Got some hickory shafts to play with from Pine Hollow Longbows out of Van Buren, Arkansas, my home state. Great folks to deal with and very high quality shafts. My spine of preference is 70-75lbs for my mid 50# bows. Each shaft came marked with it's weight in grains and tested spine value. Very nice attention to detail.

My goal was to build some heavyweights for the purpose of turkey, hog and possibly elk hunting. Right now I am making and shooting doug fir and chundoo arrows that come in at about 700gr with a 300gr head and about 22- 25% FOC. No complaints with any of that, they shoot fast and true, but I just wanted to push the limits and see.

I tail tapered the last 11" of these hickory, something I always do, and cut these 6 to 28", my usual baseline. I stained them with ebony and cut some full lengths to a 5" Pope & Young shape, another standard of mine. With my go to Tuffhead 300gr brass field points they came out to a whopping 930gr!! Each arrow is about 630gr with no point at all. I mounted one with a 250gr VPA, my intended turkey head, and I mounted 160gr and 190gr field points on the last two for testing purposes.

Getting a little tail kick, especially out of the heavyweight 300gr brass tipped ones. More pronounced out of my very light to carry 52# and 56# Harvey recurves. My 54# and 52# hybrid longbows also had a lot of arrow drama. They would hit exactly where I aimed though if I did my part, and didn't get too far away. I did notice that they seemed to be very sensitive to release. The more time I took and the smoother I released the less drama and more accurate, which of course is true for any arrow, but these logs were less forgiving, which was counter to my assumption going in.

Busted out my old heavy to carry Widow MA 56# 62" curve this morning and they shot like darts out of it. I'm guess the extra mass of the Widow helps a bit.

For you number folks, those heavyweight 930gr logs come out to 16.6gpp on my heaviest draw bows. And around 16%FOC. They were going 14- 16" deep in my block target that my 700gr arrows typically go 6-8" deep in. Nasty arrows, be good for hogs, if I'm brave enough to get that close.

Just thought I'd share my experiment with y'all, and ask the question;

How much is too much?

Paul, although I've shot some heavy arrows, I've never pushed 900+ grains!!

I just had to comment on that bow! Damn that is pretty!

There are some of us who have shot arrows over 1,000grs out of mid 50's bows for years, and 700 - 800gr.arrows out of bows in the '40's.

I think it's something that everyone should try so they get a handle on bow efficiency beyond the norm.

Too much is when the arrow trajectory and effectiveness ceases to be practical in your intended use environment.

A fine and sensible answer fdp.

Yooper, that is my Harvey Archery Ferret 50"52# recurve. Those veneers are a red elm burl. And thank you. I think it is probably my prettiest bow.

I was a member here for a long time but quit shooting a couple years ago. Resumed shooting this past fall.

I shot homemade hickories at a total finished weight of 800- 850 grains for around fifteen years. They penetrated noticeably deeper in the 2X of my target frame, in comparison to the 2117s I shot prior to woodies. #55 bow. The difference in penetration between the 2117s and hickories illustrated that the '9-10 grains per pound yields best penetration' is not the case, in my experience. I could go on and on about that but not on this thread.

That said I now shoot homemade cedars. Fast, fly straight, stay straight in the storage bucket, and hit hard enough. I like the arrow speed nowadays. Hickories are tough arrows but I simply like the flight of cedars more. I don't need bada$$ tough whomper stomper arrows anymore.

Man Paul that bow is nice. I’ll bet those arrows make only a slight thump sound. And then a loud thump when they hit.

I hear ya Bob, I too left the Wall for 6 or 7 years. Just came back to it this past year. Really missed First Shot and all the discussion, when it's relevant and instructive.

