Light arrows are fun and scary at the same time. I was shooting about a 6.7 gpp setup on a 70" ILF rig with Carbon/Wood Limbs around 42#.

It feels like driving a fast motorcycle. If you do your part, they shoot fast and fairly flat. If you make a form error, it gets MAGNIFIED. This is why you will see some people say that they get better 'consistency' with heavier GPP.

If you make a yardage estimation error, it is minimized due to flatter trajectory.

Anyway..the difference between 7 and 8 gpp is not subtle.

I guess I don't think about it a whole lot.

The arrows that I shoot out of my short plains style bows typically run in the 7 to 8grs. per pound range.

I don't worry about gpp. I shoot the arrows that fly best for me. Gpp means between little and nothing to me as long as the arrow has enough weight to not make my bow noisier and isn't overly heavy enough to slow my bow down too much. For me that's between 450 and 640gns out of 60lbs. If it weren't for the durability factor I'd never shoot even that heavy.

Before I went to Easton A/C/Es I shot Carbon Tech Cheetah 650s. - 5.3 gpi

I shot them at 27" so that's a 143 grain shaft. They shot like darts. I put a 4" parabolic feather on them and a 75 gr. point.

For target shooting I highly recommend speed.

Always said speed magnifies problems in release or form. I love lite arrows, and the Speed Pro Kings from HCA are 5.3 gpi. My VAP's weigh in at 390 grains out of my 50# Tribe Halo, and penetrate like you wouldn't believe...

I like darts as much as anybody.

Interestingly....just like shooting light draw weights, I find that I have more subtle control over heavier arrows after shooting light. Just from cleaning up slop in my form

@Jimmy B - what GPP does that lightweight arrow work out to?

I LOVE watching a flyweight arrow leave a smoketrail as it goes down-range, but I'm really fond of my bows and wouldn't care to hurt them...

GF,

Following the math, he was probably shooting little below 45#

He was probably 36-39#

"Following the math", I can only come up with an arrow around 250; got grains, need pounds.

GLASSES... "he said 5.3 gpi" and I saw "GPP" :)

A lot of guys shooting ILF rigs or Olympic rigs shoot low gpp. 6-7 is not uncommon at all. I shoot around 8gpp and that is for hunting. Shawn

Shawn, a well known bowyer knows I shoot lite arrows from his bows, and he still sends me a new one every year. If a bow can't take an arrow in the 7gpi range, I wouldn't trust it at all...

As far as GPP goes, I think the bowyers opinion should be asked. Bows I've owned, the maker usually suggested 9 or more. I'm speaking only of hunting bows.

Funny how people gravitate to how light can I shoot without blowing up my bow or how light can I kill a deer with :)

The TECHNIQUE of shooting light arrows is what I am talking about. In the past I have thought my bow or arrows were "twitchy'. Now I know that I WAS TWITCHY.

Some bowyers I've used say no limit, a few say 8gpp. Like Buglmin" My VAP's weigh in at 390 grains out of my 50# Tribe Halo, and penetrate like you wouldn't believe" I've found that light arrows penetrate better on games soft tissue than the 640gn arrows I use most. Both 2213's and 2219's pass thru but the 2213's used to blow thru so fast they'd hit the ground and skip almost as far as the deer went. I just use 2219's for durability since I shoot heavier weight.

JSD no more funny than the "whats the lightest bow I can get by with" threads,lol.

Light arrows have been shot for 1,00o's of years. For applications that relate to hunting, war, as well as recreation. It IS NOT anything new.

Just speaking of native American arrows, the average grains perpoind rately goes above 8gpp. Simply because of the materials that were used to make the shafts, the overall arrow length.

When you are using, chokecherry, phragmites, rivercane, wildrose, and so on, and you aren't making heavy arrows. Period. AND, they fed and defended their families and each other pretty well over all that time.

Heavy arrows were actually ALMOST strictly relegated to war arrows such as used by the French, English, and Welsh. Cherokee, and so on. And they were selected so as to penetrate defensive armor. Any indepth study of archery history will reveal that to be the case.

So, whatt is that we are discovering I guess is my question? That we as archers today arent as skilled, disciplined. or have our form ingrained to the point that we can shoot light arrows effectively?

In bowhunting, we have what we call a hit/miss window. Simply put, it's how far off you can be on your yardage and still kill an animal. If you have an animal you think is 15 yards, but it's actually 19 yards, shooting a slow arrow, you'll either completely miss it, or shoot low and wound it.

Too many times I've had guys tell me they missed a bull elk cause they thought he was closer then what they believed, and shot under him. I've heard whitetail hunters tell me they thought the buck was farther away and shot over him. Things from a treestand really look small...

Don't preach momentum to me. The difference gained in a 600 grain arrow and a 480 grain arrow at 20 yards is very slight, but the arrow speed lost is more then you think at 20 yards. Put your bow in a shooting machine, set it so it's hitting at 20 yards with a 480 grain arrow, then shoot a 600 grain arrow. Take out the human factor, and you'll see the difference. Yessir, I've spent way too many hours being bored at archery shops...

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