Carbon arrows?
 

Just curious if anyone is shooting carbon arrows from their bows?

I was thinking of trying those Vapor Carbonwoods.

Tyler

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

They seem to be more popular than ever with trad shooters, but I still prefer POC. I' ve shot carbons, aluminum, and umpteen different types of wood, and always find myself going back to cedar. Carbons do have advantages--consistent, straight or broke, matched from one doz to the next, etc., but to me they just lack the character of wood. Then again, I' ve never been accused of being real smart! [X(]

Chad

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

I' ve got a friend in Marylyand who shoots camoflaged Carbon Express arrows from his long bow. I can' t remember which ones exactly, but let me tell you he can sure stack ' em where they belong all the way out to about 40 yards.

I love the Beman' s with my recurve for hunting. 2213 aluminums are another favorite of mine. Woods.... I go through spells with them. I turkey hunted with some really nice Rogue River woodies I made up this spring and they flew great but I didn' t get a chance to put ' em to the test. Damned birds didn' t wanna play with me the few times I got to go out this year.

Carbons fly great, recover from paradox quicker than anything else and out-penetrate anything else their weight. The extra speed and great penetration make them solid choices for hunting, in my opinion.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Over the past five years I' ve tried carbon, messed with carbon, wrestled with carbon, cussed at carbon, pleaded with carbon and never have gotten carbon to shoot broadheads straight. But I have to make my arrows out of full length shafts and, even then, only a few companies make them long enough for me to mount broadheads on them. And that' s just for my longbow and compound. Broadheads hang up on the riser on my recurve and pull the nock off my string.

Then there' s having to add weight to them, figuring out whether they' re straight or not (some of them aren' t even as straight as my woodies), finding out where the stiffest part of the spine is on each shaft, trying to match weight....

Aluminum is a lot less headaches. I bend one once in awhile, but I lose more arrows than I bend too bad to be fixed.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

I' m with you Art! I was shooting Gold Tips and was doing fine, or so I thought. Broke a string on my bow and could not get the beasts to fly right with the new string! I went back to 2216 beer cans and am not SORRY one bit. No more African Ebony Reed Wood for me! My beer cans weight right at 680 grains and I did not have to add a thing! Yea Haw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ted A. working under the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle Young AKA COB

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

I' m using Gold Tips and I' m shooting the best I' ve ever shot. They last alot longer too. I' m not adding weight except for the broadhead. I' m shooting 3355' s full length with a 160 gr. eskimo out of a 50# 27 1/2 draw. (348gr.) They fly great and I get consistent groups. I really don' t think weighting the shafts is necessary. At 20 yards, it will do the job on a deer. Remember, back in the 50' s and 60' s, the average bow was a 45# bow and not as highly designed as those we shoot today. Heck, I' m getting 180 fps from my 50# bow. My first compound wasn' t that fast! Dick

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

I' ve been running Beman 400' s out of my curve for a few years, they work very well for me. 31.5" arrow, I think I should really be in the next spine size up but the bow seems to be tuned into them (was shooting 6 arrow-4" groups @ 30 yds (with broadheads) on the weekend) so for now I' ll leave it. :)

RC

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

When I was a wheel shooter Bemans were all I shot from the time they first came out. When I progressed back to traditional archery the longbow was my tool of choice as were RRA cedars.

This new Massie curve is shooting Traditional Lite carbons like they were made for this bow and Jeff told me I will really like the regular Traditionals with heavy inserts for hunting. He has been able to drop his bow holding weights down into the lower 40' s and still get the penetration he is accustom to for his pig hunts. If they will pass through a pig with lower 40 weight pulls they should work on deer like a charm.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Dick, if you drew 32-33" , you' d change your mind about THAT in a hurry. :)

My longbow punishes me if I shoot an unweighted carbon (my GoldTips weight out at 450 grains without adding weight and my longbow is 54#@32" ) and the only recurve I' ve ever broken in my life was one I shot unweighted carbons out of. Took less than a year of shooting to break the glass on the back and I bought it new.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Maybe I should have said " Weighting of the shafts isn' t necessary for ME." I' m shooting enought weight that I don' t have to worry about damaging the bow. Have you tried the steel broadhead adapters? The extra weight might help if you feel like experimenting. Dick

