setting up new bow help choose arrow

[Whitetail assain]

What is the weight of your arrow you deer hunt with.
I have usually ran arrows around 370 to 419 grains.
I plan on shooting 75 pounds and a 2 inch reaper do you think 385gr would do find or should I go heavier.

[yfn667]

I shoot a 360 grain arrow at 63lbs but shoot fixed. I would say at that draw weight and that arrow weight. You should have no problems with a 2".

[mudslinger]

I shoot a 560 grain arrow at 70#'s. I am now a big advocate of a heavy FOC and heavy arrow. I would go heavier.

[UrbanDeerSlayer]

Originally Posted by mudslinger

I shoot a 560 grain arrow at 70#'s. I am now a big advocate of a heavy FOC and heavy arrow. I would go heavier.

Mudslinger, are you calculating grain weight at 560 with or without broadhead? Just curious.

[lungbuster123]

This past year I shot 66lbs with a 385 grain arrow and a 2.25" Swhacker....blew through three deer and a pig with no problems!

[Leo]

You're pulling a 75 lb bow.

For that I personally would prefer an arrow of at least 450 grains total weight with broadhead. IBO is 5 grains per lb of draw weight. I find that 6 grains per lb is a better rule of thumb for minimum weight hunting arrows.

Get your FOC over 10% by using a heavy enough head. I find carbon arrows really like the higher FOC as long as they are spined correctly for your draw weight. Keep in mind higher FOC reduces spine.

The higher FOC and heavier arrow will make tuning much easier and they will perform better on game.

[Whitetail assain]

I have been considering the .300 velocity putting a 50 grain weight in the front so can still shoot my 100 grain heads.If I add a lighted nock thats 22 grains to the rear. Thats 385 for arrow and head then another 72 grains for nock and weight.

[mudslinger]

Urban, my total arrow weight with the point is 560 grains. I have 150 grains of insert weights to help get the FOC and total arrow weight up.

[Whitetail assain]

Originally Posted by mudslinger

Urban, my total arrow weight with the point is 560 grains. I have 150 grains of insert weights to help get the FOC and total arrow weight up.

Why so heavy there is a fine line where the weight doesn't add more KE some where after 470 ish

[mudslinger]

The reason I went this heavy was for more FOC. I also realized that at this weight of arrow was that the forgiveness and accuracy at long ranges was better, the noise level of my bow went way down and I increased everything I wanted with this set up. FOC from 8% to 18.9%, KE from 88 to 89.89 and my momentum (ability of the arrow to penetrate) shot up drastically. Also, you would think that with a 44 fps drop in speed that the pin gaps would really spread out. Not true on my set up as my pins gaps widened, but not by much. The heavier arrow holds its trajectory better. I tried 5 different weight arrows between my original 410 grains the the 560 grains I settled on and I was more satisfied with the heaviest in all aspects. Every arrow was weighed on a digital scale and every arrow was shot thru a chrono for a 3 shot average then the whole KE, momentum thing was calculated. It is working for me and I think a lot of poeple would be suprised at what they would come up with if they did the same thing with their arrows. the biggest problems is getting a higher FOC without altering the spine of the arrow too much.

[Leo]

Originally Posted by Whitetail assain

Why so heavy there is a fine line where the weight doesn't add more KE some where after 470 ish

Depends a lot on the bow. Some bows will get an increase in K.E. with arrows weighing more than 500grns.

Different bows have different efficiencies with different weight arrows. You can also loose quite a bit of speed if the arrow is under spined.

For the most part I don't like to give up any K.E. but there are set ups where the heavier arrow is a better shooter and performer. In these cases the loss in K.E. is pretty small and the gain in momentum is a significant plus.

[mudslinger]

Here are my finding from my tinkering with FOC and arrow weights. Yes I may have been better off with the 2 arrows before the 560 grains, but with shooting all these setups, the 560 grains made the difference in quietness, forgiveness and accuracy.


Bow: HCA 09 Speed Pro 29" draw 70#


410 gr @ 312 88# KE .57 momentum 7.95% foc

460 gr @ 298 90.62# KE .61 momentum 12.52% foc

480 gr @ 291 90.17# KE .62 momentum 14.03% foc

510 gr @ 284 91.25# KE .64 momentum 16.05% foc

560 gr @ 269 89.89# KE .67 momentum 18.9% foc