So i have made several new arrows and decided to take a stab at a bit of an experiment. I made a 5/16" poplar arrow at 29". The experiment lies in the placement of the feathers. I gave them a VERY helical look to see how it would fly. The answer is: Pretty damn straight, and really fast. I fire these out of my 55 @ 28" recurve (i draw 27" on it so it's more like 52.5 lbs) and by my math they are hitting between 160 - 180fps I believe. They go exactly where I want them to and the field points on them will punch through a jug of kitty litter filled with water without even moving the jug. So there is obviously not a whole lot of kinetic force being transferred but the penetration and speed are killer.
The stain on the shaft is a spray on combination wood stain and sealant. You'll notice the yellow thread on the shaft up through the fletching. I don't currently have a fletching jig so I glue the tips of the feathers down where I want them then wrap them all the way up and then glue the strings and the sides of the fletching down and cover both string wraps in glue as well to keep them from unraveling. This also gives the string a cool almost sinew look.
The field points are slip on 5/16" points, same as the nocks. Field points are held on with a melt glue, nocks are glued on with fletching glue as a lighter will melt the nock and the glue should I ever need to replace it. The feathers are 4" shield cut.
The only downside to this arrow I made is it is sort of loud. Given the speed of it and that it is shield cut and in a helical fashion there's a very audible whistley "whoosh" like a suppressed hand gun in a james bond flick lol.
