Bare shafting flight arrows

[DC]

Can you bareshaft a flight arrow? I'm wondering about the lack of weight forward. I've read of some using bone tips and such. Wouldn't the arrow just go all over.

[Selfbowman]

D.C. I have not had success bareshafting flight arrows. But I am a cub at this flight stuff. I usually just keep trimming the fletchings till they start getting unstable. It won't take much fletch though. Arvin

[Del the cat]

If you like smashing hours of work it's fine 
IMO, they are so twitchy and even more so without flights, it's virtually impossible as they will likely be flexing hard when they hit the target and may well snap.
I gave up trying it after smashing a couple. Even fletched is very risky at short range.
As far as I can tell the only way you'll see what's happening is with high speed photography or empirical range testing.
If you look at this (rather extreme) example. If you shot this into a target at 10 yards and prob even 20 yards it would prob' snap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOcrM7FMQSI
Del

[DC]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

[Badger]

  I pretty much figure if I can see them going away my spine was too weak or too strong. The ones I can't see are always the best shots. As a general rule anything going over about 350 yards you won't be able to see.

[DC]

350 is a long way down the road for me. I've only tried once and the best I got was just under 200 depending on the measuring method. That was with about 10 GPP and a 38# bow.

[willie]

Badger, speaking about the ones you cant see, maybe you are willing to speculate a bit. I assume a poorly spined or poorly released arrow looses speed rather quickly if it doesn't straighten up right away. How far out in front of the bow would one need to have the chrono, if one was to try to "see" a poor shot?

[Del the cat]

350 is a long way down the road for me. I've only tried once and the best I got was just under 200 depending on the measuring method. That was with about 10 GPP and a 38# bow.

Waaay too heavy IMO.
That arrow in the slo-mo was only 483gn and that's from a 130# warbow
Del

[Badger]

350 is a long way down the road for me. I've only tried once and the best I got was just under 200 depending on the measuring method. That was with about 10 GPP and a 38# bow.

Waaay too heavy IMO.
That arrow in the slo-mo was only 483gn and that's from a 130# warbow
Del

  I never put a flight arrow more than about 4 ft from a chrono because they can be so erratic, I do sacrifice some that I don't care for by shooting at cardboard from about 7 or 8  yards. Some of them hit beautifully and some hit and break sideways and some that hit perfect the first time will hit sideways the second time. Release is very important.

[DC]

350 is a long way down the road for me. I've only tried once and the best I got was just under 200 depending on the measuring method. That was with about 10 GPP and a 38# bow.

Waaay too heavy IMO.
That arrow in the slo-mo was only 483gn and that's from a 130# warbow
Del

That's what I'm struggling with now. I can't seem to get much below 300 no matter what. Best so far is Hemlock. Bamboo is all over the map. If you get lucky you can find a light stiff piece but mostly it's too heavy. Ocean Spray seems to heavy, even if I use first year stuff(thin wall). I thought I could rifle drill a piece of OS because of the pith so I welded a drill bit on a 36" 1/8" rod but it came though the side halfway down. Keeps me busy while I'm waiting for a stave to shed those last few grams.

[Selfbowman]

Barrel them. I am getting 60-65 spine 450grain finish arrow length 29" in the 380s. They now spine around 50-55. This is Douglas furr. Getting 40-50 gfains off each end. Sitka Spruce you should get even lower.  Arvin

[DC]

I'm trying to get below 300 grains finished. Barrelling definitely helps but not enough. 

[Badger]

  What weight bow will you be shooting, 200 grains is pretty easy to reach with most stiff arrow woods like Doug fir and POC for a 50# bow. 100# bow maybe 270 or so.

[willie]

I can't seem to get much below 300 no matter what.

Don, what is preventing you from reducing them even further?
are you judging from a spine measurement or shooting them unsuccesfully?

[DC]

It's only 38#. It normally wants about a 50# spine with about a 50 grain point. I took the point off a 30# 28" bamboo one and replaced it with a piece of Ocean Spray. That gave me a 298 arrow. Just shooting at my target I can see the arrow bending back and forth like mad. I was reading Perry's chapter on flight bows last night and one of the things he was talking about was testing for max dry fire where he tried various arrows through the chrono to arrive at the lightest reasonable arrow. I could never get any results from my chrono with this arrow dancing around like it does. I'm missing something here. Unfortunately we will only rarely get the field so lots of testing is not an option.