It is possible to go over the arrow weight that will shoot most efficiently from your bow. If you shoot a variety of arrow weights througha chronographand KE keeps climbing, then drops off when you hit a certain weight, then you know you've gone beyond your bow's peak efficiency range. The ol' bell curve in action. I'd stop at the top of the curve.

KE is definitely over emphasized,but I hesitate to say it's overrated. It's important, but it's only part of the story.

The guys who use light arrows say the KE makes their light, fastarrows penetratesatisfactorily when, in reality, it's momentum. They have to pack a lot of extra speed and KE into their light arrows to do the same job someone with a heavy but slow arrow can do with much less KE.

Like I've posted on here, many times, a 700 gn arrow at 150 fps with 35 ft lbs of energy achieves penetration, mostlybecause of it's momentum. A 350 gn arrowat 300 fps and 70 ft lbs of energyalso achieves penetration, but not because it's carrying twice the KE ofthe 700 gn arrow. If it were due to KE alone, then the light arrow should penetrate exactly twice as far as the heavy one, and it doesn't. In reality, it's because it's carrying exactly the same momentum as the heavy arrow.

That's why those minimum KE charts for hunting various sizes of animals are a joke. They focus strictly on KE, totally ignoring momentum, and momentum is at least equally important. Frankly, for somene using heavy arrows, those minimum KE values couldbe substantially reduced.

I would much rather see minimum momentum charts. Then you could make intelligent and informed choices when it comes to balancing speed and trajectory againsthow muchmomentum you need to put an arrow through an animal's vitals. Make the choice then, whatever the KE winds up being, then it's obviously enough KE to do the job.