I certainly don't NEED these heavy logs. It was more as Frank stated, a tool for learning. My hand tapered 650-700gr fir and chundoo arrows are about perfect with 250-300gr up front and around 11-12% FOC. They fly like darts out of all of my 50-60# bows, and that's what I build arrows to do; to fly well across my range of bows in the same weight zone. These logs are only flying well, in 930gr form, out of my Widow, and I can't have that restricted of an arrow. I've been playing with tip weight this morning and have found with 190gr up front, about a 820gr arrow, these hickories are flying well out of all my heavy bows. Which leads me to another experiment/ comparison; heavy over all arrow vs. higher FOC of my 700gr arrows. This sorta stuff is fun for me.

And yes Jay, the 930s hit with authority. But I'm lucky to hit anything at all with em past 15 yards.

“ Too much is when the arrow trajectory and effectiveness ceases to be practical in your intended use environment.”

“ But I'm lucky to hit anything at all with em past 15 yards.”

Well, there you go. If you only shoot comfortably inside of 15 yards, you’re all set. For me, those are nearly twice the GPP that I would consider in a hunting arrow.

People like to talk about “flying like darts“, but that is an entirely different conversation. What determines how well they fly is how well they are tuned, and you can tune and arrow perfectly well anywhere from flight shooting spec to “watch out for your toes when you let that go”.

And personally, I would not get too wrapped up in the penetration that you get out of a fairly dense target medium. On a deer, you’ve got 3, maybe 4 inches of fairly solid meat to get through IF you hit them through the heaviest part of the shoulder, and then (assuming you have missed the scapula) all you need to get through is one rib; after that you don’t need much momentum to reach the far side of the rib cage, and anything poking out beyond that is just going to make your blood-trailing a bit easier and perhaps - if you exit through a less meaty portion of the rib cage - you will get a bit quicker collapse of the lungs as well. But the limiting factor on your penetration through all that stuff in between the ribs is sharpness, not tissue density. Most of the lung tissue is composed of exceedingly thin tissues so that oxygen and carbon dioxide can move across membranes easily, so practically speaking you can almost think of them as being half air. Some folks referred to lung tissue as “lights“, and they are not uncommon Lee used as fish food; I guess they grind them up and sprinkle them on the water where all those bits of tissue float downstream to feed those hungry fish. so maybe not mostly air, but enough so to be positive buoyant.

But again, target media are dense and dry, whereas an arrow shaft passing through an animal is going to be naturally lubricated by the fluids released after the passage of a sharp broadhead.

I am NOT AT ALL suggesting that heavier arrows don’t work or that they are a bad idea, but for my purposes, they just don’t shoot as flat as I would like.

I push up to 1050 grains, but with 98#. I tested up to 1600 grains with the same set up and found no gain in penetration past 1100 grains and a big reduction in speed and a trajectory that I compare to chucking bricks to a pond. I like to be in the 175 to 200 fps and no less than 9 gpp. You could use that for chipmunks if you wish, but I think you went way past the point of diminishing returns. One thing is certain though, whatever you hit , it will go deep.

When you go with a much heavier arrow and point, you need to increase your spine even more. The physics principle is, "An object at rest tends to stay at rest." Thus, when force is exerted on the rear of the arrow, the heaver it is, the more it resists moving forward. And, the more it bends before it begins that forward movement. A higher spine will get it moving more quickly.

I don't shoot hardwoods much anymore, but when I did, I always spined them at least 5# and usually 10# higher than my softwood shafts like POC.

And I guess I should amend that to say that they don’t shoot quite as flat as I would like, and they do not appear to be necessary to ensure more than adequate penetration on big game.

YMMV, But I would blame tuning before accusing the GPP number.

Orion, sound advice and I actually use the same formula. I should have asked the folks at Pine Hollow before I ordered these shafts for I did not realize just how much heavier they were or I would have ordered some 75-80 spined ones. Kinda doubting I'll mess with that going forward because as stated above; this was all an experiment to test some limits and learn a few things via actual experience. I have already found my perfect combo in wood arrow construction and will be sticking with that. But I think I can make these work too. In fact, with the 190gr tips I just put on em they are "flying like darts" as well and grouping right with my 650-700gr firs and chundoos. I really don't need or have a use for anything heavier. Just messing around for science.

