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Flight arrows

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adb:
Could some of you top flight shooters post some pics of your flight arrows? Steve? With brief explanations of what you're doing and why?

Badger:
  As for flight arrows I would have to say the Allan case would be a good example to follow. Arrows have been my weakest link. It is so important to have them come out of the bow straight that if they don't everything else is meaningless. You are dealing with three seperate aspects. The weight of the arrow affects how fast it leaves the bow, the lighter the arrow the faster it leaves. The spine of the arrow and how it is shot affect how well it comes out of the bow and how fast it straightens out, I didn't even mention the fletching here because if the fletching played much a part in straitening out the arrow it had allready robbed a lot of speed. Now you have the actual flight of the arrow, too much drag in relation to mass will kill the arrow also.

     Small diameters, slight tapers from point to rear knock or slight barrel tapering with a bullet nose tip seem to fly the best. The smaller diameter and thinnest fletching material you can find. The stiffness depends a lot on the bow, center shot stiffer arrows I have had better luck with most of the time. My experience sugests that at least a slight amount of weight in front of center is best but there are exceptions to this also.

Del the cat:
From my very limited experience I've found it's very hard to tell whats going on and whats best. ::)
Shooting from heavyish ELBs I found spine could be a LOT lower than you'd expect (else it needed bigger fletchings to straighten it out which then gave drag).
Fletchings as small as you could get way with. I think a nice slim faired in nock is easily overlooked. Last time I shot for distance (70# self Yew elb, the lightest and weakest spine didn't go furthest bad flight/loose but the best was about 40# spine 5/16 shaft tapered front and rear with a tiny nock cut into a horn insert.
It was good fun, I'd love to do more flight shooting, but I can only really test arrows at 10 yards, which can show how quick they straighten up.
Del

adb:
What is the "Allan Case?"

I've always been interested in flight shooting, but so far only with warbows, where the arrows are all standardised. The various types of arrows all have to meet strict guidelines, and it's the bow that makes the difference, with no upper limits on draw weight. Generally, to set records with warbows, it's a case of more horsepower wins. Not always, but certainly in the upper elite levels, with guys like Joe Gibbs shooting 180# setting the records.

In traditional flight shooting, where the bow is classed and the arrows are not (I'm just guessing here), there seems to be limited info on making flight arrows. Is this a closely guarded secret? Are flight arrows always wood, or do modern materials like CF play a role? Again, do you guys have pics, or can you direct me somewhere that does? Thanks!

Badger:
 adam, primitive flight arrows are all wood and natural materials. The weight of the arrow will depend somewhat on the weight of the bow. Heavier bows have a slight advantage in that they can get away with heavier arrows which are far easier to design properly. Bows around 50# are usually shooting arrows around 200 grains plus or minus. There is no secret formula because it needs to be matched to the bow but generally speaking the nock end should be narrower than the point end, points are best rounded than long skinny points. Selecting the proper spine for a bow and getting good at doing this requires more practice shooting than I have been able to dedicate. You really need almost perfect flight right out of the bow. I find I get better distances from very average speed bows simply because I find them easier to tune. I plan to spend more time this year experimenting with arrows and will report whatever finding I feel are meaningful. A lot of my testing has left me more puzzled than I was when I started because sometimes I see no rime or reason to the results. I have been working on refining my testing parameters and hopefully it will yield something of usefulness in the future. I had pretty good flight from my arrows this year but had poor takeoffs. I feel like I am narrowing it down.

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