RE: Arrow life
 

Pinesap, if you haven't driven the insert a couple inches up the shaft on any of those hits, then you're a lucky, lucky man. You need to start playing the Lottery.:D

The ones I've wrecked mostly have the insert driven up inside them. Quite a few though, especially Easton Epics, also snap in two about an inch down from the fletches. I'm sure hitting a piece of angle iron 1/8" thick is a little tougher hit than poking a hole in sheet metal.;)

If you ever want to see someone straighten an aluminum arrow, come on down and I'll teach you how to do it. Ones with a slight wobble, I can get back straight within +/- .001. Ones with a bad dogleg bend in them generally won't straighten perfectly, but I can get them plenty good enough to slap a blunt on the end and use them for stumping and bunny busting. It's easy to do, just takes a little time and patience. I usually do it while watching TV and not doing anything anyway.

My arrow straightener has saved me a pile of money over the past 20 years.

Yesterday was my birthday. It also marked my 49th anniversary of getting my first bow. I doubt I've got much bow shooting left to me and I kinda want to end my shooting days the same way I started. That means wood arrows. I sorted thru my old leftover arrows and pulled out 6 cedars, some nearly six years old. Stuck them on the straightener to check them out. Not a one was worse than +/- .003. Spines checked within .015 deflection. I can honestly say I have not seen a single brand of ICS type carbons that can beat those specs.

RE: Arrow life
 

Happy B'day, and don't be mentally winding down. You'll know when you have to hang the bow up. Jeeez, the thought is depressing. Not just because bowhunting would end, but because time has finally caught up. :([:@]

RE: Arrow life
 

I am currently shooting a dozen of XX75 camo 2117 arrows that I bought and shot in 1980. I built a cardboard press and carbons are impossible to pull out. I have three other brands of arrows. Blackhawk Vapor's camo hunter.[:'(] This half dozen is terrible. They were straight when I bought them but are really crooked now. Not sure why???:( I shot two Does with Carbon Express Terminator camo hunters last year and am pleased with them so far. I started with two dozen but am down to a dozen. There are a few that could shoot around corners and again don't know why. They are stored in a Plano arrow box. I just got my dozen Easton Axis and they are pretty good but haven't shot them much because they blow through my new bag target? (It's the cheap Eternity Bag...don't get one)

The thing is, I'm thinking that as soon as my carbon arrows are all shot up or lost, that I might go back to Aluminums completely. Maybe the XX78 Super Slam Selects.

A side note...those old XX75's have thousands and thousands of shots on them and with the exception of two or three, they are as straight as the day I bought them.

And finally, even though I like and respect my pro shop guys, they are bias themselves and push certain arrows for certain reasons. I like to test stuff for myself...besides I think my byline says it all when it comes to arrows.;)

RE: Arrow life
 

Not quite true. the ICS Trebark does not use the C2 manufacturing process. The Beman ICS Hunter and Camo hunter do.

This is true, no more Evolutions..at least in name. They have been renamed for 2004 as the C2 Camo. You can now get the shaft in your choice of MO or RT camo. Same arrow. Same C2 Construction.

C2 in Mossy Oak Obsession

C2 in Realtree HD Green

RE: Arrow life
 

I'm really not up on the rules but our little club allows only one arrow per target, There are 40 lanes but we repeat ie: actually 20 targets and 40 different yardages and angles. So 40 arrows. Vitals and rings are typical of Mackenzie 3D targets 12,10,8and 5 (out of vital area). Never shot a 28 target course, yet:). I guess I'll find out next week as we are having our third leg event outdoors (field archery round?).

RE: Arrow life
 

Rangeball brings up a good point. As important as arrows are, I find the thing that creates the most shooting problems for beginners, are the crummy strings they are shooting on their bows. If I was to prioritise the areas of concern when getting a new bow, it would be like this.