And GF, all of your points are well taken. I sure wish I had deer around here to hunt. We got muley but I never seem to draw that tag. The game I hunt is elk. And in very high and steep terrain, so I'm always looking for a bit of an advantage to getting one down quick so I don't hafta do too much spelunking or mountain climbing to retrieve the poor beast. My 700gr, 300gr single bevel tipped arrows are about perfect for my mid-50# chuckers. Have seen them get through a rib cage and break an offside shoulder before.

I've always shot short distance, and that will never change. I like the flatter trajectory of cedars now, even at short range. I did initially make some shots with a few of my old hickories, but naw,,, I'll pass. Like lobbing logs in comparison. I really don't know why I liked them so much other than they were tough as hell and never broke. But geez my bow is only #55. So big deal. If I shot a heavy bow maybe I would still shoot them. And then again maybe not. Hey that book is finished. New book started.

Roughly related to these types of discussions is the topic of POA shooting. In other words having a bow/arrow combination that will allow you to put the tip of the arrow at essentially center of mass and make an effective kill shot over range of distances. And arrow weight is an effective way to do that.

This is a concept that is for the most part never discussed or practiced by the majority of archers. And I've never really understood that. Particularly with all of the different methods that are used to decrease point on such as stringwalking, fixed crawl etc. And even more so since so many folks always make it a point to talk about bow hunting being a "short range" endeavor and not shooting over 20 or so yards.

I think smaller diameter shafts at 9 or 10 gpp will penetrate as well as a much heavier shaft of wood that's wider diameter. That's an advantage to the modern carbons and the smaller diameter aluminum shafts. Those aluminum are also as slippery as snot on a door knob so they easily follow the arrow tip through any live medium. For deer, in my opinion, all that is a moot point since they are not hard to penetrate.

Based on my experience I have no doubt my blunt tipped hickories hit harder than my blunt cedars. But I could care less about that now. Back in the heyday of wood arrows here in US it was POC, and NOW I understand why.

Yeah, Bob, I had a stash of nearly 50 dozen old growth POC that took me about 30 years to finally get through. I've bought some of the newer POC, from Wapiti and Rose City. I've liked it but have had better durability out of the Surewood fir. I recently happened upon a few dozen chundoo of unknown origin that I like as well. And I totally agree. I prefer my faster and a bit lighter fir and chundoo over these logs. But it was a fun experiment.

Just how deep into the ground do you want them to go after they exit the critter?

I made a few hundred doug fir arrows over the years, from the straightest 8/4 boards I could find. Still have about three dozen sitting in a 5er ready to shoot. Nice heavier, tough, straight grained arrow. I like these cedars better. For whatever reason they just shoot straight as all get out.straight.

I made these shafts about three years ago, but never made them into arrows, since I had dozens of hickory and doug fir ready to shoot. But I totally lost interest in archery, so the shafts just sat in a bucket. I retired in 2020 and just for something to do decided to make them up. Man am I glad I did.

I have broke quite a few stumping, where hickory NEVER broke. But big deal. Cedar just shoots good for me. No matter how straight hickory is, it takes second place for me when it comes to arrow flight. Something about cedar just seems to want to fly straight.

They should work fine for armored cars and maybe even tanks. I'll bet there is a little arch in the flight.

I love cedar and have been shooting them for 52 years. But for elk and bear I used either maple or ash. I prefer an arrow in the 9ggp to 10gpp. On the left is one of the maple arrows I made, and on the right one of my cedars. I have made hickory arrows in the past for a wild boar hunt down south, they are tough.

“ The game I hunt is elk. And in very high and steep terrain, so I'm always looking for a bit of an advantage to getting one down quick so I don't hafta do too much spelunking or mountain climbing to retrieve the poor beast. ”

Elk is where my bow hunting career really began; I had hunted whitetails before out of trees, but always with firearms and basically never outside of Stickbow range anyhow. But you get out west, and it’s a whole different deal.

