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Heavy Arrows & High FOC Vs. Lightweight Fast Arrows

Weldabeast said:
In this instance the deer was standing broadside and relaxed...22yd shot. It dropped.and turned away from me ..it was still in the process of rotating when the arrow got there...broadhead entered behind them last rib and traveled down the length of the body hitting the inside of the shoulder and redirected out the neck....1 more split second I would have totally missed. The deer ran 15ft and fell over deadView attachment 40812
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That's a big deer bro. Is this a photo of first 10 pointer you killed this season or number three?
 
It was a little Florida doe....... First overhead pic I could find... Little southern deer or big northern 1 25+ inches of penetration including a hard bone hit and still was a pass thru is pretty impressive
 
kyler1945 said:
This chart is based on the premise deer are reacting to the sound of a bow being shot. It also focuses on how much a deer can move, without taking into consideration all the variables that dictate whether a deer will move. And finally it’s assuming the movement is up and down, not taking into consideration movement left and right - which would generate bad outcomes for light arrows and better outcomes for heavy arrows.

I may be in the minority, but I’m convinced that deer are reacting to a combination of sound of bow being shot, coupled with sound and sight of arrow traveling towards them. If this is true, the difference is going to be much smaller between fast and slow arrows.

I haven’t considered how to build numbers around it. But I’ve seen this chart a couple of times and it has me thinking about it again.

it is a useful tool for considering how much animals can move in the blink of an eye. Just the amount a deer can move between when you get pin on target and then actually release is crazy.
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I can toggle the chart to a visual response, i.e. a deer looking at you while you shoot, that removes the wait time of the sound getting to the deer and the numbers get really scary.
 
FletchDeep said:
I can toggle the chart to a visual response, i.e. a deer looking at you while you shoot, that removes the wait time of the sound getting to the deer and the numbers get really scary.
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Im not disagreeing that I’d prefer an arrow traveling 320fps if I were shooting at an alert deer at 30 yards over an arrow traveling 250fps.

I am just not comfortable with all of the tradeoffs that come with getting the arrow moving that fast. And that’s in a vacuum, it doesn’t take all other variables in a dynamic situation into consideration.

it’s not that it doesn’t matter. It’s that if you could design the experiment with a big enough data set, I’m willing to bet the farm that it will matter much less than is being implied. I’m willing to bet a nice bottle of whiskey the difference in a fast arrow and a slow arrow(320/250) will correlate to recovered deer to a much smaller degree than mass of arrow, and two holes.
 
Weldabeast said:
In this instance the deer was standing broadside and relaxed...22yd shot. It dropped.and turned away from me ..it was still in the process of rotating when the arrow got there...broadhead entered behind them last rib and traveled down the length of the body hitting the inside of the shoulder and redirected out the neck....1 more split second I would have totally missed. The deer ran 15ft and fell over deadView attachment 40812
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That's not your deer. We can see the face and doesn't have a smiley face on it. :)
 
There are pros and cons to each end of the spectrum and either can shine in different situations.

This study shows some real world results that are interesting.
 

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FletchDeep said:
Just food for thought for those that like to shoot at the slower speeds. Could be your slow plan B arrows are in fact causing the poor shot placement.View attachment 40805
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I mean seriously. OK so they drop 5 inches well if your aiming for the top of the heart you are double lunging them with 220 FPS. 5 inches of drop is not that much and most heavy arrow people are still shooting 240 plus which brings it down to 3 to 4 inches. This is a perfect world scenario drop which doesn't happen. Deer are not reacting to the bow goring off they are reacting to seeing and hearing the arrow. Otherwise with there ability to hear so well they would be bugging out and running none stop. Shoot the heaviest arrow your can above 260 FPS and you have the best of both world. I like to keep mine in the 17 plus for FOC also. Most bows will still be shooting a 500 plus grain arrow and more like 550 plus and couple that with a fixed cut on contact and your ripping through any deer and blowing through pretty much every shoulder.

I shot a 550 grain arrow this year at a doe with a mechanical and it ripped through her and stuck in a oak tree 5 yards be hind her. It was buried over 2 inches deep. The entire broadhead was in the tree and I had to break the shaft off behind the insert.
 
First admission I did not read this entire thread. This is all my own experience so take it for what it's worth. About 5-6 years ago in Kansas I didn't get a pass through shot on a quartering away deer with a fixed blade broadhead (Montec). No bones other than rib bones were impacted. I do not know what my total arrow weight was at the time but I think I was somewhere around 10% FOC. Since that time I've gradually been adding weight to the front to gain FOC and overall arrow weight long before I heard about RF. Last year I was shooting 465 grain arrow total weight at about 14% FOC. This year I've pushed that up to about 495 grain 16% FOC. For the last 3 years I've shot through every deer I've shot in Kansas or anywhere else. Before Kansas I was easily passing through the much smaller bodied Arkansas whitetails I harvested. I personally do not intend to go above this weight for hunting whitetails. I think I have a good balance of speed and penetration. If I were going for larger game I probably would add more weight.
 
Weldabeast said:
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@Weldabeast Thanks so much for posting this video. That has got to be the best,most informative video I have seen in a very long time and it has confirmed what I have suspected and preached for years. Aim for the top of the heart to give yourself the greatest margin of error. You can't however always be guaranteed a shot at a deer that is not alert for one reason or another. Sometimes you just have to take the first good shot that is available or lose your chance for a shot all together.
 
Great thread, learned a ton. I might bump up my mechanical from 100 to 125 g, and check my velocity, make sure I'm well north of 270 fps. I'm not taking long shots or quartering to, but often need to stop the deer due to limited shooting lanes. (Making them more alert). @Bowonly, thanks for posting that study. Would love to see it repeated with the more reliable mechanicals, wonder if it would favor them even more. I think for any species other than whitetail, and anything but a surburban setup, Higher FOC with a nasty heavy broad head seems a good move...but For my situation, I'll probably stay put with a fast rage or grim reaper that flies like a field point.
 
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