brushless 18V Dewalt. Sure beats turning the arrow by hand, much faster, takes off more material (thus more square) and seems more precise since you aren’t turning the arrow by hand. I’ve never damaged an arrow with the chuck since it’s only needs to be loosely hand tightened to keep the arrow secure.

Edit: I forgot to mention to use a leather glove to hold the arrow in the squaring device. It’ll keep your hand from getting friction burn.

 

[Joe Holden]

Drill idea is brilliant. Hand turning both ends of 18-24 arrows at a time puts my puberty experience to shame.

 

[Beendare]

Two points.

First, we all benefit enormously from the bright light Yates et al are shining into the "black art" of modern archery equipment. You can be sure that there are about 25 companies in this industry scrambling right now to recalibrate how they sell their products since big claims and BS will no longer work for many of them.

Second, I note the short segment in the latest report has on the importance of squaring arrows after cutting. I sure would like to avoid spending lots of $$$ and real estate on my workbench for a specialized arrow squaring rig or machine. Any ideas on practical but effective ways to achieve a really square result?

Yeah, if you look at the ends of carbons right off the saw with a microscope, the ends are all frayed. This pic is without magnification and you can see how much better the left arrow is after the jig.




There are a couple commercially sold squaring devices that work well. If you are good with a table saw and square, this one I made about 30+ years ago works well. I use 220 or 320 grit sandpaper. I found decades ago that squaring the ends not only makes BH's spin perfect, but the BH and inserts seat better against the BH [especially on Axis shafts] That tight seating actually makes the arrow more durable when hitting something hard.

 

[HunterGatherer]

My takeaway from the 2 videos was that there is a sweet spot for each component and each shooter. We all witnessed the extreme speed / lightweight craze as well as the extreme FOC / TAW fads. The extremes of arrow ballistics have pretty well been defined and at the far ends of both spectrums there are diminishing returns.

If you’re a whitetail hunter in a tree stand with a max shot distance of 30 yds you probably don’t care about the arc of your trajectory as much as a western hunter shooting antelope at 60-80 yds. And neither of those hunters cares about penetration as much as one who’s shooting water buffalo. If a guy only hunts one of those three scenarios then by all means, optimize your setup for that scenario. But if you’re like most hunters, you’re hunting different species of various sizes at various ranges and it doesn’t really make sense to optimize for an extreme instance. Hence, all the differences of opinion.

Seems like, anecdotally at least, that most western archery hunters (compound) have settled on a setup that’s in the neighborhood of 420-480 TAW, 13-18% FOC and about 260-280 fps, which I think is about the best “all around” setup, all things considered. Arrow component choices often vary based on how much a shooter prioritizes group size vs trajectory arc vs penetration vs quiet arrow flight vs durability. Everything is a compromise. For example, I know I could get better group size shooting mechs but I prioritize penetration and BH reliability over group size (to a point).

 

[Archerichards]

My takeaway from the 2 videos was that there is a sweet spot for each component and each shooter. We all witnessed the extreme speed / lightweight craze as well as the extreme FOC / TAW fads. The extremes of arrow ballistics have pretty well been defined and at the far ends of both spectrums there are diminishing returns.

If you’re a whitetail hunter in a tree stand with a max shot distance of 30 yds you probably don’t care about the arc of your trajectory as much as a western hunter shooting antelope at 60-80 yds. And neither of those hunters cares about penetration as much as one who’s shooting water buffalo. If a guy only hunts one of those three scenarios then by all means, optimize your setup for that scenario. But if you’re like most hunters, you’re hunting different species of various sizes at various ranges and it doesn’t really make sense to optimize for an extreme instance. Hence, all the differences of opinion.

Seems like, anecdotally at least, that most western archery hunters (compound) have settled on a setup that’s in the neighborhood of 420-480 TAW, 13-18% FOC and about 260-280 fps, which I think is about the best “all around” setup, all things considered. Arrow component choices often vary based on how much a shooter prioritizes group size vs trajectory arc vs penetration vs quiet arrow flight vs durability. Everything is a compromise. For example, I know I could get better group size shooting mechs but I prioritize penetration and BH reliability over group size (to a point).

Great insights here, HunterGatherer. I agree with you.

A small caveat though: Conventional wisdom lately has been that 280 fps or so was a top end speed beyond which tuning becomes difficult. This latest study may have raised that ceiling up a bit to the very low three hundreds. With more advances in arrow technology (gpi reduction, specifically), those numbers become easier to achieve.

Just thoughts....

 

[elkhunter505]

I have been vocal on Ashby ever since he recommended a minimum of 30% FOC- which probably predates some here. I have his original white paper claiming EFOC arrows fly further where he used rubber bands instead of a bow for testing.

To Ashby's credit, in the recent past, he has come around with more reasonable arrow recommendations that make more sense.
Thats^ all irrelevant now that we have scientific data to draw from.

The FOC explanation is here- worth watching the explanation as according to Yates, the chart can be misleading

Thanks again to Mr Yates and Tristan Litke and all of the participants- that was a lot of detailed work.

There’s one thing here that likely wouldn’t change these results, but it may be worth them considering to see if it changes or even strengthens some of their conclusions. Their data is gamma distributed (unless they rescaled the KFIs) rather than normally distributed. They assumed normality by using a t-distribution which is not technically correct. None of their metrics can ever go negative. I would assume that it likely won’t change anything but that was something I noticed while looking through this.

Also as funny as this is, this would be a cool dataset to do structural equation modeling on. The sample sizes are so low it likely wouldn’t work, but you can account for collinearity in those types of model by having covariates impact other covariates. So say weight of an insert impacts dynamic spine and then both those things impact FOC.

 

[HunterGatherer]

Great insights here, HunterGatherer. I agree with you.

A small caveat though: Conventional wisdom lately has been that 280 fps or so was a top end speed beyond which tuning becomes difficult. This latest study may have raised that ceiling up a bit to the very low three hundreds. With more advances in arrow technology (gpi reduction, specifically), those numbers become easier to achieve.

Just thoughts....

Definitely some guys tuning and shooting 300fps successfully but to get there you either have to have long arms, 80# limbs or a light-ish TAW. That’s why I said most have settled in the 260-280 range. I’m also speaking mainly about hunting setups, not target rigs. Despite all the “advances” in bow technology, IBO speeds have remained pretty steady for many years now.