Whitetail arrow weight for new set-up

[Macintosh]

Re meateater purchase—thought I had seen a theead about this and how it would ruin the company, etc…but I cant find it. So apologies if that created a vicious rumor.

 

[dtrkyman]

At 29/70 I would be between 475 and 550 personally. Lighter grain per inch shafts and let the foc fall where it may, be in the low to mid teens with a lighter shaft!

I have had great luck with broadhead flight in the 15% foc range!

Just to throw a wrench in the whole debate, when I was younger and in whitetail kill mode I killed a semi load of deer with an aluminum 2317 arrow and a 90 grain muzzy, you would have to make a real effort to get a lower foc! I shot fingers and the helical 5 inch feathers gave great accuracy from that little head. Came in around 550 grains drawing 84lbs, went through everything!

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Correct, I didn’t have the information on the vanes so I’m glad you helped out there. So as it stands I’m around 463 gr TAW?

Correct, sum of component weights on your current arrow comes out to 463 gr.

So my set up right now (minus desired FOC) is ideal, in your opinion. This is where the other members are saying to cut weight in other areas i.e. shaft length, spine, bow poundage in order to maintain an ideal “safe” TAW if I want to shoot for 14-16% FOC.

As I stated in my first post, I don't see a strong reason to change anything about your current setup. However, if you do want to boost FOC a bit, I would do it by trimming the shaft and adding the lost shaft weight back in the form of a slightly heavier head or insert. I wouldn't worry about becoming underspined; 300 should work fine in the realm of front end weights you're considering.

Take the following with a grain of salt and keep in mind that spine charts/calculators just give approximate starting points based on rules of thumb, not set-in-stone requirements for good arrow flight.

OT2Go/qSpine shows your current arrow to be slightly stiff of "optimal."


Increasing front end weight to 175 gr (without trimming) to achieve 14% FOC would put you on the weak side of optimal, but not terribly so. I bet it would still fly just fine.


Trimming the shaft and increasing head/insert weight would both work to increase FOC but would work against each other on dynamic spine (trimming stiffens, adding front end weight weakens) and could keep you on the stiff side of optimal. Below is for a 28" C2C shaft with 125 gr head and 16 gr insert. If you wanted to keep your 100 gr heads, you could use a 25 gr Iron Will or Ethics HIT or a 50 gr Easton HIT and achieve numbers similar to those shown below.

 

[Bigolbill]

Correct, sum of component weights on your current arrow comes out to 463 gr.


As I stated in my first post, I don't see a strong reason to change anything about your current setup. However, if you do want to boost FOC a bit, I would do it by trimming the shaft and adding the lost shaft weight back in the form of a slightly heavier head or insert. I wouldn't worry about becoming underspined; 300 should work fine in the realm of front end weights you're considering.

Take the following with a grain of salt and keep in mind that spine charts/calculators just give approximate starting points based on rules of thumb, not set-in-stone requirements for good arrow flight.

OT2Go/qSpine shows your current arrow to be slightly stiff of "optimal."
View attachment 464495

Increasing front end weight to 175 gr (without trimming) to achieve 14% FOC would put you on the weak side of optimal, but not terribly so. I bet it would still fly just fine.
View attachment 464497

Trimming the shaft and increasing head/insert weight would both work to increase FOC but would work against each other on dynamic spine (trimming stiffens, adding front end weight weakens) and could keep you on the stiff side of optimal. Below is for a 28" C2C shaft with 125 gr head and 16 gr insert. If you wanted to keep your 100 gr heads, you could use a 25 gr Iron Will or Ethics HIT or a 50 gr Easton HIT and achieve numbers similar to those shown below.

With a grain of salt in mind, per the graphics, it seems any loss/gain is relatively negligible. I feel my pursuit for 14-16% FOC is starting to turn into the chasing of imaginary numbers. I’m starting to see no real reason to change as well.

Would it be egregious to say a one point jump in KE as a result of 14% FOC won’t substantially affect penetration? I’m assuming KE is in ft-lbs. My lack of experience is swaying me towards saying that much effort for 1 ft-lbs of force + 4% more FOC will not be physically verifiable; only substantiated through percentages & numbers on a chart.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

With a grain of salt in mind, per the graphics, it seems any loss/gain is relatively negligible. I feel my pursuit for 14-16% FOC is starting to turn into the chasing of imaginary numbers. I’m starting to see no real reason to change as well.

Would it be egregious to say a one point jump in KE as a result of 14% FOC won’t substantially affect penetration? I’m assuming KE is in ft-lbs. My lack of experience is swaying me towards saying that much effort for 1 ft-lbs of force + 4% more FOC will not be physically verifiable; only substantiated through percentages & numbers on a chart.

I agree, an extra 1 ft-lb of KE and 4% of FOC is unlikely to produce any noticeable benefit in practice.

 

[Miflatlander91]

I think these guys have you on the right track especially talking whitetail. A 29" draw and 70 pounds at that arrow weight I'd shoot whatever head you wanted and happily pick my arrow up off the ground after it went through the deer. For years I shot about the same set up an inch longer draw and put 2.3" rages through alot of midwest whitetail

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

 

[WVHick]

Re meateater purchase—thought I had seen a theead about this and how it would ruin the company, etc…but I cant find it. So apologies if that created a vicious rumor.

Are you perhaps thinking of First Lite?

 

[Macintosh]

No, But dont want to derail this thread. I think it was someones reaction to the podcast episode insinuating that a purchase would be next, “just like phelps calls, fhf, etc” but its NOT true and I wish I hadnt said it!! Dont want to start a rumor, and it isnt even relevant here.

 

[Bigolbill]

As promised, pictures of arrow C2C & at full draw.

(Yes, I do have more wiggle room with the arrow & rest regarding arrow length than I originally imagined)

 

[gclubb02]

Id potentially start with a heavier broadhead especially if you like your arrows and have a bunch of them built. The heavier the broadhead the sturdier it will likely be. If I were you I would buy a ranch fairy point weight test kit and shoot each weight thru paper until you find what tunes/flies the best, then buy the same weight broadheads, shoot those to confirm that they fly like darts, and then go hunting.