ORIGINAL: passthru79
Actualy front of center is a big deal at close range. For example its a little extreme but if your arrowhas a6% front of center its not recovering near as fast out of the bow as one with say a 15% FOC. Also with that low of a FOC your going to have much more oscilation and a less stabil arrow which can cause penetration problems. Granted FOC isnt the only factor in an arrows stability but it is a pretty big one.
Ialways thought stability was the rear ends job. I'll have to fool around with some shafts this year. I can say that the maxima hunters and the black shaft are identicle in impact point out of my bow. I carry them both hunting. There's no difference short yardage, longer shorts maybe a different story. I also tune with larger broadheads so if they didn't recover it would be very noticable.
I don't pay much attention to foc and try and keep itover 10.Thebiggest factor in performance is the quality of the shaft for me.
You just need the head heavier so that on longer shots the head will drop into the target and not the tail (the penitration problem you mentioned happens). The trajectory of the arrow on longer shotsis a large arch. If the heads to light the the tail will hit the ground before the tip. Short shots have very little arch. It just needs to be heavy enough up front to cause the head to drop into the target. To heavy and your waisting energy unless you need the bigger punch.
That's my take on it after shooting many different shafts out of the same bow.