1) Make sure string is the best quality, pre-stretched and tied correctly. Once every 30 days, critically measure your ATA and brace height, looking for any movement that will signal that your bow may be out of tune, due to string creep. Most factory strings are not at specs, on a brand new bow. And, the ones that are, usually stretch/creep substantially.

2) Buy the best arrows and then pay to have them tuned through a Hooter Shooter. There are guys who will do this for about $40.00. In lieu of this, you can use the old method of marking your arrows and then plotting where they hit over many shots, and then tune them or cull them accordingly.

3) Fine tune your draw length until you find the one that allows you to hold the most steady. Once you find it, you'll know. Don't be surprised if you have to shorten it and inch or two.

4) Group tune at least twice with your new bow. I suggest once after 100 shots and another time after about 1000 shots.

RE: Arrow life
 

c903 said "Excluding the fact that there are no REAL measurable advantages to using carbon shafts for hunting,"

Aside from lighter weight- I think JeffB noted the primary advantage of carbon arrows very succintly in his gigantic message...

As to spine degradation, I think 95% of the confusion comes from a person not being careful to measure spine at the same place every time on an arrow. It is true that carbon arrows have greater variation in spine than aluminum, due to their construction. One arrow will have different measured spines depending on what axis it is deflected in. I think if anyone measured the same arrow on the same axis over time, they would see results dramatically different from what a casual observer would see...

As to using a dryer to try to bend a carbon shaft, it won't work. If you got the epoxy hot enough to change the orientation of the graphite fibers, you would ruin the arrow.

RE: Arrow life
 

Ok I have to join in on this. I bought a 1/2 doz gold tips 5575.
Paper tuned then group tuned them. I didn't put 50 shots on anyone of them before I took them to a 3D shoot. As Iwas shooting some of my shots were going low and left causing me to doubt my form. After a terible day I went home and shot. One arrow was consitently low and left by 6 in.
Now like I said they hadn't 50 shots on them all shot into a bag target and none bounced off of trees or rocks or anything hard. The killer is the next day I shot a local event and some shots were going left by 4in. Got home and you guessed it another arrow was bad.
Whats going on with these

RE: Arrow life
 

I've seen up to .025" variation in deflection around the axis of a single carbon shaft, but I didn't know there was any confusion on this. Jeff, Len and I - along with others - have both discussed carbons' spine inconsistency around the axis of the shaft and the desireability of matching up the spines before fletching - in other words, placing the cock feather on the axis with the stiffest deflection reading.

Of course, one must have a spine tester to do that.

Most guys don't have a spine tester to check their arrows anyway. The only thing they can go by is how well their arrows group. And as their arrows degrade slowly, their groups slowly get bigger until one day they notice they're not shooting as well as they did before.

Since so many people have spouted the "carbons are either straight or broken" BS, and it has been repeated over and over again, it has become 'truth' with no absolutely NO basis in fact. Listening to that crap, one would get the totally false impression that carbon arrows never bend, never wear out, never change at all.

So, the poor guys don't attribute their poor groups to the arrows. As a result, they start changing the tune on their bows and trying new releases, new shooting styles, all kinds of things. And none of it will do a bit of good until they buy a dozen new arrows to replace the worn out junkers they've been shooting the past 6 months.

Guys like treetop3, who have their clinkers just jump right out there and grab their attention, are lucky. In their case, it's immediately evident the problem is the arrows and not their bow, form, release, etc.

RE: Arrow life
 

treetop, sounds like you're experiencing what we've been talking about with carbon arrows, especially if you bought the "hunter" grade. Not every batch or every maker is gonna shoot out as quick, some take much much longer, but, you never know.

What if you had put less than 50 shots on them then taken them to the woods? Grabbed and nocked the "bad" arrow? Got a shot at a B&C, only to miss or worse wound it 4" left and low?

I want to know the arrow I pull out will have the best chance of shooting to the exact same point of impact as it and the last one did before, as long as I do my part. For me, ACCs fit this bill, and the added value is well worth the extra cost.