FWIW, I just don’t believe that an 850 grain arrow is going to kill an elk any quicker or deader than a 500 or 550, shot placement being equal.

And the thing is, shot placement is pretty unlikely to be equal if you are pushing the upper limit of your effective range due to a looping trajectory. When she get to the point where your arrow is dropping an inch for every yard that it travels, you can run into some pretty big issues…

To get an arrow to drop an inch for every yard of travel it would likely have to weigh close to 2,000grs when shot from 55 or so pound bow.

GF, there is no logical basis for the assumption that accuracy would in some way be more difficult to achieve when shooting an arrow that is on the downward side of it's trajectory at a particular range than one that is on the upward side of it's trajectory at a particular range.

I get heavy arrows aren't popular and aren't necessary for most purposes from the standpoint of lethality, but they also aren't as ineffective or difficult to deal with as many times made out to be.

It doesn't take any more effort or skill to hold over a target than it does under one.

Oh I completely agree with you GF. No way I'll be using these logs for elk, or anything at all most likely. As I have said repeatedly, this was an exercise in testing an extreme. There is no way these things will ever inspire the confidence that I have in my already perfected(for me) set up, that I have also shared repeatedly in this thread. This was a just because I could let's see what happens sort of experiment. I have learned what I needed to learn from it and thought it be interesting discussion to share my experience. Shot placement is everything. Totally. When I first got here from the land of whitetails I hunted elk with 125gr Zwickey Eskimos on 350gr POC arrows out of 62# limbs. Because it is what I knew and they flew quite well, and as long as they got the spot they did a fine job of it. I'm always piddling, experimenting, and learning.

In other words. This much is too much. At least for me.

“ there is no logical basis for the assumption that accuracy would in some way be more difficult to achieve when shooting an arrow that is on the downward side of it's trajectory at a particular range than one that is on the upward side of it's trajectory at a particular range.”

I’m not 100% sure that I follow you, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what I was saying… ;)

So let’s back up to what you were saying earlier about POA shooting. I think that’s what most people do anyway, whether they realize it or not!

Personally, I do have some difficulty with my vertical hold a lot of times at ranges which you would think would be absolute Gimmies.

Allow me to illustrate…

I shot the first of these three point on, holding right on the X of one of the smaller targets at about 2 or maybe 3 yards. I was close enough that I could touch the nock with the tip of my 62” bow without moving any closer to the butt. Then I took a step or two back and held 6 o’clock on the outer black ring of that bull’s-eye. Spot on again. I took a couple more steps back and held 6 o’clock on the outer edge of the large bull on the right. Bingo. By the time I get back to 10 or 12 yards, I have to hold the point of my arrow into the dirt so as not to shoot over the top of the backstop.

But the reason I don’t worry too much about shots on game where the arrow is still climbing very rapidly is that I don’t very often get that close. Not out west, anyway. ;)

So I definitely have a sweet spot in my trajectory where the arrow has stopped climbing rapidly, or has leveled off, or has begun dropping that down again, but not tooooo quickly. My buddies at the range who shoot three under have their own sweet spots, but theirs tend to be closer than mine because of their higher anchor points.

And the point that you made earlier is that the faster the arrow, the larger the bracket (in yards) in which you will be in that sweet spot where minimal adjustment is required in your elevation in order to hit target six or 8 inches high.

I don’t know exactly what the numbers are on my sweet spot, but I do know that a couple years ago, with a certified coach watching me shoot, I picked off five of groundstalker Mike’s knock-a-blocks in a row from the 30-yard mark. Lucky for me, I had no idea that the guy watching me had such strong credentials! LOL.