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Whatever they' re advantages, I could never justify the premium cost. Also, I had one break one time and there was no visual indication. Fortunately, I routinely check out of habit by feel and found the soft spot before trying to shoot it again.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Guy' s, I think that the weight issue is strickly in the minds of traditional archers. Easton carbons were developed on the NAA/FITA fields to improve long range performance. I still have a ten pack of the first carbons available from Easton for public sale (they came in 10 pack tubes with points and a lead ball weighting system for nibb balance)

Listening to trad archers talking about weighting carbons to 500-700gr plus projectiles in reality was not the carbon arrows design intent. Their light weight and extremely quick recovery rate were their strongest selling points to the FITA archers. FITA archers have shot 5gr per pound carbons for years with little problems with limb breakage. These archers shoot thousands and thousands of arrows per year so tackle failure would be far easily recognized in that format rather that the average trad archer who may shoot a couple dozen shots a day throughout a year.

Trad archers are locked into traditions and have the 540gr AMO ( a standard developed to compare products to like products) mindset or a minimum 10gr per pound thought process. I am not suggesting all trad archer fire 5gr per pound arrows (hopefully no one out there feels the need for 90 meter accuracy for hunting :))but going up to 15gr per pound is also unnecessary and self defeating to the design intent of carbon technology.

I shoot all three (wood,aluminum,and carbon) each have their advantages and disadvantages. The archer has to define his needs and wants and shoot which ever fills his criteria the best.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Carbon arrows aren' t necessarily premium priced shafts, anymore. I' ve been buying Bemans off Ebay for less than 50.00 a dozen including shipping. They come out to about 400 grains finished off with a 125 grain broadhead. That' s 7.27 grains per pound and they shoot fast and hit hard. And on the rare occasions they don' t find foam, they rarely break and never bend. Some people don' t like them for whatever reasons they' ve got. I love ' em.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Jim said Well Jim I don' t know about any one else but when I shot the Gold Tip 55/75 out of my bow with no weights it sounded like I was dry firing my bow. Added weights and it sounded a lot better.

Still think carbon are to pickey to shoot!

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

I' m using full length Beman 340' s out of my 57# Palmer. They weigh 505 grains and hit the chrono around 200 fps (give or take one or two). Full length Beman 400' s out of my 53# Chek-Mate fly the same speed.

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Robert, let me clue you in to something they were talking about on the technical forum last week. Guys are buying 4-5 dozen carbon arrows, checking them for straightness, spine and weight, pulling out the best of them to make themselves a matched dozen, and then packaging them up again and selling their culls on Ebay.

They' re new arrows, but someone else' s leftovers.

And doesn' t that speak directly to the quality of most carbon arrows? Having to buy several dozen just to piece together a dozen that will match up. If I was a FITA shooter and had a sponsor that would buy X10' s for me, maybe -just maybe- I could get decent carbon arrows.

Hey Jim! You want to know why Trads are hung up on Traditions? BECAUSE WE' RE TRADS!:D:D:D

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Jim, weighting arrows might be in the minds of traditional archers, but it' s probaby because a lot of traditional archers are hunters. The design flaw of carbons is that they' re too light for hunting. They don' t have enough weight to go through anything thick, such as bone, out of a traditional bow. As the physical laws of inertia state, an object with less mass has less inertia. The less inertia an object has, the easier it is to get it out of motion. That' s one quality I don' t want my arrows to have. I want my arrows to be able to take care of business on game and put the stomp on anything that might get in the way. Target archers don' t have to worry about penetrating a foam (or whatever else it' s made of) target. I agree that a strong selling point for carbons are their ability to recover quickly, but when it comes to hunting arrows, light weight isn' t something I want to hear. 700grs might be a little extreme, but I' d be afraid to shoot an arrow they weighed less than 500gr. 15gr per pound isn' t unneccessary for hunting. Granted it' s on the higher end of the spectrum, but it' d sure help when cutting through an animal. So if that defeats the design intention of carbon technology, then maybe it' s the carbon technology that' s flawed. But I' m just a traditionalist, so who knows. ;)

Brandan

RE: Carbon arrows?
 

Brandon,
I' m leaving for Colorado on next week. I' ll let you know how the carbons work, I hope! Dick