And yes, I did miss the sixth one… Hang my head in shame! The kind of weird thing for me, though, is that at a measured 40 yards, I am not yet at my point on, but I’m close enough to be thinking about it. So I end up lowering my bowhand a bit to get a better look at the target, and then I miss low. So 40 is definitely out of my sweet spot, and by 70 I have to hold about 20-some feet over....

Man that's a lot of thought into shooting. Hurt my brain visualizing it. If I thought about that much I'm not sure I'd ever get the shot off. I don't hold at all. Or use the point or even aim. I'm purely an instinctive shooter, pretty much a snap shooter. And I certainly ain't never been around a coach or even a formal range, or even a club. Heck, I've never even shot with anybody else. Guess I'm pretty much a loner hillbilly. I'm good to about 30-35 yards though, pretty consistent. Out past that it's mostly luck, unless I can get a sounder shot or three. Of course, critters don't often give you sounder shots. So I don't shoot at em past 30. But I certainly couldn't break it down and explain it like that. I just hit the thing. Like throwing a ball.

And those arrows I built are still too dang heavy. Was fun to mess with though. Throwing bricks at a pond was the best analogy for em that I read today.

And I mean no offense, so hope none is taken. I admire the ability to make more of a science of it. I have been shooting a recurve since I was a little kid, I'm 54 now. It's the only way I have ever hunted. I never been a gun hunter. I'm self taught and didn't start to think much about the science of it until just recently, mainly just to help me communicate and understand better what it is I've actually been doing all these years. And to learn, to get better. But I've always been able to hit what I'm looking at, in between off moments and distractions of course. As I've gotten older it's become interesting to try to understand it better. I had been afraid of thinking about too much for most of my life, was afraid I'd ruin my joo joo or something I guess. I sure appreciate all the opinions and discussion and food for thought.

Evil, GF’s posts will almost always hurt your head. Over analyzing at it’s finest.

Analyzing the snot out of information is what I do for a living.

Analyzing the snot out of archery is what I do for fun

Paul, my current arrows are 30.75” long aluminum and come in between 500-600 in different spines and tips. Bows from 45-58# longbow and recurves. I am in the heavy is better camp. I don’t say it’s best, or everyone should use them. I’m pretty confident that in a short period of time your computer would recalculate your hand hold for the new trajectory from your Black Widow. If you don’t want to use, or can’t get good flight. I’ll buy those logs from you. I’ll use them from my heavier bows.

Hard to fathom that anyone can't grasp the fact a faster arrow is easier to put on target. The telephone pole arrow is not going to be the easiest to shoot. That's not to say you can't make it work, especially with a heavy enough bow.

Appreciate that Jay. I went into this knowing pretty much already what was gonna happen, just wanted to feel it. I only bought a dozen and only made 6 from that. I still have 6 raw full length. I wanted to have a set of this extreme on hand, just to have and to learn and as fdp stated, to explore bow dynamics. I'm actually getting good flight and acceptable speed, still slower but acceptable, with 190gr heads on em. So I will most likely be putting some Hex heads on em and using em for rabbits, grouse and stumps. And the occasional water buffalo or warthog that wanders by maybe.

Juspasdin' I don't think anybody on this thread is having a hard time fathoming anything at all. And again, in the majority of use environments with the most suggested environment on this site being deer hunting under 20 or 25 yards there is no logical argument that supports the heavier arrow being any more difficult to shoot accurately than a light arrow.

You don't know if the telephone pole arrow is going to be the easiest to shoot or not unless you try it as an individual.

Go back and do a search on here about how many people make bad shots by shooting too high as opposed to shooting too low, and how many people want to decrease their point on as opposed to increasing it.

Most whitetail hunters shots are set up from 15-25 yds and they probably shoot higher than lower. Trajectory isn’t normally an issue. I hit and lost a mature whitetail this year with a 52# Bear static Grizzly. Hit the shoulder blade with a vintage Bear cedar and Razor head. A very light arrow. The deer lived and was killed by a car a month later. I switched to a heavier aluminum and Iron will BH. Next deer with the same bow shot at extreme angle entered in front of the rear leg and exited on the right shoulder and stuck in the grass. I’ll error on the heavy side every time. Now if shooting only field or 3D targets at longer range than trajectory is more of an issue. That’s the beauty of this archery thing is all the concepts, theory’s, bow, arrow & BW combos make it fun.

So put three of my silly hickories and three of my trusty chundoos in my much loved soap creek pocket quiver and stepped outside to do First Shot this morning for a semi-scientific blind eye comparison.

Shooting my Harvey Archery Mongoose hybrid long bow, the bow I shoot the best lately, I tried to not look at the arrow as I pulled it from my pocket and fired one then tried to just stack the rest from 20 yards. For the sake of numbers the bow is a 56" 52# hybrid longbow. The hickories are shod with 190gr field points and have a total weight averaging 820gr for about a 15.77gpp and somewhere around 15% FOC. The chundoos are shod with 300gr field points and have a total weight averaging 650gr for a bout a 12.5gpp and about 22% FOC.

I have been shooting the chundoos for months and have settled on this arrow set up as my favorite across a wide range of bows, for that reason alone I am more consistent with them and that consistency is of course why they are my preferred arrow set up at present. But I thought it might be interesting to see a group with both arrows and compare. The heavy hickories are definitely a little harder for me to shoot consistently, but that could probably be compensated for with time. I will still be trusting my chundoos for hunting big stuff though.

Now to qualify just how unscientific this test is I will admit to being what has been described as an instinctive snap/ swing shooter. I do not aim, I do not hold at anchor. I start with my bow low and look at what I want to hit with both eyes open and then draw and raise my bow to anchor and release in one hopefully smooth motion. But this of course adds quite a bit more randomness to any sort of testing when compared to the more methodical method of shooting described by GF or that I am sure more formally trained archers would use.

I.E. results will vary.

I build my arrows to be easy for me to shoot, how I shoot. If they take too much work and thought and extra consideration for me to shoot em, they don't go in my hunting quiver. I'll keep shooting these logs a while and see if they grow into that. But if I got a play on big ol elk tomorrow I'm taking my chundoos.

Next I sat down the Mongoose and picked up my Harvey Archery Goshawk recurve. 56" 56#. This is my other most consistent bow and the bow I consider my main elk hunting stick. I have not shot it in a while but have always shot it well so I thought it might be an interesting test as well. As you can see, about the same results; more consistent with my 650gr chundoo, but just as inconclusive because I'm used to the chundoo.

So...didn't prove anything except that I'm more comfortable and consistent shooting the arrows I like and shoot all the time. Duh.

I just held A quick unscientific comparison, all shot from 20 yds, 58# 60” Black Widow Crown Jewel various spined arrows. Varying from 30- 31.5” in length

Top arrow is 410 grains 2nd is 547 3rd and 4th impacted the same height 676 & 509 grains Bottom is 1000 grains even. The feather fletched 547 and 509 are current hunting arrows. The 547 hit higher than the 509. Usually they hit at the same spot. So I attribute that to the shooter.

All trajectory differences would quickly be adjusted for after a short period of time. The real surprise was how well a broad spine, length and vanes vs feather all impacted fairly accurately, the vanes however were kicking and would lose a lot of energy from poor flight.

Yup, Jay, I agree. It's more about the shooter and what they like and feel comfortable with. If ya decide ya like something, you'll make it work. Definitely fun and rewarding to mess around with the limits and step outside what is comfortable here and there to see how ya adapt and learn a bit about things.

I think the reason most settle into 400-500 grains isn’t risk or benefits, pros or cons. It’s convenience. To build a proper heavy arrow for most common bow weights is time consuming and expensive. And to reiterate. My current arrows are 509 to 547 so I fall into that category

Good test Jay and confirms my own findings.

I could use those arrows. I want to kill a FedEX truck that has been delivering damaged products to me lately.

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